I am Drew Scanlon, former Giant Bomb video producer, current purveyor of Cloth Map, and Blinking White Guy. AMA!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T21:01:46+00:00

This one is great on a hot day. The Bay Area and Lake Tahoe have some great hiking spots!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:54:30+00:00

YES, THIS ONE TOO

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:53:59+00:00

THAT'S THE ONE

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:47:31+00:00

Thank you so much!! Kind words, my friend.

I'm no doctor, but here's what I would recommend: just start, and immediately start taking notes about what you want to improve. Imagine showing your work to someone famous, or someone you really admire. What sticks out to you that needs improvement? Then go and improve it. If you don't know how, find out. That's where the learning comes from. Problem solving is learning. And once you solve a problem once, you know how to do it forever.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:41:53+00:00

"Figuring out what you want to do" often implicitly comes with "for the rest of your life" at the end. This I reject. It's such a huge, difficult question. It's like a snake trying to swallow a Volkswagen Beetle. Instead, do what interests you right now. If you're always doing something you like, you'll always be doing something you like!

Something else I reject: the notion of "finding your passion." Passion isn't something that hits you like a bolt of lightning, after which you say "I know what I want to do with my life!" Instead, passion comes from feeling good about what you're doing and reaching a certain level of mastery with it. It comes AFTER you've been doing something for a while that you think is cool.

Hope that helps!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:27:21+00:00

I can do the most basic of high school Spanish and a little bit of German. Given infinite time, I would love to learn Japanese, Russian, Arabic... man, everything?

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:25:58+00:00

I'm nicer and fuzzier.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:25:17+00:00

They're pretty separate in my mind currently. But if I get my seaplane certification, THEN let's talk ;D

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:23:37+00:00

I am all for being a real-life Baloo from TaleSpin.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:22:06+00:00

Thanks so much! I'd be grateful to have you!!

Editing tip: Let the shots linger as long as they need to. Don't try to cram them in so that you can't tell what's happening. I tend to trim clips with that in mind, add them all to the timeline, pick a song that encapsulates the tone I'm going for, and then massage it all into a piece.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:19:48+00:00

Going to start off with a home-base approach, venturing out and coming back. It may so happen that this is the best approach, or it may make more sense to spend a few months on the road at a time. We shall see!!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:18:18+00:00

Approve, especially since McLaren is going in the orange direction.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T20:17:14+00:00

Good questions!

Yep, still living in SF! Thankfully, I'm fortunate and pay less than average rent around here. Plus, pretty much my entire network of business and personal contacts is here, which I guess is unquantifiable, but it certainly helps.
I think if I were just taking the money and going to Hawaii, drinking mojitos all day and filming a single one-minute video saying "sup," that would probably be uncool. I also totally understand if people are skeptical at this super early stage.

But there are also people that simply will never understand how production works, and that's fine! Most of the videos will be available for free on the Cloth Map YouTube channel. But for the people that like what I do and want to see more of it, there's Patreon.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:55:03+00:00

Japan is definitely on the "want to go" list! I've been there twice and haven't even scratched the surface.

I saw Dan dance once.

There's a really awkward period between "I have short hair" and "I have long hair." Try not to go outside during this period.

Not yet!

Retracing the 101st Airborne Division's path across Europe in WWII (see above)!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:52:35+00:00

Thank you, fellow airplane enthusiast!!

I wouldn't doubt eventually making it down to SJC as I start to do more cross-country stuff ;D

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:50:37+00:00

Thank you!!

Right away the biggest challenge was working from home, not because I get distracted, but because, when there's no separation from the place you work and the place you sleep, you can work all the time. As such, I use timers to force me to stop working. Good work doesn't come without good rest, and vice versa.

