Hey guys, I said an update was coming 
soon, so here's a major update.
First of all: Happy almost two years of doing this 
full-time thanks to not only my audience, you guys,
but also everybody donating on Patreon, especially, 
literally could not be doing this without you guys.
Also, we hit the five year anniversary of this channel. My first 
review was posted in June of 2010 when I was nineteen years old.
Holy crap! Have I gotten a lot better at editing, speaking, 
making points, reviewing, criticism, everything since then.
If there's one thing that I would say for everybody that wants to
be a film reviewer or anything on Youtube, just general life advice:
Always continue finding ways to improve yourself 
and eventually you will just continue getting better.
If you start off believing, like: "Ey, what I'm doing is fine, 
howcome nobody's watching it?" then you're doing the wrong thing.
If you keep doing things the same way forever, 
then it's literally impossible to grow and improve.
This is part of my brain that I can not turn off. This is part 
of the reason why I demand so much from movies and from my art.
Why I'm such a tough critic. This is part of the 
reason why I'm always reevaluating what I'm doing,
and trying to find ways 
that I can be doing it better.
And at this point I've realised 
that it makes the most sense
to change my Patreon page to charge 
people monthly, rather than per review.
First reason being is that each of my videos drastically 
differs in terms of how long I spend making the video.
Right now, my ten minute "Bad Lieutenant" video 
that took me about a week to make is being valued
the same as my almost hour long 2013 list 
that took me several months to make.
The whole point of doing it per review in the first place is that 
it was supposed to provide a sense of security for you guys,
knowing that I'm incentivised to continue making videos.
However, there's now two years worth of evidence showing
that the decisions I've been making on this channel have 
been completely independent of that incentive anyway.
If all I cared about was the money, then I wouldn't even 
bother tackling these giant projects that take months to make.
My "Synecdoche, New York" analysis, 
every Top 10 list, every YMS video.
Those are giant projects compared to the 
Thoughts On videos that also get charged on Patreon.
I would have made far much more money over the past two 
years if I had just made Thoughts On videos this whole time,
but to me, the content is more 
important than the money.
The few months where I actually am able to get 
more than one Patreon supported video out,
are not months where I'm working twice as hard. 
They're just months where things happen to line up.
I put in waaaay more hours this month than last 
month and yet, I'm getting paid about half as much.
A lot of other people in my situation would have just split 
the 2013 list into two parts and called it two separate videos,
but I care more about the content 
than I care about the money.
During the few days that I was visiting my family for christmas, 
I actually brought my laptop with me and was editing while I was there,
just so I could get the first part of my "Synecdoche, New York"
review out, because otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten paid.
And it's not like it was an extra video for that month, so I 
literallywould not have gotten paid and I kinda need to pay rent.
I overworked myself, I rushed myself and I've 
been doing things that way for far too often.
It is no stretch of the truth to say that the 
way I've been doing this has not been healthy.
And looking back at part one of "Synecdoche, New York", I can't 
help but think that that factual inaccuracy that's in the video
that I'm not proud of wouldn't have happened if I had just 
given myself two or three more days to complete the video.
So for the sake of the channel, I'm now changing my 
Patreon to charge monthly, rather than per review,
and this is something that many people have 
been telling me to do for quite a long time.
If you're already a Patron pledging ten dollars per review, then
your pledge will be transfered over to being ten dollars per month,
meaning if you had a monthly maximum set to 
twenty or thirty dollars, that will not carry over.
If your monthly maximum was therefore any 
month that I work at a hundred percent,
then you might wanna change your current 
pledge to be closer to your monthly maximum,
considering I do work at a hundred 
percent every single month.
But obviously, there's no pressure to do that, because honestly, 
I am extremely thankful for your support in the first place.
There's also a couple changes with the perks, 
so let me just list those off right now.
If you pledge one dollar or more, you get to show 
up in the credits for any larger review that I make,
so when the "Synecdoche, New York" review is finished, 
I'll have credits for the last part of that video.
I'll take all my current Patrons, and then every single 
one of those names will go into the credits for the video.
As you've already seen, the same 
thing happened for my 2013 list,
and the same thing happens for the final part 
of any particular YMS review that I'm working on.
If you pledge five dollars or more, then you get access 
to scans of notes that I've taken for these reviews.
Not just that month, but every single 
month leading up until that month as well.
