How It All Started

What can we do while I await for Black Mesa to come out? I know! Let's tell a story to pass the time!

Google Video Era (6th Grade)
My video-making hobby appeared from one random school night over three years ago, in May 2006. I was weeks away from ending my 6th grade year, which was a change for me due to Hurricane Katrina interrupting it. There was a certain mood to that school year because of it, being a nearby resident of New Orleans. But that's irrelevant.

I was playing through Half-Life 2's Ravenholm on the school night of May 8th, 2006, and thought, "Hey, I should make a video off of this!" I already had the soundtrack playing in my head: Down With The Sickness by Disturbed. So I quickly downloaded the trial version of Fraps, which I knew about beforehand from watching other (crappy) machinimas. I got a good idea of how to use it, and so I immediately went onto Half-Life 2 and started recording footage. After that, I went on Windows Movie Maker for my first time and began to learn the process of making a video, just like any young kid with unregistered Fraps. Just another noob when it came to Machinima. :P

By the end of the night, I had my two-minute video and music together. I was quite the learner, since I seem to use self-reliance when it came to new things. It was good for my first video, and I uploaded it to Google Video. I would post a link, but it was deleted many months back thanks to Google and the copyright crap. No point in re-uploading it now...

I loved my first video. Instantly, video-making was my new hobby. I had a thing for it; it was something new to me and interesting. Nearly two weeks later, I created a video doing jumps with the gravity gun glitch on HL2DM, months before it was fixed in an update. Again, I used music by Disturbed, which is why the video is now nonexistent on Google Video. Thanks for ruining my fragile history, Google. :(

My next video I made though, near the end of May 2006, was called A Day At The Yaypit. It was basically video with my irritating prepubescent voice overlapping it. The Yaypit was a server that is basically the same community that is now known as The Monastery/Chapel, which I've made future videos on. This sort of video style went on for a couple of months, with me in public servers, like Yaypit, with my voice overlapped while putting it together in Windows Movie Maker. Examples are such as: Another Day At The Yaypit (6/11/06), A Quick Day At Cs_Office (7/7/06), and the Gordon's Journey series (8/6 - 10/1/06 ). See? I was a video nooblet, too. A few of them that were somewhat worth watching (compared to the rest at least XD) were Take On Me (6/30/06, Yaypit video), my first HL2DM Frag Video (7/2/06, now unavailable), Welcome Back To Ravenholm (7/7/06, remake of 1st video), and One More Time (7/15/06, also on my YouTube).


Youtube/Google Video Era
At the beginning of August 2006, I signed up on Youtube and uploaded the best two videos I had at the time. That included the Welcome Back To Ravenholm and One More Time (both previously on Google Video). Meanwhile, I stayed with Google Video for my upcoming crappy videos and only uploaded the better videos on YouTube. In July of 2006, I created a video literally overnight (until sunrise) called Cs_Office while my best friends slept over, but I never uploaded it until August. Although I only kept this video on Google Video, I winded up uploading the rest of the series onto my YouTube account. As I continued my Gordon's Journey series on Google Video, I began moving away from narrating videos to music videos, starting with HL2DM frag videos.

My first frag video, like I said earlier, was made in July 06 on HL2DM. When it came to making my second frag video, my father introduced me to Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. After learning my ways around this new program (somewhat, at the time), I finished up HL2DM Frag Video: Resurrected and loaded it onto Youtube. Obviously, as you can see in the video, I was loving the effects Premiere Pro 2.0 offered me. I wasn't also as good as I am now. I basically never went back to Windows Movie Maker. My next two videos were also frag videos, named Encore (8/29/06) and Destruction (9/24/06). They're also floating around on Google Video somewhere. Any video I uploaded on YouTube around this time was also on Google Video. As a month went by, I finished up my Cs_Office series with Life At Office (10/7/06) and Moving (10/22/06). Making this series gave me more familiarity with ragdoll posing and stop-motion, which were very useful for future videos to come.

