Editing Problems

Editing is rewarding in its own right. I love splicing audio and video together to tell a story. Sequences of events are assumed by the brain, and associations are made regardless of true connection.

All that to say, I am editing my youtube video and hope to be done tomorrow.

The Importance of Equipment

So after recording somevideo and audio I realized the importance of equipment. My microphone is fairly high quality, so it records very well. Likewise, postproduction audio software makes a great difference.

However, my video camera is crap. I bought it for 20 bucks at a pawn shop.

No amount of post production helps, because the video is grainy and the batteries run out within minutes. It is horrible.

So, the lesson is clear: put some money into your equipment, and it will pay off. Consider it an investment.

Comedy Writing II

My efforts to record myself doing comedy, especially in these early trial phases, have yielded interesting results.

As a caricature of myself, I am more interesting with a bad temper. I am part Italian, so it makes sense. However, I noticed many of my jokes poke fun at stereotypes people may not know exist among people groups I belong to.

I wore a suit in my first run. It was disasterous, I was too stuffy, the delivery was bad. Luckily the lighting and camera angle was off so I had to redo it.

The second recording session yielded better results. I took my tie off, just wearing the suit. However, I realized I looked like a mafioso, so I went with that. I didn't ham it up too much, but I had just enough of my Italian-New Yorker accent to make it funny.

Let's Plays

On YouTube there are a lot of let's plays: PewDiePie, Game Grumps, PBGGameplay, etc. There are some really good let's plays out there.

But there's also some really bad ones.

I think the balance is found in whether it is mediocre or not. Even interesting let's plays can be entertaining, but not due to comedy. Mediocrity, however, is the death knell of a successful let's play.

Game Grumps works because the players laugh with one another, and enjoy one another's presence.

PewDiePie works because you love seeing his reactions.

But the mediocre let's plays never take off. I don't know. Something to think about.

Comedy Writing I

So, I'm trying my hand at writing comedy for a YouTube video I'm working on. It's rough, because constructive and honest feedback is very hard to come by. You sometimes want people to be blunt with you, but it is hard to come by when people want to be polite.

I guess the problem is really that I have no way of knowing if what sounds funny to me will make people laugh.

Jon Macks' book How to Be Funny is really helpful.