Chapter 168 The New Tone of the Wilderness Channel: Deadly, Professional, Irreplaceable
Su Wei pushed open the heavy oak door, turned around and lifted the doorknob upwards. The latch clicked into the lock, shutting out the cold wind from outside and the mechanical roar from the construction site.
The temperature inside the wooden house was a full thirty degrees higher than the outside temperature.
The wood in the fireplace was burning, and the orange flames licked the brick wall, making a crackling sound as the wood fibers popped.
Cotton Candy was lying on the wool rug next to the sofa.
Its two front paws pressed firmly against the shallow metal plate that was originally filled with fried beef tenderloin.
The pieces of meat at the bottom of the plate had long since disappeared.
The little guy's pink tongue moved rapidly across the stainless steel surface, scooping up all the remaining meat juices and grease into its mouth, making a sticky smacking sound.
Upon hearing the sound of the door lock, Cotton Candy immediately stopped what she was doing.
It dropped the plate and kicked off the carpet with its four short legs.
The white body traced a straight line through the air and stopped precisely in front of Su Wei's work boots.
It raised its head, its two furry ears tucked back, its blue eyes fixed on Su Wei, and pressed its head directly against his muddy and icy trouser leg, rubbing against him vigorously.
Its fluffy tail swung wildly behind it, making the carpet fibers ripple back and forth.
Su Wei took off his heavy winter coat and hung it on the wooden coat rack by the door.
He bent down, extended his right index and middle fingers, and rubbed the soft fur between the two ears of the Cotton Candy.
The little guy obediently lowered his body, his chin touching the floor, and let out a soft hum.
Su Wei walked past it and went to the long oak table in the center of the living room.
The phone screen, which was lying face down on the table, lit up, and banners of push notifications piled up, taking up the entire lock screen.
Su Wei pulled back the wooden chair and sat down, then picked up his phone to unlock it.
The backend data from the social media platform popped up.
The trailer garnered over 550,000 views and more than 120,000 likes on TikTok.
The video has also received over 300,000 views on YouTube.
The number of new followers keeps jumping, and there are so many red dots that I can't clear them all.
Su Wei clicked on the comments section below the video.
The top few highly-rated comments were automatically collapsed to the first page.
"My God, this is so cute! I could drown in those blue eyes!"
"What kind of mutant fox is this? Blogger, make an offer, will you sell it for ten thousand US dollars? I'll fly to Seattle tomorrow to pick it up!"
"I need all the information about this white furball's life within one minute."
"Has the Wilderness Channel turned into a Cute Pets Channel? Post more videos of little foxes eating meat, I could watch them all day."
Su Wei's thumb hovered above the screen.
He scrolled down three more pages.
The subsequent hundreds of new comments were largely the same.
Almost all the attention was focused on the appearance of the Cotton Candy and how it was eaten.
The suspense surrounding the Kodiak brown bear, along with the snowy Arctic backdrop, was completely overshadowed by this white fox.
Traffic is increasing rapidly, but what viewers want to see has completely changed.
Su Wei leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the table, producing a dull, thumping sound.
Three options flashed through his mind.
Option 1: Go with the flow and fully transform into the pet-related industry.
Daily updates on the fox's daily routine of eating, playing, and sleeping.
High risk. The retention and interaction rates of pet fans are amazing, but the audience is too young and entertainment-oriented, with limited spending power.
They wouldn't buy expensive hunting equipment or pay high camp fees just to see a fox.
Option 2: Mixed Doubles approach. Half of the videos feature cute pets, and the other half feature hardcore hunting.
Algorithm tagging will be chaotic. Viewers who like watching foxes will report bloody hunting scenes, while viewers who enjoy watching hunting will be annoyed by boring pet daily life.
Ultimately, they ended up pleasing neither side, and their account was restricted from accessing the platform.
Option 3: Force a return to hardcore documentary style.
By utilizing the realistic killing process of large, high-risk prey, the game establishes a professional and deadly hunter persona.
The risk lies in losing followers. A large number of pet fans accumulated in the early stages will be lost quickly.
Su Wei stopped tapping and placed his fingers flat on the table.
Matt recommended Seattle old money and Wall Street tycoons as his target clients.
The wealthy people who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to experience thrills on the island won't part with their money just because of a white fox.
What they need is professional competence, the ability to control the wilderness, and a unique aesthetic of violence.
In addition, this is something he is good at.
If he deviates from his area of expertise, he may not be able to do well.
The hardcore hunter label must be firmly established on the account's homepage.
On the other hand, he could easily create a new pet account.
He can split his fanbase into two groups. If both accounts succeed, he can make money twice.
The hunter account primarily serves as a hunting guide and promotes outdoor equipment.
Pet accounts naturally focus on lifestyle content and advertising.
So now, it's time to set up your first account.
Su Wei put down her phone, pushed back her chair, and stood up.
He turned and walked towards the computer workstation by the window.
I pulled out a chair and sat down, then pressed the power button on my laptop with my right hand.
Su Wei directly opened the previously transferred source files to ensure that there were no problems with the materials.
Next, double-click the video editing software icon on your desktop.
The software starts and loads various plugins.
He clicked "New Project" and then proceeded with the settings in the pop-up dialog box.
The resolution was set to 3840x2160, the frame rate was uniformly changed to 60fps, and the color space was selected as Rec.2020.
Establish a completely new editing sequence.
He picked up the headphones from the table and put the two thick earcups on his head.
External noise is physically isolated.
Using the mouse with my right hand, I opened the "GoPro First Person" folder.
Drag the first clip into the V1 track of the timeline.
The screen lit up in the preview window.
At five in the morning, the sky over Kodiak Island was pitch black.
The high beams of the Thunder God 8000 snowmobile shone on the rough trunk of the Sitka spruce tree ahead, the beams of light swirling with dense, reflective snowflake fragments.
The waveform of the audio track fluctuates.
Immediately, the headphones picked up the intense friction noise of the wind whistling through the treetops, along with the low idling sound of a snowmobile engine.
Su Wei did not search the material library for any exciting or suspenseful background music.
He preserved the original audio track and even increased the gain of the engine sound by two decibels.
Drag the mouse to the right on the timeline to quickly rewind the screen.
He used the C key to cut through the first few minutes of monotonous footage of moving through the forest, selecting and deleting them one by one.
The scene cuts abruptly to the V-shaped valley entrance.
He pulled the aerial footage from the DJI drone into the V2 track from the sidebar.
An overhead view unfolds through the lens of a Hasselblad camera.
The entire valley was covered with thick white snow, with steep granite cliffs on both sides.
The camera operation is very smooth; the vertical zoom creates a sense of imposing presence.
Su Wei froze the image.
In the middle of the snow, a long string of footprints was clearly visible.
Use the mouse to drag the zoom slider in the effects control panel to magnify the center of the image by 150%.
The focus was on the enormous footprint, which was over thirty-five centimeters wide.