As you might have noticed, I’ve been dabbling in vlogs and video essays lately. Don’t worry about breaking the news to me—I’m aware that they’re not that great. I don’t think it’ll ever be my medium the way writing is. I have to script a video to be happy with it, I’m not an engaging screen presence, and I’m so out of my depths with editing. I’m still a writer, through and through.
I have been learning certain things about myself. Like how when I’m talking, I’ll often drop articles, or alternate between past and present tense, or just use the wrong words like it’s nothing.
But for various reasons, I do want to become more familiar with the process, and for certain topics, a video—if I can manage not to fail at the performance and editing part—does land with more potential impact than words on a screen.
At the same time, my flatmate Edith is a YouTuber—she’s just starting out, but takes it very seriously.
So when we decided to go hike Mt. Kawanori together back in the beginning of May, I suggested we vlog it.
We decided to alternate whose channels we’d post hikes to, and played rock-paper-scissors to decide who’d start out. I only “won” by a technicality, since we didn’t realize that we each play it differently, and after a few failed attempts Edith decided that my technical win was still a win.
In trying to pare down the video to 10mins, I realized that mostly I just wanted to keep in the interplay between me and Edith.
That’s how I am in my stories, too—dialogue and relationship dynamics all the way. Scenery? Pfft.
Yes, it’s there, especially in These Lies—it had to be. But there are still scenes where I feel the clunkiness. I find pleasure in hearing and touch and imagination; not so much in visuals. So when I write a character admiring scenery, no matter how hard I try, I inevitably feel like it’s not good enough.
So in the end, even though it was a vlog, it turned mostly into us talking. This isn’t bad, per se, but I don’t have the editing skills to back up this creative decision. So it just comes off as a video of two people talking about a hike while they hike, interspersed with miserly glimpses of scenery.
I even cut out most of the information about the hike.
We’re not explaining things very well, I thought when I was rewatching the parts of the video where Edith and I explained things. It would be much better if I write this all out. I think I’ll just write a blog post to accompany the vlog, with all the information.
I finished and uploaded the video, and started this blog post while I waited for it to upload, so that I could cross-link the two.
It was only after it was all done, and I went to sleep and got up this morning and looked at it again that I realized—the blog post with the vlog embedded in it works so, so much better than the vlog alone linking to the blog.
Oh well. You live and you learn. But next time, I’m thinking that this will be the intended format.
And hopefully, in time, my editing skills will improve, as well.