Kenâs Cinema of Shenanigans Battle PlanâŚ
TL;DR:
Q: Is KCOS going to continue?
A: YES!!!
Q: Whatâs taking so long?
A: Read belowâŚ
The Nitty-Gritty:
To this date, the wonderful volunteers and organizers within the Computer Clan have produced 6 episodes of Kenâs Cinema of Shenanigans (a tribute-parody show of Mystery Science Theater 3000). However, it has been almost a year since the last episode release, and people are starting to ask when itâs coming back.
Iâll be honest. I donât give KCOS much attention compared to other projects because itâs not my full-time job, itâs not a lucrative production (it doesnât pull in lots of cash), and it takes a lot of resources to pull an episode together (all with volunteers and a budget of approximately $0.00). But do I want to continue it? Absolutely!
The team has loads of ideas for the short-term and long-term story arcs, and we want to execute them. Weâre looking at other online celebrities and content creators we want to collab with, and weâre looking at riffing more tech-oriented sources (to appease our techie fan base weâve already spent a decade growing). But thereâs big obstacles that have to do with efficiency. Hereâs what would have to happen if the show were to continueâŚ
During production / post-production time, the weekly YouTube Computer Clan content schedule may need to be paused for 2-4 weeks (with the exception of our webcast). If we can put that schedule on the back burner, we can work much faster on KCOS. However, there is a risk to that. If we stop pushing weekly content, people (especially new viewers) will start to forget about us. And even worse, that pesky algorithm will make it harder for our content to be discovered.Â
So our team will need to gauge if itâs worth it to pull such a move. And the other obstacle is production days. Typically, we only get one episodeâs worth of host segments shot during a production day. What if we could get more?
So hereâs the plan to tackle that! I am working to secure a legitimate video production studio for a WHOLE WEEKEND OF SHOOTING. KCOS quickly out grew the small studio weâre in now, and itâs very limiting. With this move, weâll be able to get at least TWO episodes worth of host segments shot.
And theyâll look much better (weâre talking about filming this with a $50,000 lighting setup, and a Blackmagic rigânot shown above). So if two host segments scripts, and two riff scripts can be written ahead of time, I believe shooting two episodes in 1-2 days is totally doable!
Thereâs more. With the new MST3K being on Netflix, I want KCOS to be a less obvious parody of MST3K. So Iâd like to move to some more original formatting, theme music, and (as much as I hate to say this) Iâd like to remove the MST3K cameo characters. I love having Crow and Servo on the show, but KCOS is less original with them present. Also, with the new MST3K show being on Netflix, the likeness of Crow and Servo are now official trademarks, so Iâd really like to avoid getting slapped with a C&D.
That makes it even MORE complicated to produce future episodes because we need to rewrite music, redesign sets, etc. However, I thought we can roll this out over time, to SAVE time.
The next episode, show 203, is planned to be the last episode of the âseasonâ. It will feature some visual tweaks to some sets, and other plot points for the story arc, which will continue into the next season. The bigger shift into more original formatting will most likely happen between season 3 and 4, should the show continue that long.
Phew! That was a lot. I wish I had dates that you could look forward to. But I will say this. Once a shooting date is confirmed, and after the two episodes of host segments and theater segments are filmed, weâll be able to breakdown a post-production schedule and get you a release date!
In the meantime, weâll keep releasing weekly content on the Computer Clan YouTube channel. We are a family for techies, and for people aspiring to learn about tech. We donât want to leave them behind because theyâve been with us for 10 years! But weâll definitely crank out more Shenanigans for the MSTie community that I love. See you in the not-too-distant futureâŚ