In the early months of the pandemic, I started to notice a shift toward video. Vlogs, actually. Video blogs. Some of it was from people being trapped inside. Sharing their experience on YouTube was a way to feel less lonely. For artists, it became another opportunity for promotion and reaching a new audience. By the middle of summer in 2020, I thought I should look into getting some sort of camera or streaming equipment. Too late. Stores sold out of most everything.
I wasn’t ready to do anything yet anyway, I told myself. I wanted to start my video efforts in earnest when I actually had something I wanted to promote. By this point, I was on the tail end of The Walk. Since I was under contract, I didn’t want to share anything that I shouldn’t. So I waited until the time was right. Meanwhile, I consumed YouTube vlogs every night. Mostly videos about cameras and video games. There are a lot of art vlogs, but they are all the same: “watch me draw.” If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
I talked last year about scratching my photography itch. The Fujifilm X-S10 is also an incredible video camera. So I was all set. I got a camera, a wide enough lens, a shotgun mic that I could strap on to the camera’s hot shoe, and a couple of tripods. That was enough to get started vlogging.
The only problem was I was deathly afraid of publishing a video on YouTube.
When you watch these camera/photography videos all the time, you realize you don’t know dick about dick. And I don’t. These videos are exquisite. All produced by one person: the owner of the channel. I rarely have seen one where I’ve thought “well the production on that wasn’t great.” They are all slick.
I have never shot videos before. But I am also a creative director. I’m used to giving direction to film directors. So I was confident I could figure it out, and to also let the tools get me to “good enough.” The videos didn’t have to be perfect. They had to be “good enough.” So that meant not fiddling with every setting on my camera, or getting the perfect sound setup. Putting some of the camera settings to Auto was the best thing I could do starting out. I cared about aperture. ISO and shutter speed took a back seat.
When I started my Patreon, I thought this would be the perfect way to baby step into building a YouTube channel. What I didn’t expect was how much I would enjoy vlogging. I’m in love with the whole process. I often shoot and release the vlog on Friday afternoons. I’ve done 14 of them now, and they are exclusive for my Process Junkies on Patreon. I keep them under or around 5 minutes. It’s casual. And I chat about my process or something I’ve been thinking about related to comics, art, and creativity.
It’s also been fun to see me improve each week. I always try to use each vlog as an opportunity to try something new. Last week I was using pan and zoom stills to cover edits. The week before was building a proper intro. The week before that was experimenting with music. I look forward to creating my vlog every week.
All this is to say, if there is something like this that interests you? Don’t wait. Do it. Get started. That was my personal theme of regret for the pandemic: waiting for the perfect time. There is no perfect time. I could have been vlogging with my phone while I waited for equipment. I could have done a lot different. But I didn’t. What’s important now is that I did start, and now it’s a whole new thing to get excited about. And even if whatever you want to try isn’t what you thought it was, you now know that you don’t like it and can move on.
Next, I should do something about learning how to fly fish. I’ve only been waiting to get into that for 20 years…
