I've got a new recording/editing setup and I'm so excited!!
I'm using that camera I used in Chicago, which is a Sony DSC-HX80. It's honestly a way better camera than I have any right to use in every single way and I definitely recommend it to anyone getting into photography/video who doesn't know where to start--it's a decade old so you might have a chance at finding a cheapie around, although it'll probably still be a couple hundred bucks at minimum. (Also, this is coming from a guy who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.) For the low low price of "found in my mom's storage room," though, this thing is a freaking dream!!
At work on Friday I found this lil tripod thing in a box that I ended up taking. It's not a real tripod stand--it's the sort that just sits on an eye-level surface and stabilizes the camera--but finding it made me decide to record some test footage with the HX80, and I was really happy with it! I was worried about storage and battery life/recording time, but everything worked out great. It seems to automatically stop recording after like 25 minutes? But it's really clear when the recording stops, so I won't lose much over that, and I think it's good practice to cut videos into slightly more manageable chunks anyway. It just makes my brain feel better to edit three 30 minute videos than one 90 minute one.
If you've watched the Chicago video you know that the audio is much worse than an iPhone camera, but with the mic I have it's perfect for Dennyzen videos, and the audio isn't so terrible that I can't get away with it out in the wild. I'm just happy to be turning my smartphone on a little less and using this instead--I got REALLY sick of my setup with the last Dennyzen video, because Capcut is a hellhole and I hate my phone and I just wanted to edit it all on my computer!!
Speaking of, I found a free editing software that I think will work just fine for everything I do. iMovie is pretty limited, and I'm not shelling out three hundred to apple or a subscription fee to literally anyone else, so I got DaVinci Resolve and poked around it enough to feel like I can get through one of my videos; It's not like I'm doing anything too fancy in there. Editing on computer makes me feel like a real professional, though, which is pretty fun. I was really putting off the next Honeko Akabane's Bodyguards video because the editing process was so bad, but I'm pretty excited about coming back to it now.
On that topic, though, I've developed some complicated feelings about youtube and my contributions to it. At this point, the only tech thing I'm unhappy with is my tendency to automatically put on a youtube video in the background whenever I'm left without something to do. I'll periodically block it for a few days with screenzen and feel really good, and then, of course, unblock it again, because I wanna see if anyone has uploaded or whatever, and fall back into the familiar hole!
Actually, instead of a hard block, I really just need to set up a lil "staying aware" check... Doing that now.
OKAY, DONE!!
But it's a difficult balance, because I don't wanna be passively consuming a bunch of gunk even if it's made by people I like, but I DO want to watch cool stuff every once in a while. And it's not like I could feasibly go No YouTube Ever Again, because there's also, like, actually helpful information on there. Ultimately it's just a willpower thing, and I've really gotta find a good way to replace the habit, because it's what I do when I'm tired and don't want to do anything that requires any sort of mental energy/prohibits multi-tasking, like reading or watching a movie. I'm trying to 1) redirect that automatic impulse to putting on music since it's less mind-numbing, 2) redirect the watching stuff urge into actual tv (which is how i watched kevin can fuck himself, a tv show that changed my perspective for life!) and 3) just generally get more comfortable doing stuff in silence (yuck!)
I know I really don't have to worry much about "contributing" to this, because my youtube channel is watched by like 10 people, and I'm not being evil about it or anything: It is wayyy more for me than anyone else, and I really don't have an audience I'm "responsible" to. At the same time, though, it just doesn't feel all that good to make. Like, I think the Honeko Akabane videos are absolutely "second screen content," and I don't wanna get into the habit of doing that stuff.
I am gonna finish the series, of course! Mostly because I'm so so so excited for y'all to watch part two and see how bonkers this family tree is going to get... I'll try and sit down to write that script soon wee!! But I don't want to make a lot of it long-term.
I try not to think about that stuff too much or too often, because I Don't Want To Be A YouTuber, I Just Want To Make Stuff; I don't have to KNOW what it is I want to make in some broad sense, I just have to make it when it's in front of me. I do have a couple of video ideas in the back pocket for the future, though! One is the pretty quick sort of thing that I REALLY love making (some pretty basic analysis of a dragon age cutscene that i think about a lot) and the other is wayy more in-depth, so if I do make it, it'll be forever from now (overview of all the popular Cyrano adaptations and how they usually fuck up Cyrano's character so bad [and Christian's for that matter!!!] Cyrano I love you and your big nose. This is just an excuse for me to reread the play and finally watch the Peter Dinklage adaptation)
(Can I tell y'all rlly. I actually did watch like the first five minutes of the Peter Dinklage version and then screamed and turned it off when I realized it was a musical because I simply did not know what to do with myself or that information. Someone watch Peter Dinklage Cyrano with me because watching a musical alone is a harrowing experience but I think it might actually be quite good)
Ultimately not much comes of all this, but it's just been on my mind... It's so easy to make lazy stuff because it's straightforward and you can trick yourself into thinking it feels just as good as making the harder stuff without any of the vulnerability. I've thought about this a lot with writing, too, because I really really love writing stuff that takes itself seriously; I've described the stuff I enjoy making the most as "morbidly intense." And it's a hell of a lot easier in a lot of ways to write things that are funny. It takes away all the fear of being known and being "pretentious," and also, just generally speaking, people prefer it. I KNOW that everyone likes the things I've written with comedic and silly overtones way better than the intense stuff.
That feeling of being liked is its own kind of addictive, and it ends up being a tough choice to make. But ultimately, I have to live with myself when I'm by myself, and when I'm by myself, I don't like being funny. I like being intense and morbid and overall A Lot and "Yeesh, Really?" and yes, funny too, but not as the main goal of things.
So I make a lot of stuff that people think is worse, but I really get a kick out of it. And what's the point of any of this if I don't?