Today, I'm gonna talk about the 2 main stages of making videos, and the reason I don't make them more often.
The first stage is, unsurprisingly, recording. This is something I'm very conflicted about. On the one hand, I've got tons of ideas for videos I'd like to do- from short skits to gaming videos, with a variety of jokes or themes to include in them. Making videos is something I'd really like to do- there are games I feel I'm adequate enough at that I could make worthwhile gameplays of them (mostly just TF2 and The Binding of Isaac, but possibly others), and as I said, there are lots of jokes I'd like to do that can't be done in other formats, such as comics.
There's a big problem I have with recording videos, though. I'm not sure why, but I have a mental block against speaking to myself. This unfortunately extends to speaking to a computer- I once tried using Duolingo's speech feature, and it took a solid minute of building up the nerve. Strangely, it doesn't extend to talking to animals (even if there are no humans in the room), or talking to people via Skype or phone calls. If I want to record a video which includes me talking, I basically have to call someone and have them mute their microphone (or honestly, even having them mute Skype works, which is really counter-intuitive. I can talk to myself if I'm in a Skype call, even if I know nobody is listening). Perhaps in the future, I can bring a cat in my room while I'm recording...
The other stage of video-making, and the one that really holds me back, is editing. I've not had a great experience with video editing software. There seem to be 3 common issues, and all programs will have some combination of them. A lot will crash regularly, or be otherwise buggy. A lot will have a very convoluted UI, and be very difficult to use for simple tasks (like removing a bit of video from the middle of a recording. A lot will also have trouble dealing with some file formats. Struggling with software is only half the battle, though. I can't stand the sound of my own voice- having to edit a long recording (say, a 2 hour gameplay of TF2) into a 10 minute video would be a nightmare. I can't hope to hire someone to do it for me either- both for financial reasons, and because I wouldn't trust most people to pull off some of the more jokey skits I'd want to do.
I would like to get back into doing videos for this blog- there's some new content in Isaac I'd like to show off, and now I have a good headset and a room without a loud roommate, I could actually talk over videos- but I do still have these obstacles to overcome before I can do that.
Anyways, that's gonna be it for today- hopefully you enjoyed this post! If you've got any tips for making/editing videos, feel free to leave them here- even if they don't help me, they might help someone else.
