Why did I make this stupid app?

“I wish I had more apps,” said not a single person ever (at least, not since 2013 or so when installing a new app was actually fun).

But I made one anyway:

It’s called NTSCRT, and it’s a desktop app for MacOS that applies analog VHS and TV effects to any image or video. You can also keyframe the effects (like a really simple version of After Effects) and export as PNG, MP4 or GIF.

I think it’s pretty cool, but why bother if the world is already drowning in apps that nobody cares about??

I wanted the app to exist

I love these effects, and there’s no other app I’m aware of that integrates them in one place… so why not build the perfect tool that I wish I had?

So I hacked together two existing open source projects: NTSC-RS for the TV effects, and the CRT shaders from the Retroarch emulator.

Even if nobody else ever uses it, it's still worth doing because I'll use it.

Stay ahead of the pack

It's pretty obvious that any person in design or product that can't ship pretty polished experiences is cooked in the very near future.

I feel for the people who are struggling with that, but it plays to my strengths because I’ve been pretty technical (wrote code full time back in the 2000s, did a lot of pretty advanced Flash and Shockwave stuff, etc).

I still want some company to pay me an obscene amount of money to help them build out a bleeding-edge creative pipeline, so I figured this would be a nice calling card.

Plenty of people are making simple web apps, but how many have shipped a desktop graphics app that has a hundred stars on GitHub, plus forks and PRs from strangers?

It’s fun!

and last but definitely not least, I made the app because I like making things.

And just about every opportunity I've gotten has come from going down the rabbit hole of something that was interesting to me.

Eg, I got interested in video back in 2003 or so, and I ended up doing it full-time for a magazine and then getting 750k subscribers on YouTube. I got obsessed with Flash back in the day, and eventually did games for Chase Jarvis and Red Bull… etc etc.

This has played out for me so many times in my life that I've learned to just trust the process. If I'm curious about something, I just let myself go with it and trust that it'll turn into opportunity in some way.

It might sound like hippie stuff, but it's worked for me 🤷

Cool story… but why should you care?

I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't make an app - that's the right thing for me to do, but it's not necessarily the right thing for you or someone else who may have different strengths.

But there are two big things to take away from this:

1. People will respond to what you're passionate about, so make sure they can see it

2. Show, don't tell. if you want people to think you're an expert at something, prove it by what you ship.

Both of these have always been true, but they're more true now than ever, where anybody can basically build anything… so start shipping!

PS - You can try the app here. It's 100% free and open source.

PPS - if you liked this reply and say hi! I always love hearing from you, and I reply to everyone