I’m writing this article to keep myself accountable to what I preach. I’ve been thinking about creating videos for a long time. I have all the equipment, software, basic understanding of editing, and ideas of what kind of videos I want to make. But I never started. I’m perpetually stuck in this “preparation” phase where I feel like I’m making progress but not taking any real action. I am basically procrastinating indefinitely. I’ve been drawing out the number of excuses by saying I need to get organized, create a time schedule, learn software, understand how to write and create stories, on and on. I examined all the barriers to creating videos and looked at what caused me the most grief. Most of the friction can be attributed to the overwhelming workload that comes with editing and equipment.
Trying to create content by yourself is overwhelming. We are taught to pursue expensive equipment like mirrorless cameras, lenses, and lighting setups. We spend money on good microphones, cables, and editing software. This line of thinking is hyperconsumerism at its worst. I bought all those things. After working with it a few times, it was just too much work to set it all up, dial in settings, test things to make sure all the equipment were communicating to each other. They’re all now collecting dust in the corner of my living room and underneath my desk table. I realized that I’m a person that enjoys Pareto’s law of having 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort. I’m not chasing perfection, I’m a “good enough” kind of guy. That’s where technology has finally taken a turn in my favor.
YouTube and TikTok have separated videos into a dichotomy of professional vs. amateur. I’ve noticed that the most successful YouTube content creators are reaping the benefit of being the first in their niche and building upon their own coattails of content. Everything they publish have a snowball effect where people will watch videos they post for years to come. If they remain consistent and reach critical mass of subscribers, their success will be almost guaranteed. However, this led to fierce competition for viewership and subscribers. The quality of content naturally increases with competition and they have reached television and movie level quality. When examining modern YouTube videos, I’m very intimidated to throw up a video log of me talking about my day. That’s where TikTok comes in.
TikTok have given an organic place for everyday people to post any video they want. They’re not too worried about editing because the app offers features that even allows children to figure it out intuitively. The offer soundtracks that have limited functionality but create a mostly desired effect on the video they want to post. With everyone having access to a smartphone, the need to upload videos after hours of intense editing on a workstation computer are gone. They’ve taken out the friction involved with creating content. With my smartphone I finally have decent video quality, and now the final barrier.
Sound quality has always been an important aspect for me and smartphone mics do not cut it. I recall a friend showing me a video that had horrible visual quality but with pristine audio quality. The phenomenon that occurred was that because of the sound quality, my mind was able to fill in the gaps in the video quality. It allowed me to follow the story better and the video quality didn’t turn me off as much. On the flip side, he showed me a gorgeous 4K video that had horrible sound quality. It almost didn’t even matter what was being said, I was turned off. This makes me remember a basic biology where we have the ability to close our eyes, but we cannot close our ears. Hearing is the first and foremost survival sense and one we are unconsciously more attuned. That’s when Rode released the Wireless Go II. For a mere two to three ounces, I have an audio solution that record directly onto the video I’m making. It comes with a clip that fits as a shoe on cell phone clamp. It a perfect, ultralight, minimalist setup, I can finally make videos anywhere and anytime I want with virtually no prep time. Now there’s no excuse. I’m going to start with the same model I’m using with this blog. Post two videos a week and just get started. Everything else will fall into place. Just do it.