Another Vlog. This took longer than I had planned, mostly because I planned to do some crazy stupid graphics animation, which I decided was nowhere near necessary for a vlog. The first version I did I tried to do some motion tracking, but the software I was using wasn’t liking the long video. So after a few days of frustration, I was at work and decided to go into an empty room and film. the above is the result. Now I still tried to make the one shot above too complicated too, but I think for a long, talky video it’s about as complicated as it should be.
I’ve been shooting all my recent videos, except the Low Light test shot on the Kiss X4, on my old point-and-shoot, a Canon PowerShot SD960 IS. It’s a tiny camera, but I think it does better 720p video than almost all the vlogging cameras on the market. It was a gift, though. I wouldn’t buy one just for video. But it also takes some amazing pictures as well. I’d be hard pressed to get rid of it either way. My next vlogging camera will be the new HD Sanyo waterproof Xacti. I still love my SD Xacti, but I haven’t used it since I went full HD. I haven’t shot with my iSight either, which is what I did most of my old vlogs on. Hey Apple, when IS the 720p or 1080p iSight coming out? This should be a priority…. I want to get a new computer soon and I’d love to have a new iSight on it. I will be getting an iPhone 4 when they’re back in stock here in Japan (I think), but I’m not too sure if I’ll be using it for vlogging yet. I’ll have to do a side by side test with my little Canon.
Anyway, this is the first shoutout video. I will be making more. I don’t leave people out in these videos, I promote who is on my mind and who I have time to talk about. If I had my way I’d do hour long videos talking about how great my friends, subscribers, and the people I watch are. Anyway, here’s the list of links for the people in this video…
Lastly, I’m having a lot of fun working on music lately. I’m going to try and have original music on every video. Though I will contact some artists for permission to use their stuff for future projects, I like making quick stuff that sounds decent. If you have access to Garageband, you have no excuse not to have copyright-free, original music on your videos. I’m mostly using the banks of loops that come with Garageband and a few 3rd party plugins and expansion packs, but I eventually want to get back into creating 100% original stuff again. This is great practice, if anything.
Not sure what I’m going to do next. I filmed all my stuff for the “Life in a Day” movie project on Youtube yesterday. I have a lot of editing to do, as I recorded a lot of my sound in surround on my Zoom H2. One of the best recorders for the money, I highly recommend it.
So it’s been awhile. But it’s not like I haven’t been working on videos. I’ve made a few, mostly for other people. But there was one that kinda had me stop and rethink my whole plan for new videos.
The problem is me. But I’m also going to blame this chocolate.
Real Food Porn?
Yes it's upside down. Yes this is an outtake.
That’s the Pleasure & Pain dark chocolate bar infused with naga jolokia chili. I ordered it from Handy Candy in the UK. When I first saw this bar on the website about a year ago, I was dying to try it. I love crazy spicy things. I checked around, and there were really no videos of people trying this. I was excited to make a tasting and reaction video.
Hoping that the chocolate itself would incite an interesting reaction I didn’t really make a plan. I’ve had plenty of spicy food before but I don’t think I’ve ever had anything with naga jolokia in it. I was hoping for something extreme. I even bought some milk for the occasion. The actual chocolate bar itself had a warning on it. I had seen videos of people trying naga jolokia stuff and even just habanero peppers and freaking out. Well I’ve had raw habaneros before and they made me sweat and I felt a bit of pain, but nothing I couldn’t keep a straight face for. I guess I should haven’t expected too much because of this.. but it’s the naga jolokia… the hottest pepper in existence.
Little did I know just how unexciting my adventure would be...
So I gave a bit of an introduction and tried some. I then sat there for 2 minutes waiting for something to happen. I’ve had the Lindt red chili pepper dark chocolate before (which I highly recommend) and it was a bit similar, it just felt like much thicker chocolate when melted. The spiciness was completely different, though. It’s kinda hard to explain. Like… super spicy melted mexican cheese. I didn’t even really sweat. I had two pieces and didn’t even have to go for the milk.
