Concept

A few weeks ago while cleaning out my room for my upcoming move, I went to my Instagram story to share a few pages from old, dusty sketchbooks I found. I then had the idea to film a tour of these books. After asking for feedback on the idea, folks on Instagram kindly shared that they would like to see a progression of my content and skill from old to new. 

Technicalities

It’s most appropriate that this video is filmed from an overhead view. Because I don’t have an extension rod for my tripod, I bought a smaller tripod a few hours ago in hopes that it will provide an open and clear perspective of an entire sketchbook. I did a test shot with a small journal and though the tripod legs were caught in the shot, I was able to zoom in just enough to have a good shot in Premiere Pro. I JUST now realized that because my sketchbooks are of varying sizes, the test I just conducted may not work well for all books. This is something I’ll need to consider- perhaps larger sketchbooks will just be cropped. I wanted to have negative space on the right side of the shot for text to provide additional commentary. The next step is to organize my sketchbooks chronologically. I’m a bit nervous about how interesting or “good” my drawings are, especially in regards to older ones. I originally thought it could be fun to make fun of old drawings, but I realize this could be insensitive to other artists. I think allowing myself to be vulnerable in sharing my unfinished work and doodles I’m not too proud of will be beneficial. I need to be careful not to ramble too much when sharing stories behind the drawings.  Mood I’m hoping to film this afternoon in my room. Though I considered doing a voiceover while flipping through the books, I’m more interested in this being conversational and will record commentary in real-time. My main concern with this is my lack of a proper microphone. 

I might try my hand at brief storyboarding before filming. In doing so, I’ll arrange the music and visuals. This is going to be a relaxing and fun summery tour. As I’ll be talking in most of the video, the music will need to be instrumental, so not to conflict too much with my speaking. 

I love doing introductions for my videos. Not when I’m talking in front of the camera. I’m very camera shy, even when I have control. For this intro, I’m currently thinking bright and sunny music like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HRX3SMy8FE 

Perhaps the intro consists of stacking and compiling sketchbooks and a few other related tasks while this song plays. In a recent video, I put the needle on my record player down before a song started, which I felt was playful but a tad trite. This needs to feel honest and invitational, as the feeling of the video will be casual and conversational. The typography will be playful with vibrant color. I’m a bit lazy with animations and have no idea what I should incorporate for this video. 

I haven’t done a good job of filling up my sketchbooks and want to take this an opportunity to encourage myself to sketch more. I hope I don’t overanalyze this and suck out all the fun from it. I started recording videos not only because of the opportunity to develop my video editing and speaking skills, but because it’s fun!