#wearestelmosfire

Hello, Tumblr. As you can see above, I’ve started making videos again. Hopefully I can maintain this momentum! 

In the video, I mention that the reason I’d had stopped making videos was due in part to poor mental health, and I wanted to expand on that statement. 

After returning from VidCon last summer, I was trying to figure out how to put together my next video. I’d gathered a lot of footage from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter but hardly any footage from VidCon, and I was trying to determine how to piece those experiences together into some sort of travel vlog. One idea was to ask VidCon friends to share their footage (with due credit, of course) so I could piece together a complete story. While I was hemming and hawwing about how to craft the perfect story, I came across other people’s astonishingly beautiful and well-edited VidCon recaps, and my ambition to make the best video ever grew. The problem with ambition, however, is that you reach a point where what you want is not realistically within your grasp, and not being able to find a path toward that goal can be terribly discouraging.

Around that time Hank and John had put out job openings for Complexly, their video production company. As someone who has wanted to work for Complexly since before it was called Complexly, I jumped at the chance to apply. In the last two years I’d put myself through video production school to make sure I had the skills they were looking for, and damn it if I wasn’t going to at least try to get an interview. Over the next couple weeks I was the most stressed out and anxious I’d ever been. I wanted this job so bad for so long, and everything else (video making included) got put on the back burner. 

I eventually learned that the job had been filled, and to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I ruminated on all the things I could have done differently: Was my cover letter too formal? Was my resume enough? Should I have sent an email to everyone I knew at Complexly to ask for an interview? Would that have been too pushy?  

I’d experienced a setback, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I wasn’t feeling very creative, and so my travel footage stayed on my hard drive, collecting dust. If you’re a creative, you know that not being able to create is like not being able to breathe. I was low on oxygen, and I didn’t know how I was going to take my next breath. 

And then I got a burst of fresh air, in the form of my friend @high-waistedpantaloons (Liz). She’d reached out to me to ask if I still wanted to work on The Road to Nerdfighteria, an idea for a project she’d mentioned when we met at VidCon. I had been largely incommunicado since the setback, and she was checking in to see if I was still interested in the project. I didn’t know that since VidCon, the rest of the group had forged ahead and made some serious progress on the project. After being briefed on the progress, I could see that this project had lots of potential, and that excited me. I still wasn’t feeling creative enough to make my own videos, but here was an opportunity to flex those creative muscles on something different. 

And just like Nerdfighteria was there for me when I needed a creative outlet, The Road to Nerdfighteria was there to breathe new life into my creative endeavors. I got lots of opportunities to play with After Effects, work with a team of enthusiastic and passionate people, and collaborate on the various ways to grow our project, which is in itself a uniquely creative process. 

The Road to Nerdfighteria has been ongoing for four months now. It’s a well-oiled machine, and I’m grateful for all the opportunities it’s given me. However, until recently I hadn’t been making videos for me, and while it wasn’t an issue at the beginning of the project, lately I’ve been feeling stale in my creativity. 

This became incredibly apparent to me around Christmas. I was coming off a Project for Awesome high (in which I made a video that John featured on the livestream), and I wanted to make something fun. Last year I’d made a Star Wars-themed digital Christmas card, and this year I wanted to top it. I decided on Harry Potter because Fantastic Beasts had just come out. 

One DIY Pinterest wand and several hours later, I made my little Harry Potter digital Christmas card, which a lot of people seemed to like. The positive reception was a bonus, but I’d really made the video for me. It was different, it was challenging, and I was having fun. It was clear to me that I needed to come back to making videos. This is where I’m happiest. 

I’ve been out of the vlogging game for so long that I know I’ll be rusty, but I appreciate you sticking with me as I find my way through. Balancing video making with The Road to Nerdfighteria and all my other real life obligations will be a challenge, but I’m ready for it. I wasn’t ready before, but I’m ready now. 

IT’S HERE! My experience at @nerdconnerdfighteria via a GoPro. And juggling. Because why not.

If you’re familiar with my work, you may recognize that this is the sequel to Juggling Around VidCon. While I really love the original, in some ways I actually prefer the sequel. 

