One Year of CineCurious
Hey!
It has now been around one year since I uploaded the very first video to CineCurious.
That feels slightly strange to write, partly because the channel still feels new to me, and partly because in that one year I somehow managed to make close to 100 long-form videos.
The first one is still online, by the way. I’m not saying you should watch it. In fact, maybe don’t. My delivery is stiff, my voice sounds slightly robotic, and I remember getting quite a few comments early on suggesting that I was probably an AI voice with a strange accent. But I’ve deliberately kept it there.
I like the fact that the progress is visible.
Over the course of the year I became more comfortable with the format, more confident with the narration, and much more demanding when it comes to the editing. Some of the videos I’ve made since then are pieces I’m genuinely proud of, and one of the unexpected pleasures of running the channel has been being able to look back and see that gradual improvement happening in real time.
From Quantity to Quality
In the beginning I was publishing videos at a fairly ridiculous pace.
There were weeks when I uploaded two or even three long-form videos, and I think I only missed a week a couple of times during the entire first year.
Originally I assumed that making videos would become faster with experience. In reality, the opposite happened.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to do.
At first I was satisfied with narration and movie clips. Now I want animated images, on-screen text, visual inserts, sound effects, better pacing, more deliberate music choices and generally more visual variety.
The goal is simply to make every video as entertaining as I can. Something I would personally enjoy watching.
Because of that, I’m moving toward a rhythm of roughly one long-form video per week. I’d rather spend more time on a single video and feel good about the finished result than rush out several just to maintain a publishing schedule.
At least that is the plan. We’ll see how disciplined I manage to be about it.
The Research Might Be My Favorite Part
I’ve always been a film nerd.
A large part of my childhood was spent around rental stores, watching whatever I could get my hands on, discovering actors by their faces long before I knew their names, and gradually building up this strange internal database of movies.
But even with all of that, every CineCurious video requires research.
I still have to dig into the actor’s background, their career, their personal history, unusual roles, forgotten films, interviews, strange connections and all the little details that might make the story more interesting.
And I love that part.
The channel has given me an excuse to properly learn about people and films that I grew up with and that, in one way or another, helped shape my taste in cinema.
I’ll start researching someone I thought I already knew fairly well, and a few hours later I’ll discover an entire part of their career I had never heard about.
That happens constantly.
What I Choose to Cover
One thing I’ve become increasingly conscious of is the overall tone of the channel.
I want CineCurious to have positive energy.
That does not mean pretending that every actor I talk about was perfect, or avoiding difficult parts of someone’s life when they are relevant. But the channel was never intended to be about controversy, scandal or digging up dirt.
If I start researching someone and realize that their personal history is so troubling or controversial that it would completely dominate the video, I usually decide not to make that episode.
There have been exceptions. Klaus Kinski is probably the most obvious one, because in his case the person and the mythology around the work are almost impossible to separate.
I do believe that art can, to some degree, be separated from the artist. A great performance does not suddenly stop being a great performance because the person behind it was unpleasant or worse.
But that does not necessarily mean I want to spend half an hour talking about that person.
CineCurious is much more about rediscovery, nostalgia and appreciation. It is about revisiting actors and films people remember from video stores, late-night television, old tapes and childhood movie nights.
There are therefore probably actors who would fit the channel perfectly on paper, but who I will simply never cover.
There are too many other interesting people to talk about.
The Unexpected Community Around It
When I uploaded the first video, I genuinely had no idea whether anyone was going to watch.
So the fact that there are now thousands of people following the channel still feels slightly surreal.
The biggest surprise has probably been the conversations that happen around the videos.
A video about a character actor or an obscure movie often turns into a comment section full of personal memories, recommendations, corrections, rental-store stories and little pieces of information I had never come across during my own research.
I especially enjoy hearing from people who actually met some of the actors I talk about. It is always nice when someone shares a story confirming that an actor they admired on screen was also a decent person in real life.
A number of videos have also come directly from viewer suggestions.
If someone recommends an actor, film or subject that feels right for the channel, I’m genuinely happy to spend the time researching it and turning it into an episode.
That back-and-forth has become an important part of what CineCurious is.
Why I Still Enjoy Making It
The simplest reason the channel has survived its first year is that I still genuinely enjoy doing it.
I enjoy the research. I enjoy writing the scripts. I enjoy putting the visuals together.
And I particularly enjoy that moment at the end of an edit when the music is finally in place, the pacing works, all the little pieces are finished, and I can sit down and watch the video from beginning to end for the first time.
There is something very satisfying about creating something on your own and realizing that it might entertain somebody thousands of kilometers away.
A year ago, CineCurious was just another experiment. Now it feels like a real part of my creative life.
And there is still a very long list of actors, films, filmmakers, forgotten genres, strange careers and VHS-era faces I want to talk about.
So thank you to everyone who has watched, commented, recommended something, corrected me when I got something wrong, or simply returned for another video.
Year one was a lot of fun.
On to year two.
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