Ava's Learning Spectacular: SU&SD Newsletter #61

Ava: Woof, it’s been a bit of a month for me, with a lot of changes happening behind the scenes, but also so much excitement. My first solo video, a love letter to Songbirds, a game I’ve seen undervalued for a really long time, went live, with some interviews with actual real life birds.

This is in no way the end of the journey, I looked at that video as it went live with a mix of sheer joy that it came out so well and an eagle eye for mistakes I’d made, and plans for rectifying them. Matt’s feedback lined up with my own, helpfully, so I’m definitely making  progress.

And that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about. Progress. If this newsletter is about behind the scenes perspectives from the team, I feel like I want to share some of the stuff hiding behind my scenes.

My training process got both disrupted and sped up by pandemic lockdowns. Living at the opposite end of the country to the rest of the team meant for a long time that training me up would involve a lot of fiendishly expensive and time consuming train journeys, and it was happening, but slowly. The big Pando came about and suddenly the whole team had to rely much heavier on remote working, which brought a lot of challenges, but also erased that comparative distance from the equation. I started with podcasts, then learnt to edit them, then transferred that knowledge to editing other people’s videos. Matt came up with a lot of clever ways of putting information into my brain, but I have to say  that the cleverest efficiency comes from the oddity of editing audio in video editing software, meaning I could learn the ropes on ‘easy mode’ before actually doing the real fiddly bits. In particular familiarising myself with Matt Lees’ Hot Keys, not the worst pub soul outfit of the  late seventies, but a Dota Inspired set of keybinds that turns editing  into a dexterity game. (I didn’t have the heart to tell anyone I never  played Dota).

Tom: Oh my goodness. I only just realised that Matt Lees’ Hot Keys were so deeply intuitive to me due to 1,000+ hours of Dota 2. I have been fooled.

So I was editing AwShux videos and having a pass through some of Matt’s bigger videos too. A lot of this had to be tidied up by Matt, but I was shocked at how much of what I did I could still see in the final edits, and how precisely I could see the changes that Matt had made, and why. I’m pretty useless at keeping information in my brain, but  whatever the practice did, it meant I now feel like I see video very differently, at least when it’s ours.

Eventually, it was time to take the jump we really hadn’t wanted to make. Learning ‘sitting at your computer’ stuff remotely isn’t too bad, but after a second or third wave scotched plans to start doing in person training, we decided we just needed to do it. Filming is a hugely physical and spatial thing. All angles and tools and devices, with tips and tricks and efficiencies to be gained and lost all over the shop.  Learning it on my own has been weirdly disheartening, but also produced  some of the things I’m most proud of in my entire life. And I still feel  like this is very much only the beginning

Quinns likes to talk about making pots. If one pottery pupil spends their first week making one pot, and trying to get it perfect, while  another is told to just make pots as quickly possible and smash them at the end once they’ve learnt from what they’ve built, then the second student’s final pot is going to be so much better than the first’s only  pot. Practice includes practicing all the stages, and as many loops of feedback and trial and error first. This was reassuring, but it’s still hard to fight my urge to want to work on everything forever.

The Verdant segment going live was terrifying and exhilarating. Seeing people actually like me on screen, and accept me as part of this  team on our largest channel. People being excited to see me doing a first bit! It was a chaotic bit of a bit and if I watch it now I can  mostly see problems, but I’ll be darned if it wasn’t me. Me, on Shut Up & Sit Down. A channel that has kept me laughing and curious for a whole decade. That helped me change my life even before it became my job, and changed it again.

Songbirds had a lot of the same feelings. I was really nervous of the video until I realised that the framing narrative could feature me and my friend’s cows. Interviewing cows on a hill is right up there with  weirdest jobs I’ve ever had, but it was a delight. I’m so excited for  the next few videos too. I think I’ve got two lined up, and I’m hoping each one is going to be better than the last. The proudest I got to be  was when people were telling me it felt like I was in the Shut Up and  Sit Down style, but still something new and different and me. I really  hope I can keep on delivering that for years to come. And I’m going to  try my best.

