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Crash Course Update - When will it be finished?

08/28/2008

 

I’ve been asked a lot lately about when the remaining Crash Course chapters will be done. I even set a target of Wednesday (two days ago) as a completion date.

 

This was overly ambitious, as I failed to appreciate my inability to cut corners and reduce quality.

So here’s the complete update, which I will refresh daily:

 

Okay, so here’s where we are with updates/changes in blue:

Chapter 17 – Peak Oil (est. completion = Wednesday, 8/20)

Step 1: Done

Step 2: Done

Step 3: Done

Step 4: Done

Note - this got broken into parts a, b, and c.  The first two are 100% done, and "C" will be completed Thursday 8/28


Chapter 18 – The Environment (est. completion = Saturday, 8/30)

Step 1: 7 hours left (1/2 done)

Step 2: 15 hours left (1/4 done)

Step 3: 15 hours left

Step 4: 15 hours left

 

Chapter 19 – Future Shock (Done)

Step 1: Done

Step 2: Done

Step 3: Done

Step 4: Done



Chapter 20 – So, What do I do? (est. completion = Thursday, 9/4)

Step 1: 10 – 15 hours left (1/4 done)

Step 2: 10 hours left (1/2 done)

Step 3: 20 hours left

Step 4: 10 hours left



And here’s my typical schedule:


6 – 10 a.m. Market review, information gathering, and responding to emails

10 - 12 a.m. Crash Course work

1 - 3 p.m. Assembling and writing Breaking News; responding to emails

3 - 6 p.m. Crash Course

7 - 12 p.m. Crash Course

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Each Chapter goes through 4 major steps. The time estimates are intensive “at work” hours, not a reflection of linear time…

  1. Original script writing (5 - 20 hours). The primary script determines what goes in and what stays out. Lots of writing and re-writing is involved.
  2. Building the slide deck (15 - 30 hours). This means finding/buying suitable images and then building the animation sequences to match.
  3. Matching the script and the slide deck (10 - 20 hours). Here’s where I work and re-work the script and images to determine the build sequences and timing. The length of time reflects iterative loops back through steps #1 and #2.
  4. Recording and producing (10 - 20 hours). This involves 1-4 full recordings of the material followed by separate video and sound editing steps. The actual rendering is a simple process that happens in the background so I can do other things.

I am getting in about 10 hours a day on the Crash Course (and not a lot of sleep). At this pace I will finish by month’s end, or thereabouts. I seem to be unable to lower my quality standards, and so I will simply work as hard as I can to complete this task. This will be a huge relief, as it will allow me to concentrate more fully on analyzing and writing reports about the current state of the economy, working on my book, and providing subscribers with more value.

I want to pay special thanks to those who have supported me so far by taking out subscriptions, sending along monetary support, and writing emails letting me know that this work is important to you.

THANK YOU for all of this, and for your continued patience.

All the best,
Chris Martenson