The video below was originally streamed on Saturday, September 1st, as part of the virtual Anomacon conference set up by Ryan Sprague, one of the rising stars in the paranormal scene and the author of Somewhere in the Skies.
Anomacon 2023 hosted 36 speakers who talked about many different and fascinating topics ranging from UFOs, ghosts, cryptozoology, etc. For my pre-recorded presentation I decided to discuss the origins of the UFOlogy Tarot project —how the group came about, the things we did prior to embarking on the Tarot project, along with our goals and intentions.
I also wanted to discuss some of the really potent synchronicities which happened during the production of the cards, which I think highlights their magical nature; and I’m not saying that figuratively, since I honestly believe creative endeavors allow artists to become ‘conduits’ for forces beyond their control to manifest in our reality, and from the beginning I operated with the firm belief the cards wanted to come into existence through me.
As for the production aspects of the video, from the get go I knew I would be using many images and details extracted from the cards, but I also wanted to make the viewer’s experience as enjoyable as possible. Which is why I also created just for the purpose of the video several quick ‘doodles’ to illustrate some of the points I intended to discuss —I figured it would be more fun for the audience to see these cartoons instead of just staring at my talking mug all the time.
Creating the video was a “learning to swim by jumping into the river” sort of situation, since I had never done any video editing work before. Fortunately Microsoft’s Clipchamp (which free with any Microsoft 360 subscription save for a few extra ‘pro assets’) was intuitive and powerful enough to work with. I also had a very strong visual idea of what I wanted to see on the screen, which was backed by a script I worked with for a couple of days prior to the actual recording of the clips I used —which still took many takes to nail down, which would be of no surprise to anyone with experience in such matters.
What was more difficult to nail down, though, was the actual tone of the presentation. I know I can be funny when I want to, and with the cartoon gags I prepared I felt confident my audience would be kept amused and entertained despite this being a rather lengthy video by YouTube standards. But I also knew there will be parts that were not meant to be funny at all (you need to check the video to know what I mean) and prior to the stream I was rather anxious to see people’s reactions.
From what I gathered by the comments left at the live chat that day, I got just the reaction I was looking after. Some other friends also sent me messages publicly or privately to let me know how much they enjoyed my presentation, to which I am very grateful for.
If you haven’t seen the rest of the Anomacon presentations then I encourage you to take the time to do so at Ryan Sprague’s channel. I guarantee you can easily spend an entire weekend checking out these highly entertaining and informative videos, and I once again want to thank Ryan for being part of this unforgettable event, which hopefully will become a recurring annual event.
Absurd by Design 
[…] Tarot project —if you’ve read my posts our watched the video presentation I created for the Anomacon virtual conference, then you might recall I was interested in giving the cards an original look that […]
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