Okay! Now you have made some decisions about what you think you might want to do on this virtual performance ride!
You think you know what you are going to try to produce
You think you know what you want to offer
I use the word "think" because you should not set anything in stone at this moment.
Stone is bad
Stone breaks
Stone weathers and becomes illegible
Try something more flexible. Flexible is very good at this point.
I went into my first recording sessions on my laptop with gusto. I could do this! I am woman, hear me record!
Failure
Abject Failure
Horrible
Unacceptable
I went to The David and informed him I had failed to do a thing that I was pretty sure I should be able to do.
What was the problem?
Lighting
Video Quality
Background Too Busy
Not focusing well enough on the camera
Content Not Engaging
Structure not tight enough
Not connecting on a personal level
In other words, I did not have a handle on this at all.
I had to back up and try to acquire a set of skills I had neither wanted nor needed at any other point in my life. Honestly, I didn't even know what those skills were.
I did a few "shots across the bow" stories and uploaded them to youtube just to see if they worked.
Well, this looks...homemade.
Clearly, I needed to up my game, but how could I do that?
That's when I realized that despite all the time I'd spent in front of the camera producing subpar work those first few weeks, I was only at the tip of a very big, very intimidating iceberg.
I researched video editing
I researched lighting
I reached out to professional lighting designers
I researched video recording speeds
I researched how to deal with echo
I spoke with my friend, the talented and sexy Simon Brooks who helped me immensely - with recording
My son - Degrees in digital music and 3-D art and animation was a key player in the research!
All of this research resulted in several different outcomes:
1. I went from room to room and space to space in my home and listened for echoes and ambient sound.
The first best place was in my living room in a corner between the fireplace and a bookshelf that faced the downstairs hall. No wall to bounce the sound back, and lots of ambient light as long as I shot footage during the day at it wasn't raining.
2. I decided to get an external camera. I have an old Iphone and an even older laptop.
Webcams were out...not because I didn't try to source one, but because every single human being on the earth was smarter than I was and bought one the second the pandemic hit. There were none available.
After buying and returning a camcorder, I finally settled on this one.
3. I listened to what was coming out of the camera and decided I needed an external mic.
After acquiring my purchases, I discovered I needed a tripod. These were also in short supply, so I bought a selfie stick that doubles as a small tripod and I repurposed - wait for it - my ironing board.
I borrowed a really bright light from my daughter and bought two track lights at Lowes.
My totally professional and not jury-rigged setup looked like this.
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I got a horrid glare off of the picture behind me, so I took out the glass. It is a very nice, contained, non-echoey space with a simple background and nothing distracting.
All sorted, right?
No.
Not even close.
I had not yet begun to purchase!
My Macbook Pro, which had been a wonderful word processing machine and portable movie theatre for the last nine years discovered that I suddenly needed it to process video, upload, and download a ton of content, and talk to a video camera.
I can almost hear the thought process.
The Mac - "What the hell is wrong with you? You knew my memory and processing speed when you bought me! At no time in our relationship did I ever give you the idea that I was up to this sort of abuse. You better back up, woman!"
Wait! Wait! Wait!
I am not suggesting you go on a shopping spree! You don't need to do what I did at all!!!!!
1. I am explaining what happened to me.
2. I am explaining why I made the choices I did
3. I am not saying that if you don't drop 4 grand your quest is hopeless or anything of the kind
4. Lots of people are using their Iphones - I just have one that doesn't have a stellar camera
5. Lots of people have great lighting situations already - mine sucked
6. Lots of people have computers that could handle the processes - mine didn't
I am not a technophile, and mostly what I used my laptop for was writing. I have an amazingly huge amount of writing on my laptop and little else.
I was completely unprepared to be a virtual anything.
Now, if you do need some new equipment do not despair.
If you are having a cash crunch, there are tons of sources for cash out there right now for artists who need to upgrade their gear for this new age of virtual work. My buddy, Tim Lowry, (Head to his website and support his brilliant work) just went Mac crazy at his house with a PPP loan. (This program is closed, but keep a lookout for future programs of this kind)
The resources are there.
Okay, back to the saga of transforming my reality to a virtual experience.
Now, after purchasing a new Mac, transferring over relevant files, and commencing to store my videos on the drive, I discovered that if you try to put ten one-hour-long videos on a computer that is already storing lots of other things, it gets mad.
(I promise I will do a post about editing software and what little I know about how to work it.)
Then, there was the backdrop saga. (Blog post where I decide to upgrade the feel and look of my videos)
Now, all of this buying and rethinking happened in the first month of the lockdown as I realized I didn't have the capacity to go virtual in any way that looked professional.
The amount of failure that I experienced over the course of this summer was epic. Each and every single fail taught me something valuable that I was able to take into my next attempt.
As the Mythbusters were always fond of saying - Failure Is Always An Option.
So, wherever you are in this process...here is my advice for dealing with the absolutely annoying, frustrating, exciting, draining, nonsense up to and including listening to hours of your own voice and performing for a camera of some kind:
Some New Rules for Old Dogs
1. Be gentle
2. Be patient
3. You can always start over
4. Not everything works
5. Play - Play like there is no tomorrow
6. Victories whether large or small should be celebrated like the world is ending.
7. Breathe
8. Relax
9. Lather, rinse, repeat
Happy Recording -
In the next installment - I will talk about lighting
Par 3 - The Virtual Storyteller - Getting Equipped
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