INSCRYPTION: THE FIRST ESSAY
> HOW IT STARTED
I've made YouTube videos before. It started with boring, monotonous playthroughs. I had fun playing the games, but editing was boring and even more boring was actually watching them! I moved on to making videos with friends. Making them was fun, editing was entertaining since I could edit whatever I wanted and could hear the banter between my friends and me, and the finished videos were pretty funny.
One day I was planning to make a video with a few friends, until one of them (you know who you are...) bailed last minute! I was devastated. What would I work on until we'd find another time where everybody is available for recording? That's when I asked my friends for ideas, and suddenly the idea popped into my head: a video essay on one of my favorite games of all time, Inscryption.
I had no clue where to even start. Do I start a playthrough to freshen up my memory and get ideas? Do I think of the title first? Do I follow Dali's advice and fall asleep on my chair to get an idea out of my subconscious? Well I couldn't just sit in my chair and do nothing, so I thought of my first playthrough of the game. Why did I like it so much? Well the artstyle was unique... and the gameplay was fun! But what tied it all together? Mystery. I wanted to find out the reason behind everything in the game. So many questions and so little answers. So I got my starting point: "How Inscryption uses Mystery to Trap You".
> WORKING ON IT
It was strange writing a script for a video. But it was compelling. I had control over every aspect of the story. No random elements or "What do I do?" pauses. Because if I ever got stuck, I could always come back later and continue writing from where I left off. Voicing over also improved my *still limited* speaking skills, and it was quite fun doing a voiceover for a script you wrote yourself!
But the part that took the most work was obviously the editing. I had experience prior, but nothing quite like this. I had to make it atmospheric, eye catching, engaging. It had to be perfect; I wouldn't allow myself to let a project of this scale end up subpar, so I put all my effort into editing, sound design and pacing to make the best video I could at the time.
> WHAT I LEARNED FROM IT
This video was a huge step up for me as an editor. It not only challenged my skills for video editing, but it made me fall in love with script writing, and the idea of coming up with a story and telling it myself. I had countless takeaways from this project: I learned new VFX, got better at sound design, managed to write a full script for a video essay, and many more. But the biggest proof of this project's impact is my new favorite game: Inscryption.