If there's a month where I don't have anything to scan, because 
I don't wanna spoil the review that I'm in the process of making,
then I'll just scan something else that's 
cool. I don't know, I'll draw a picture.
Something random, but you'll get something and you'll 
get all the other months leading up until that month.
If you pledge ten dollars or more, then you get an invitation 
to a monthly Google Hangout where you get to hang out with me,
and ask me questions and talk and chitchat and whatever. 
I don't know. Provoke me into going on some angry rant.
Now, since Google Hangout's can 
only handle ten people in a video call,
I've decided that I'm going to start livestreaming 
these hangouts to my vlog channel.
That way, if, let's say, it fills up with ten people 
and you can't get in as a ten dollar Patron,
you can still get a link to the video, show up in the comment 
section and I'll be responding to your questions there.
And if you pledge fifty dollars or more, I will not only send 
you a personalised thank you note to your mailing address,
but I will also include a ticket to a movie that I've actually 
seen, so, like, legit. This is the ticket that I've used:
"Dance of Reality" at the Rio. Here's "Amour" 
from Vancouver Film Fest. Here's "Rust and Bone".
Here's "American Hustle", here's "Her", here's "The Wolf of 
Wall Street". Here's "Like someone in love", etcetera, etcetera.
I save all these things and I've got 
plenty more. Here's "After Earth".
Yeah, if you want one of those things as a 
collector's item, or keepsake or whatever.
I sign them and I write a little blurb on them 
about what I thought about the movie or just, like,
a six out of ten or something like that. 
Try to making it funny and heartfelt at the same time.
I know that these things aren't really worth fifty dollars, 
but remember that these are perks to your pledge.
The pledge is to help support me and my channel.
Now, some of you are probably thinking: 
"Adam, what do you need money for?"
Well, first of all, the amount that you see on my 
Patreon page is actually five hundred-ish dollars less.
Second, I live in Canada and I get 
taxed to shit and I pay my taxes.
Third, I live in the most expensive city in North America.
Reason being is because this is where the film scene is.
Not only is Vancouver the best city in Canada if you wanna 
see hard to find Indie movies in theaters, which obviously I do,
but it's also where movies are being made.
The extra money that I make that doesn't go towards rent 
and living expenses is going towards future projects.
Those future projects include short films and then 
eventually a film, once I get myself familiarised,
because I don't just want to make something 
that's a piece of shit without any experience.
And living in Vancouver means that I'll have 
the most filmmaking resources at my disposal.
There's a lot of filmmaking going on here, so there's 
a lot of experienced people, actors, grips, whatever.
Everything is here, so this is where I need to be.
The only thing really stopping me from 
getting started on those projects is money.
Right now, I could not even make "The Dirties". 
Right now, I could not even make "Primer".
Also, apparently, some of you think that just because Canadians 
have free healthcare, that means that we have free dental.
That is not the case. When I go to 
the dentist, I will be paying out of pocket.
I should probably do that soon, 
'cause I haven't gone in a very long time.
Now, obviously, I'm not trying to 
pass this off as though I'm poor,
because as someone who's been working minimum wage 
customer service jobs my whole life until two years ago,
this is a better financial 
situation than I've ever been in.
The money that I'm getting here is 
going towards funding future ambitions,
and that future will happen a lot sooner 
the more money that I'm able to save up.
If even a quarter of my subscribers pledged a dollar each, 
I could have a feature length film out within, like, five years.
Think about that. Don't think that a small contribution 
is meaningless, because it actually means a lot.
Now, as many of you already know, I'm just one person. What 
would be normal for some channels to complete as a team of people,
I've been doing myself and that means that the upload 
frequency on my channel is not as great as other channels.
It's been suggested to me many times that I hire on 
an extra person to help with the editing process,
but the issue with that is that all of my 
personaly shines through the editing.
A lot of the jokes are being made there. 
It would not be the same video.
And If I'm going to oversee someone to be making sure that 
they're making the exact same edits that I'd be making anyway,
then I might as well be doing it myself, 
because I would be doing it faster anyway.
So instead, I'm adding a new short series to 
the channel that I'm not responsible for editing.
I'm still in it, many of you have already 
seen it, it's the "Adam and Mark" series.
Basically, it functions the same way as a Let's Play, 
except we're talking over TV shows or movies or whatever.
