What went well:
I had my first guest and I’m glad it was my mom. Also new to the show, some behind the scenes gear like my new lighting kit setup and a Rode VideoMic Go. The lights were nice, definitely worth the spend to avoid messing with household lamps. But the video mic didn’t seem to make a big difference, and I realized I should have spent the extra bucks on the Rode VideoMicPro. I learned from watching tutorials after my purchase that being able to turn up the decibel level to +20 on the VideoMicPro can allow me to lower the level in the camera and remove the pissy hiss noise which is produced from my Canon. Ya shoot, ya learn.
The other plus up to this vid was a noticeable difference in pace and with my editing skills. Getting familiar with Premiere Pro has made this process a hell of a lot more enjoyable. Now that my brain for the most part knows how to do the things it’s trying to do it’s much more relaxed. All those Skillshare tutorials are paying off yet there’s still loads to learn.
Also, I felt good about the camera movement. The eggplant layering sequence and cinematography there seemed to work well. I was happy with the refraction through the Pyrex dish too and it’s sure to make my cinematography instructor from Filmgate smile. For music, I used Epidemic Sound again and I even dipped my toes in some sound design with a couple touches of SFX.
Another note, I set the white balance on my camera. Seems like such a basic task, but I totally overlooked it in the past and it made a world of a difference in my color correction.
The other good thing I had going here was planning tasks and setting dates and times for each project within the edit. A session to make selects, a session for a rough structure, another for a rough cut, another to tighten the edit, add music, graphics, color correction. Breaking out each of these and staying on track is huge, I have to be my own project manager to make sure things are moving along. And also not doing too much at once to avoid getting burnt out and sore useless wrists. Resting the brain, body, eyes and making sure I get up and move from my chair is important. There is indeed some strenuous labor to all this computer work but ultimately the structure and calendar plan helped me finish before my target dates. I’m writing this a day earlier than I had scheduled!
Where I struggled:
I do this by myself. So while the one take where all the words come out of my mouth is useable, the 19 others where I said nonsense or lacked charisma or shifted eye contact away from the camera — I had to toss. I had to push through a ton of intro takes, and I kind of had to drag myself out of bed to do this one. Directing myself, staying loose and fun it’s a process in itself. But I did notice giving myself silly things to do like playing with the eggplant and bopping in front of the camera helped loosen me up. And the takes that followed felt 88% better. I feel like the key is trying to do this for myself more consistently and also learning to direct the vibes of others for future situations when I’m on the other side of the camera.
The sound also sucked. A boom stand or arm for the shotgun mic, lavalier mic, or the Rode Video Mic Pro is needed to up the game there. Also on the eating scene my focus was a little soft, it’s always a challenge focusing that camera when I’m the subject. Usually I stand in front of it, wrap my arm around to the focus button, and stretch out my other arm as far as I can to focus on the palm of my hand. Then I take a somewhat lucky guess at about how far that palm was and stand there hoping I’m in focus. Needless to say, sometimes it doesn’t work out. It’s also way too much work. But I found a target focus app to solve that next time.
Another struggle was my cooking. I was supposed to cook the sauce? And soak the eggplant slices? Roz did not approve of this recipe one bit. But it really did come out delicious. Those were genuine expressions of delish and delight. I don’t understand how it was wrong, the sauce cooks right in the oven! Dunzo.
How to improve:
I tuned in to an awesome webinar from Stanford this week and it reaffirmed something I thought was a solid creative strategy for learning — I call it, “Heads in. Hands-on.” I know that sounds like a former football-coach-turned-motivational-business-speaker quip — but hear me out. The Stanford folks spoke about how we need times of input and times of output and we must keep those two processes separate. So example… by having a week of learning and rumbling through tutorials about Premiere Pro, or a week diving into After Effects and graphics or a weeklong sprint absorbing camera skills, stop the learning. Pause the input. Switch gears into creator mode. Then spend the next week trying to flap your wings and fly. Have the project set, the idea of what you want to do, then try it. See if you can do it and how good you can make it. Just create and see how it goes. Do your best. Ship it. Appreciate the progress. Realize and note the room to improve. Ask what you need to learn. Then get back heads in the next week to learn what’s needed. And repeat. That’s been my creative process. And if I look back four videos ago, I can see the evolution of quality and skill unfolding. The other thing we often overlook is that the input, the gathering of skills and inspiration, is a task or a discipline in itself. While skills are a little more concrete of an idea than inspiration, you need them both, just like having a skill ready and sharp at your disposal.
Going forth, I'm still trying to learn the basics in After Effects, there’s just so much potential in that beast. After spending over two solid weeks exploring it, I think there’s a solo blog article that needs to be written just on how I started to chip away at being able to function in that program. All I was able to do so far was make a Hi logo that came in from the left, animated in the center, and then exited to the right. Thought it was kinda clever, get it? It’s like the Hi was a version of me doing the wave thing. It’s progress…
To keep the Making Meals series going, I think I should start incorporating other meal kits, local ones, national ones… this might keep it interesting and allow me to connect with other brands.
Lastly, someday I need to beef up the camera. I’ve been eyeing and researching that Canon EOS R so hard. I want it bad. It could boost my camera focus, improve the footage to 4K so I can earn more on shutter stock. Ugh. I want it. Also, I forgot to try out my new macro filter, would have been nice for some detail shots on the eating. Noted for next time.
Final thought. (I lied about lastly last paragraph). For my acting and impersonation skills, my Marlon Brando needs a little polish. Not bad, but it’s all about the pauses. You need to nail the pauses in between the words. He communicates his power by holding those long silences in between words. I also need some cotton balls in my cheeks.