So thanks Matt, Quinns, Tom for sharing so much expertise, patience  and enthusiasm. You’re so ruddy good at this and it’s so intimidating trying to live up to that, but I feel like with your help, I’m getting  there. Thanks Pip for the gallons of absurdity, solidarity, joy and hope. And thanks you, the subscribers, for not just paying my wages, but  for welcoming me with so much heart.

Quinns: I don’t know what SU&SD did to find  two budding videographers as excitable and eager to learn as you two, but I’m very grateful, and I have no doubt our audience is as well. You’ve both spoken before about the intimidating situation that is  joining SU&SD this late into its life, of having to stagger out in  front of our audience fully-formed, when Matt and I both had the  opportunity to be “kind of bad” for YEARS.

It’s funny, I was playing games with Tom yesterday. He told me “I  went back and watched some old Shut Up & Sit Down today...” and his face took on a faraway expression. I know exactly what that expression meant- he couldn’t believe how wonky and weird we were allowed to be.

So I’m glad Ava had the idea of interviewing a cow. It’s nice to  know that while you two are being held to an intimidating standard, you’re still finding the time to be a bit unhinged.

What are we video games!  🎮

Tom: Elben Ring

Ava: A retelling of Gotterdamerung through the lens of Napoleon’s time in Elba? These indie games are getting real niche.

Tom: Correct! Wait, no!

I thought about talking about Elden Ring extensively here but there’s very little I could say that others have not said already. It  is, of course, delightful. I’ve finished the game with 80 hours on my  save and have just immediately started another to go find all the stuff  I’ve missed and give some wacky builds a try in PvP. A delight.

Outside of that, though, I really want to talk about TUNIC - a Legend-of-Soulsborne genre mashup with an unbelievably cute fox in the  drivers seat. But it’s more than just its influences - with a delightfully esoteric in-game-manual that you find the pages of and the Outer Wilds feeling of having had ‘the power within your all along - you  just didn’t know it yet’. I’ve been streaming it over on the Shut Up & Sit Down Twitch if you fancied giving it a peek before giving it a go - I think it’s absolutely magic.

What are we music!  🎵

Tom: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You from Big Thief is maybe my favourite album of the year so far - a  sprawling work crammed with so many ideas that you can’t help but be  charmed. Big Thief's music normally has an associated melancholy for me  and it's great to see them bask in quite such warm eclecticism with confidence. An utterly delightful thing to pop on while typing out this very newsletter on my sofa, stretched in the sun. The lyrics sometimes come with a level of twee that might be off-putting to some, but it's so sincere that cringing that magic away is impossible. My favourite example of their record's exalted mundanity comes on strong in Red Moon;

What do you yearn for, where do you long to be?
I've been here before, looking at the wild country
Open the screen door, talking with Diane Lee
That's my grandma!

Radio singing from the corner of the kitchen
I got the oven on, I got the onions wishing
They hadn't made me cry, filling the sink with dishes
Letting them air dry, waiting for the wind's permission

Sweet and comfortable as the words are, they bound along with such rich inflection and enthusiasm that you're all but invited into the headspace of a band bewildered and enthralled by simplicity, homeliness, and the detail of all things. Beautiful.

What are we watching? 📺

Quinns: While waiting (VERY impatiently) for the arrival of season 3 of Atlanta here in the UK, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Severance.

If you’ve not heard the buzz around it, Severance is a moody bit of science fiction that imagines a voluntary procedure where your psyche is sliced in two. All memories of what takes place at your office are  left in one compartmentalised section of your brain, allowing you to show up and work and then - in the blink of an eye - suddenly it’s 5pm and you’re leaving work.

The performances and photography of Severance are both top-notch, the characters are utterly lovable, but most of all what I love that  it’s true speculative fiction. Each new episode continues to ponder the  side-effects of this procedure, allowing a show that almost feels slow at times to instead feel thoughtful and rewarding. I like it a lot.

Thank you so much for supporting SU&SD!