From October to December, I began to learn more about the Source Recorder technique in source games, while learning more and more about Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, including making titles and such. Finally, I began to ditch the unregistered Fraps. On December 7th, 2006, I released Half-Life Teaser Trailer, which was my first video using only Source Recorder. I was impressed, my father was impressed, but around these times, I had no popularity at all on YouTube. I was lucky to get around 50 views from my videos. I don't even remember when I had gotten my first subscriber. Oh well.

As the weeks went on, I started to slow down on video-making. I wore myself out by producing so many videos from all the ideas bursting out of my head. I didn't slow down that much, just maybe 1 video a month or something like that.


2007/UnKnown Moments 1 & 2/Popularity Era
So the first January day of 2007, I had this funny little thought in my head of a guy stealing a car that turned out to have explosives as an alarm system. After seeing the uprising of random Gmod videos months earlier, I decided to make a short video on it, titled Balli- Oh Sh** (1/2/07). On Facepunch, it received some positive reviews, which was one of the motivating causes to make my future hit video a month later... Meanwhile, before that, I made a short music video called My Name Is on January 20th of 2007 (it was removed from YouTube, but it glitched so that you can still watch it embed). For the most part, it was also loved (around 15,000 views before taken down on the site).

My subscribers began to slowly grow. I was noticing my views getting into the low hundreds, but that was nothing compared to what was very soon to come. Through two weeks of effort, mostly thanks to the positive reception I received from my Balli- Oh Sh** video, I finished my video titled UnKnown Moments, which was filled with many funny ideas I had in my head. I showed my parents and brothers, and they loved it. One local older friend I knew named Kyle K. loved it, and he started passing it around everywhere he went. Since I was only in the shadows of Gmod, I didn't get many views at first, but I do know that the only viewers I got thought it was definitely great. Over the weeks, my views per day for UnKnown Moments became greater. This video was probably the first video I had that received over 1000 views. I got a handful of subscribers. I was really amazed and happy how I was actually satisfying over 1000 views on this video. I never expected my video(s) to become popular. I was just a kid in 7th grade with a hobby.

After finishing up a short video of a bar I made in Garry's Mod in March, I took a small two-month break while watching my UnKnown Moments slowly stack up in views. Eventually, after a month, it was around 10,000. My imagination needed a rest. I would get at least one subscriber every two days.

At the end of May, my summer vacation strolled in. 7th grade was over, and I was happy about it. Having so much time, I started hanging out on the Monastery/Chapel HL2DM server formerly known as The Yaypit. I also began production on UnKnown Moments 2 at the beginning of June. Thinking about the Yaypit videos I made now a year ago, I decided to whip out two videos of this server I hang out in, A Night At The Monastery (6/26/07) and A Time At The Chapel (6/28/07). In reality, though, they were both the same server. My subscribers got a few laughs, but it's not exactly what they wanted. I wasn't worried, because a sequel was coming soon.

And there it was, the last day of my summer vacation (8/11/07), that I finished and rolled out UnKnown Moments 2. This time, I got even more views in one day, and the reception was definitely positive. My family laughed even more than last time, and my friends rushed to see it at their houses. I was grateful for it all, and I still am. I have no clue how many subscribers I had a week after, but it sure was a lot during that time period for me. I would get at least 1 subscriber a day, which I was really grateful for. I couldn't believe my work was that awesome. By this time, I've completely abandoned

As months went by, I only made first-person videos, mainly focusing on the new Fortress Forever mod that was released in that September of 2007, such as Welcome To Fortress Forever (9/28/07), The MeDiC (10/30/07), The Soldier (12/23/07), and then, after a 4-month gap of silence, The Pyro (4/13/08). Yeah, I knew these videos weren't liked by everyone, but I considered them decent enough for publicity. I started to slow down a lot after The Soldier video. I only had one more video, The Pyro, the rest of my school year. Let's just say that the first half of 2008 wasn't exactly the happiest for me. I was dragging through school, wanting to get out... only because I found out most of the friends I had at my school simply backstabbed each other. But personal life is personal. Still was a pretty dark time for me. Making videos wasn't on my mind at all... I still started making segments for the upcoming UnKnown Moments 3 in February, but very slowly. I don't remember much around this time period.