Obviously, it's going to be very selective as 
to what type of shows or movies we talk over.
It would only work for certain things, but, I mean, 
I'm willing to experiment and see where it goes.
The most important thing is that, like the videos on my gaming 
channel, Mark is the one spending time editing them and not me.
It is no time out of my schedule to record 
an hour long voice-over over top of a TV show,
and have that just be something that he 
can work on and spend his time on editing.
It takes absolutely nothing out of the time that I'm 
spending on my reviews just like my gaming channel.
I play video games for one day a week and 
that amounts for videos for the whole week.
I can post a video every single day on my gaming channel 
after only having played video games one day a week.
Now, obviously, these videos aren't intelligent reviews, 
they're just dumb fun, and that's all that they're supposed to be.
Dumb fun can be created and released frequently and the 
problem that I'm trying to address on this channel is upload frequency.
If you want extra videos that are intelligent reviews 
on top of the content that I'm already making,
then you're going to have to ask Lucifer to create 
a clone of me, because I am already maxed out.
Now, although eighty-five 
percent of you liked that video,
I noticed that there was fifteen percent of you 
that did not like that video and that is totally fine.
I am not offended in any way by that. If you're not a fan of 
the type of humor or the dumb fun or whatever, the style,
it doesn't matter. That is totally fine. Just like always, 
I try to appeal to as many different audiences as possible.
There's plenty of people that don't 
watch my "Synecdoche, New York" analysis,
and you can tell that from the view count in 
comparison to the other videos and that's totally fine.
However, even though the "Synecdoche, New York" 
video turned out to be an unanticipatedly giant project
that wound up consuming my entire channel and 
made it so that I haven't YMS reviews in a very long time,
these videos that Mark's editing have literally zero effect 
on the other videos that I'm making on my channel.
They will not affect the frequency and they will not 
affect the quality. They take away literally nothing.
It if of no burden to you whatsoever for these videos to 
exist on this channel if you do not want to click on them.
However, it is of great benefit for the 
eighty-five percent of people that did enjoy it,
because now, they get to see more 
enjoyable content more frequently.
I wish I could give a hundred percent of people on 
this channel more enjoyable content more frequently,
but as I've already stated, 
a clone of myself does not exist.
Just please try your best to keep in mind that even if 
you do see these videos popping up fairly frequently,
they are literally taking no time away 
from the other videos that I'm making.
One of those videos could be released every two weeks and it would 
literally take two hours of free time out of the entire month for me.
Another thing that I'm planning on adding to this channel even 
though I don't have a specific date for it yet is full commentaries.
I could do a commentary for a movie every 
month or two, I could do one for "The Room",
seeing as how I'm not really 
planning on every reviewing it.
Now, even though it's fairly common for a Youtuber 
to record a commentary and then sell it on Bandcamp,
I'm interested in uploading these to Youtube 
for free, also providing a free download link.
I am not interested in putting 
a paywall behind my content,
because as someone who was struggling 
to pay rent three years ago,
I know that not all of you can afford it and 
I think that you should be able to enjoy it too.
Once again, Mark will be responsible for 
anything beyond the actual recording process,
so it won't take away 
time from anything else.
I will continue to work a minimum of forty hours a week 
on the reviews that you guys are already used to,
and if I take off time to visit family, the time 
will be made up for either before or after.
I've got twelve pages of notes for this, I've got six pages 
of notes for this. I've got several other projects on the go,
so trust me that more content is coming. This channel is my
platform and it's everything that I've got going on in this life,
so to suggest that I somehow have a vested interest in 
harming that in any way whatsoever is kind of illogical.
If you have concerns: Don't worry, 
I totally get where you're coming from.
There's a lot of Youtubers that 
take advantage of their audience.
So many that it's probably conditioned 
a lot of you to expect it at this point.
I hate them too and I'm interested 
in proving that I'm not them.
If you have concerns about this that need to be addressed,
please feel free to create a thread in my subreddit or my subverse.
I am completely willing to defend my positions on 
this, because I know that the facts are on my side.
Anyway, happy five years of this channel and happy 
five years of me being able to do this full-time.
I love you guys so much and I'm incredibly 
thankful for every single one of you guys.
We're gonna be doing a lot of amazing shit in the future 
and I hope that you guys are with me every step of the way.
I love you guys. Thank you.