How boring.
I guess my tolerance for spicy stuff is a lot higher than I thought. I have yet to have anything here in Japan that’s really been too much for me. I’ve had the spiciest reimen (a type of cold ramen that is famous around here) and those crazy habanero chips that I saw on the net years ago. I know it’s me and not the chocolate, as when I brought the rest to share with my coworkers they reacted hilariously. There is nothing like this in Japan and they all tried it out of curiosity. Some of them can’t handle any spiciness whatsoever. Maybe I should have had the camera on them…
As for the video I did… It’s terrible. It’s just me rambling and then talking about how it wasn’t that spicy at all. I tried to edit it down and salvage it, but it just isn’t possible. So this video will never see the light of day.
BORING MAKES ME ANGRY
It made me rethink about my videos and all the videos I had planned. I think the biggest problem is, well, me. Even though I have been working on it, I’m terrible in front of the camera. I’m much better behind the camera. I think it’s because I’m a perfectionist, and yet I know I’m in no way perfect myself. I’m a good judge of my own talent. In fact, I see myself as a good judge of talent in general. I have a hard time making videos because I feel I don’t have the talent, my self or others, to reach the quality I want and need. The worst part is, when I just DO something, something that isn’t totally great or didn’t take that much skill… people love it. For example, the above is how to make a bad video. Well, here is how you make a GOOD video:
And not only that, it teaches you how to put a Nintendo into a toaster. I did the music, or shall I say… I pressed a few keys in Garageband and music happened somehow. I’ve known Richard for over 10 years now. Even his first videos had something in them that was good… he had a talent for this kind of stuff. I could see it. I still can. He has no training in video whatsoever. In fact, 10 years ago he inspired me to go to film school myself with something he made in high school.
And yes, I know that you can make videos without people. That’s hard too, but I’m working on some ideas using such. I could do more environment shots with my camera, those seem to do well. But that’s not all I want to do. I guess my real problem is that I do too much.
I’m going to try again. I’m going to see what I can do with myself. I’m going to collab with a few of my friends and then try to get a few ideas I’ve had written down actually done. That’s another thing, I have to find a way to get all of my long standing ideas done before somebody like MysteryGuitarMan does them, like he has many times already. Oh well, it’s my fault. It’s what happens when you wait.
I’ll try and write here more. I’m just worried that I’ll end up writing long winded posts like this all the time because I don’t know when to shut the hell up.
These were all shot on the Canon 50 mm f/1.8 II except the next to last shot, which was shot on the kit 18-55 mm. The sun had just set and I decided to see what the camera and lens combo could do in low light. All of these were shot in ISO 100 except the last shot of the spider which was ISO 400, I think. I don’t know about you, but I think the results are amazing. Absolutely no grain with very little light source. The spider shot has a tiny bit of grain in the render, but the raw has none. Also, that white circle is the crescent moon out of focus. There was no color correction or filters used in this video.
All the sound was recorded on my Zoom H2 in surround sound mode. Yes, the rice fields are PACKED with frogs and they are THAT loud, sometimes more. Usually the Shinkansen is the loudest thing in the area, but they almost drown it out. The song playing in the background plays every day at noon, 5 PM, and 9 PM throughout the entire city. It’s called “Nocturne for Kitakami”.
My original goal that night was to attempt to film or photograph the bats that were flying like crazy around my apartment the night before, but that night they weren’t flying in too much of a group. My goal is to somehow get a good picture of a bat before I move from this place.