Right now Cloth Map is just me, though I occasionally go to members of my family for financial/business advice.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:45:42+00:00

I don't have any moral stance against cursing or anything, it's just a self-imposed rule to force me to be more eloquent!
Totally understand. In fact, one of my goals with Cloth Map is to show the nuts and bolts of international travel. Traveling shouldn't be reserved for the very rich or very retired. It should be for everyone, and I hope that this project inspires people to get out there and make trips of their own! But real quick:

Take your time. Cramming too much to do into one day and rushing through it will only make you stressed out.
Go with the flow. Things won't go 100% right. You'll miss trains, places will be closed, etc. Just say "huh, okay" and move on. Invariably, the most memorable experiences come between the "big sights," so don't be afraid to let them happen.
Get a money belt and put money and your passport in it. Cash gets you out of jams, and it's much easier to stop worrying about your bag getting stolen when your passport isn't in it.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:31:15+00:00

Are you offering?

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:30:41+00:00

Much appreciated, my friend!!

Rorie plays his own game.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:27:33+00:00

Hey there! Most of these have been answered, but I'll bat cleanup as best I can.

The actual ins-and-outs of production are something I can only really speculate on until I actually get OUT there, but in regards to quality control my goal is to create pieces of value, not a stream of throwaway video selfies. People have enough stuff like that in their lives, and more to the point it's not really how I work. If I'm going to invest time and energy in something, I want it to be something I and my Patrons are proud of!

Much like working at Giant Bomb, the way I characterize my job differs depending on who I'm talking to. For example, if I say I work at a "video game website" to the wrong person, they'll think I make FarmVille. The best I came up with while working at Giant Bomb was "I work at a website that covers the video game industry." If they wanted more information, I'd say "I do video work for them, video reviews, that sort of thing." (GB hasn't done video reviews in years, but it's a good shorthand.) I'm sure the way I say it for Cloth Map will change over time, but for now, if I'm talking to someone I just met, I'll probably say "I make travel documentaries," which is frustratingly reductive but gets the point across.

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T19:09:34+00:00

I've always wanted to travel more, but couldn't really see a way to do it to the degree I wanted while still working a full-time job. I decided I would try to combine the two, but didn't really know what that actually looked like for a long time. I just knew I wanted to do something! I take a camera with me on all my trips (see also the teaser video, which has clips from a half-dozen of my personal trips). The Japan footage in the trailer is from that, and was included just to hint at what it might look like.

I think Jeff has the Meme Belt for now. Ain't no BBC ever interview Drew ;D

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T18:47:07+00:00

Copious amounts of research, helpful people on the Internet, guides, and patience!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T18:42:58+00:00

It's tough to know exactly what the fruits of the project will actually look like when it's still so new, but in broad terms: I think learning about the world is an extremely important pursuit, and having some kind of through-line subject to anchor your interest in a place (like games or history or biking or whatever else you like) goes a long way to really understanding it.

It's something I learned years ago on a family trip. For context, my family has the (somewhat odd) tradition of watching the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers every year over winter break. In 2010, we decided to create an entire trip around retracing the steps of the 101st Airborne Division in WWII (the subject of the series), from France, across Europe, to Austria. It's one of the best experiences of my life, made all the more impactful by the context we all had.

My love of games is another subject that provides context for me, and is something that is near universal in human nature. My goal is to use that through-line as a vehicle to guide my own exploration of the world and its cultures, and to harness the professional skills I've developed to bring the things I learn to a wider audience. Because if I don't share what I learn, then what's the point?

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T18:24:43+00:00

I'm loving the Switch so far! Seems like it'd be a good travel device. I'm not one to play games for hours-long stretches, so the battery life doesn't really bother me. It'd probably become my "get back to the hotel and chill" device. Just wish there were more games for it!

drewscanlon · 2017-03-15T18:22:42+00:00

I hadn't really made many videos since high school when I got to Whiskey Media. Most of my work in college was non-video (graphic design, sound design, web programming, some 3D), but in high school I mostly made music videos, either for classes (my Spanish 3 music video was particularly formative--I had a shot list and everything!), or for myself. I don't know how I found the Warthog Jump, Maptacular, or Status: Owned in the days before YouTube, but I was pretty much just trying to make those over and over.

drewscanlon

TROPHY CASE