For one thing, I was able to match some of my juggling to the beat of the music, which makes a huge difference in the viewing experience. (It also helps that Hank wrote a really easy song to juggle to.) 

This was also the first GoPro video I shot in 60 fps, which allowed me to get some really beautiful slow motion shots at the end. Those shots were taken the day after NerdCon, but I couldn’t resist putting them in this video. (If you ever go to Boston, you must check out the public library - it a thing of beauty.) 

Hey Tumblr! I recently finished school and passed the four-year mark of making videos on YouTube, and I’d been racking my brain for weeks trying to think of the best way to celebrate these events.

Unfortunately, what happened was that several weeks went by as I let my ideas become brain crack. I built them up to be so big and ambitious that I convinced myself that I needed to have the best equipment to carry them out; otherwise they weren’t worth executing. 

This is a dangerous cycle to be in, and unfortunately it’s all too familiar. I eventually shot this on a Canon Vixia using only the lights in my basement office, and in a way it was more freeing. I have to keep reminding myself that you don’t need the best equipment to produce the best story: story trumps equipment any day. 

So here’s my story. Thank you for joining me over the last four years. I hope you’ll stick around for the next chapter.

Hello, Tumblr! I’m only realizing now that I never shared this video with you (even thought it’s over a month old - shows you how often I go on Tumblr). 

Some backstory on this video: I shot this on the day that I finished my last final exam. My last exam EVER. I was ridiculously thrilled to be done with school, and the knowledge that I now had the freedom to make videos whenever made me want to put on a big production (hence this video). I’ve mentioned before that I’d been struggling to find the energy/courage/whatever to make videos for fun, so this was a big deal for me.

The most exciting part was getting to apply all the skills I’d learned during my time in school to this video (audio sweetening, color correction, visual effects). Looking back now, the one part I would like to fix toward the end, where I didn’t quite nail the motion tracking (the part where I’m looking at a computer screen with my face on it). It’s a skill I want to get better at, because if done right it can result in something so realistic you’ll be wondering “Wait, how did they do that??” A really great example of this is Action Movie Kid: this dad runs a channel where he videotapes his kid playing, and the dad adds all the special effects in to bring his child’s imagination to life. (It helps to have a dad who works for Dreamworks.) The effects are seamless: total #vfxgoals.

Anyway, that’s enough of me geeking out over visual effects. I’m waiting for another video to upload, so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

I spent most of a week making this video, and it’s the most complex thing I’ve made to date, featuring Star Wars clips, an Alanis Morissette parody, and fancy green screen hologram effects. It would be pretty cool if you checked it out.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk behind-the-scenes things. It’s mostly for me because I thought it was valuable to run through what I’d learned the last time I made a video that was (for me) pretty complicated and full of new things.

Hello, Tumblr! Hope you’re having a good week so far. It’s almost April, which means I’ll be done with my video and motion graphics program in a month! Of course, this means that my mind has been mostly focused on life after school, and that’s how this video came about.

You may recall that I’ve been worried that my body of work doesn’t reflect my full potential, so I’ve started putting more effort into the production value of my videos. For instance, this video was filmed and edited in two hours, which is a new personal best for me. However, I wasn’t ready to put this online yet. I wanted to show what I could really do.

(This is the part where I start to get technical, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to scroll down to the TL;DR.)

I’d dabbled in After Effects with my vlogs over the last few months, but this is the first time I really focused on sprucing up each shot with something visually interesting from AE. For instance, I talk about giving an elevator pitch, so why not cut to a green screen shot of me in an elevator with my dream job employer? As I rattle off my elevator pitch, I utilize opacity masks, motion blur, and sound effects to make the pitch more dynamic and visually appealing. I even incorporate some animated text (my own keyframes, no presets!) to help my speech come alive. 

I also took the time to sweeten the audio, which was a huge improvement. (I was using the in-camera mic, which picked up an audible hissing. I took the audio track into Audition and removed the noise, resulting in clean audio.)

These are the things I know employers will appreciate, and I’m hoping stuff like this will make me stand out. What I’ve shown here is just the tip of the iceberg. I have plans for higher production-type content, and I intend to show my progress over the coming months.

TL;DR - I turned a simple 4-minute vlog into something more appealing to your eyes and ears.