So earlier this year I had decided to enter as many video, animation, and photo contests as I can. I came across the Current VCAM deal from Youtube. I had been subscribed to Current’s Youtube Channel sine it was started, but I rarely went to the website. It’s recently become one of my main landing pages and I really like most of the original content there. Back in February I did a VCAM for their Lexus contest and the final video wasn’t THAT good. I was working on one with mosaics and lot of fun imagery but my computers just couldn’t handle the massive files I was trying to use and I didn’t finish it on time. So I took the concept that I had, rehashed a old video I did in my 2008 Video Month (where I made a video every day for a month) and just sent it in. I was pretty surprised to discover I was a finalist. But I was even more surprised I was a finalist when I saw the winners. I had seen previous VCAMs in the past and some of them were pro quality. The Lexus winners were TV, pro quality. The video I made didn’t even compare. But at least then I understood what was needed to pass to have a chance at winning.
Next came the new VCAM for SunChips. I was pretty excited about this one. I had tons of ideas and concepts. The only real problems I had were that I live in Japan (No SunChips here) and the due date for the video fell on the same time I was trying to get my Japanese Drivers License. (a nightmare, will make another post about it soon) After the bags of Sunchips my friend in the States sent me arrived I sat and thought, writing down what I think I could do. I read the Current VCAM conditions and what SunChips wanted very carefully and before starting I had about 5-6 concepts penned out. I started a few, but was forced to waste more than a week of dime dealing with the Japanese License testing center. I eventually settled to work on one or two, and then combined parts of both to make the video you see above.
To be honest, I really like it. I originally wanted to do some slick transitions and a few more layers… but I watched it a few times in it’s current state and decided that it was fine on it’s own. The only thing I don’t like is my voice. I hate using my voice, but I was working too fast and wasn’t really close enough to anybody who I knew could do it at the time. At least I have thousands of hours of recording and training people to do voiceovers under my belt. I may not have a good voice, but I can at least make it sound like a voiceover. In the end, I was proud that I did what I thought they wanted and I did almost everything myself. (Chip bags are from my friend Chris in America and the music is from APM. Everything else is me!)
Now, I had looked around on Youtube and Vimeo to see if anybody had uploaded their progress or completed commercials. It was pretty shocking to see that so many people had completely missed the point of what SunChips wanted and didn’t follow some of the simplest rules. But I had only seen maybe 20 of the 100+ VCAMs that were eventually done. When Current announced that the videos were going to go live before the winners were announced, was was pretty shocked. I thought they didn’t do this. The thing I loved about the Current TV VCAM deal was that it was between me and the sponsor, not a popularity contest. There are too many people out there with crappy videos that have huge networks. I mean, I have a pretty good network myself, but most of them are college kids who have nothing better to do but upvote and refresh their buddy’s videos. That aside, it was a HUGE eye-opener to see the competition. What little confidence I had was almost completely gone. There was some real professional productions, some shot on a RED, some with beyond amazing design, and a few with great graphics. After I saw the 5th or 6th one that I knew was amazing I almost stopped watching, but I went and finished them all.
To be honest, if they want a slick commercial that looks exactly like one they would have paid a production crew to do in the past, that they wrote and fits their current design scheme, they’re set. There are 5-6 that they can choose from. To be honest, from what I got in the write-up and conference calls, a lot of people just made a basic SunChips commercial, not something that follows what they’re trying to say. They don’t give the message. Some people even highlighted the bag noise (which was specifically hinted NOT to do) and didn’t mention the website at all. Everybody knows what to do to recycle and make our planet better, or at least that they should. Preaching the same stuff that every other company and website says gets old. I guess I wanted to give something that was at least relating to the main audience and hopefully made the “click” to understand how easy it is to change things for the better.
I don’t know what the people at SunChips actually want. I’ve already picked the four I think they’re gonna pick, but we’ll see. I’ll keep you guys updated as the process goes along. Maybe Al Gore (a judge for this as well) likes sqiggly line animation. I guess it’s not as much depressing as it is… well… what it is. I still have really far to go as far as improvement. But that’s one of the main reasons I moved to Japan and that I’m making videos again… I now have the time to do it. So let’s go, and hope for the best!
