Guess Who is Showing His Face on YouTube?
I took the plunge
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So, after years of hemming and hawing, I finally started doing talking head videos. Well, I actually have two channels. One is my main one, the one I spend most of my time working on. It is a collaboration with a friend and when we have a few videos up there, we will launch it.
The other one I just started yesterday. Well, I already had a few videos up there for a while back, but nothing with my face in them. But these two new videos — all my face, all the time.
They are terrible, but I have to start somewhere.
I am literally just propping my smartphone up against my laptop screen and recording. I don’t even have a good microphone yet. I am winging it. Totally.
I am doing it against all odds too because my phone decided to take a poop on me. I used my wife’s phone. Never buy a cheap phone because you are desperate. Always buy like Samsung or Apple, because the Techno Pova 3 I bought took a huge shit all over me.
Despite the issues, I borrowed a phone, turned on the lights, and recorded myself. I thought it would be much worse. I say “um” a lot, and don’t always look at the lens. I repeat myself constantly and I still haven’t figured out how to talk properly.
Hey, I’m a writer. They don’t pay me to talk.
But now that I spent a few hours watching the video while editing, I don’t hate looking at myself. Yes, I notice all my flaws: my teeth, my eye-bags, my chubby face — but I can live with it. The question is if anyone else will stay to watch my whole video.
I hope I get better at this because it really is hard to watch at times, but I think everyone puts out crappy videos in the beginning and I am no different. I just need to get past this initial awkwardness in front of the camera and start just being myself. I think I am a pretty cool guy and I want to show that side to people who don’t know me.
I’ve spent years introducing people to my writing and it’s time for people to meet the real me, which is why I don’t change my personality in front of the camera, what you see is me, just a shy side that I rarely show to people.
I love doing this, which is why I have two channels. I did have three, but the music channel I was working on died. I found out that YouTube doesn’t monetize the kind of videos I was doing, and I didn’t want to waste my time building a channel I couldn’t make money on in the future. I LOVED making music videos, but it’s not something I would do for free forever, like writing.
I enjoy the process, from coming up with ideas to filming and editing. I am not a very good editor yet, but I will get better with time, especially since I am obsessed with it and watch YouTube videos about how to add transitions all night.
Actually, I watch videos about all aspects of making videos, editing, filming, and the business end of things. When I get interested in something, I go all out and this is no exception.
As long as this continues to be fun and I get more comfortable looking at myself on video, I will keep doing this. Right now, I am making a video every day, because they are so easy to turn on the camera and film, but eventually, I will go 3 times a week.
I guess I just want to get all the bad videos out of the way and get past the learning curve. If I could improve enough to get to a point where my videos look somewhat professional, I would be happy. I guess it is just a matter of putting to practice everything I have been learning and just like writing, putting my butt in the chair, and creating.
If you want to take a look at what I am doing over there, here are the links:
The channel is called “Cringeworthy” and right now, it really is.
See you there!