UnKnown Moments 3/9th Grade Era
Finally in August 2008, after months of making segments, UnKnown Moments 3 was thrown out there onto my account while hoping for a rebound. After coming home from school that day, I came home to around 20,000 views on my video. I was stunned and so happy at the same time. Most of the views came from the news post I put up on GarrysMod.com. My subscribers were joyous, which made me happy, too. The next few days, I found out that Garry Newman liked the video himself. That made my week, hearing the creator of Garry's Mod himself say that he liked my video. I was getting thousands of views for the first few days. Every day, I found new comments and subscribers. It made me feel like I was in the old days again. Currently, UnKnown Moments 1 - 3 all have 200,000+ views.

Two months later, in October, I released two new Fortress Forever videos, one of them being a comedy machinima called Bag O' Weed, which was produced thanks to members of the FF community. I came back in December with a sequel for the hell of it.

Not wanting a repeat of the first half of 2008, I posted up two short videos in January and in February 2009 to let my subscribers know that I'm still around. As I started making scenes for UnKnown Moments 4, I started to develop new ideas for videos in March, but I came to a sudden delay that is explained in this hilarious video. I also joined WeGame around this time to spread out my UnKnown Moments series a little bit.

Once I had gotten a new, incredibly beast computer, I quickly worked up more of a creative video rather than graphics-y called Good Ol' Half-Life at the end of March 2009, exclusively on WeGame thanks to YouTube's audio bullcrap. I really liked making this video, since it wasn't UnKnown Moments (which wears me out so much). Two weeks later, I released a Portal montage called Vaulted [Place For My Head], since I was good enough with the game. My viewers loved it, and so did I. My family found it impressive, so I was satisfied. I continued on making UnKnown Moments 4.

So I released two videos (which aren't really important to discuss) by the time June rolled around. Being a part of the Monastery/Chapel community, I decided to dedicate a video to their community since I was around it since I was 10, which was now over 5 years ago. It was based on the experiences I had there in 2008.

In August 2009, I released a video of me messing around on Half-Life Source called Procrastination [It's Tricky], when I was supposed to be producing UnKnown Moments 4. It was satisfying, and it was a distraction for my subscribers as I finished up UnKnown Moments 4.


UnKnown Moments 4/10th Grade Era
So, finally, there it was at on the 22nd of August 2009: UnKnown Moments 4. Many people didn't see it coming, even though there were hints everywhere about it. Prepared, I posted up an article on GarrysMod.com that was quickly approved. Many viewers think it's the best one, and so do I. Never in my life have I laughed at my own scenes so hard throughout the whole production. I would watch all the scenes over and over again during my many months of production at least every two days.

Throughout the production of UnKnown Moments 4, I had the desire to remake my first video ever made, which was Welcome to Ravenholm. Around two weeks after UnKnown Moments 4, as soon as I had the concept all planned out, I filmed and finished up the whole 5-minute video in just two days. It was released that same day, on September 7th, 2009, named Forever At Ravenholm. I finished it up so quickly mainly because I had a huge motivation of nostalgia and because it came out fantastic. I learned how to create an atmosphere with the bloom tool on Garry's Mod and simply practiced my video-making hobby.



Now I sit here, two weeks later, thinking about how all this came to be. I'm glad I made that decision over three years ago on a school night, deciding to make my first video. If that had not happened, I wouldn't have made so many people laugh from my UnKnown Moments. I wouldn't have inspired other newcomers and such to do video-making. Someone else probably would have been that role model for the new machinimers, but I'm proud to be that motivation for whoever. I hope people come to realize that, even if you're in 7th grade, you can always pull out a good video as good as my UnKnown Moments. I was a kid with no experience in video making and managed to teach myself and master the concept of machinima throughout the years, and today I still continue to get better.

Sorry if it looks like I'm bragging anywhere in this post; I'm simply talking through thankfulness and happiness. I'm impressed if you were able to read this whole thing. Damn, I'm glad I started making videos.