Video Experiment #2

One main reason I have avoided doing video to this point is I suspect the amount of effort required to produce minimally acceptable video content is much higher than what is required to produce minimally acceptable audio content. The phrase "minimally acceptable" here is purely subjective and that judgement lies with me. I try to avoid doing anything that I do not think meets my minimal standards of acceptability. For example, in the case of the podcast, the quality should be good enough for the listener to be able to hear everything, and not be distracted by random sounds. Nothing worse than listening to a show with dogs barking in the background or the audio cutting in and out, so I make sure to avoid that stuff. At the same time, podcasts should not be over-produced as I think they lose their authenticity. Too good and they sound fake to me.Video is a different animal. If I am going to watch even a short video, I want to be able to see everything clearly like I would with a professionally produced video. It is what I am used to and what I assume most people are used to expecting. That does not mean movie quality, but the expectations are higher than with a podcast. The video and audio should be close to the professional level and that means more effort to produce them.What I have found with video is you need more prep time to do a video than to do an audio show because of the limits of editing. When recording the podcast, I often talk myself into a dead end and then stop, go back to some convenient restarting point, cut out the jibber-jabber and continue recording from there. Once in a while you can probably tell I clipped a section here or there, but it is never very obvious.With video, this is not easy. For starters, the video editing software is all bloatware so doing simple tasks is a chore. Cutting and splicing video is also far more difficult because it is so much easier to see the edits. Then you have the issue of matching the audio to the video if you are shooting video of yourself talking about what you are seeing. Video editing comes with many more hurdles than audio editing.Probably the biggest challenge for me is the language. I still only know about ten percent of the lingo used in audio editing. I have had no reason to learn what a Reverse High Filter EQ Back Straddle Twist edit does. There is no need for me to know this stuff as I am not producing classical music tracks. I just need to filter out ambient noises, my "ums and uhs", and the occasional bellowing of Devil Cat.With video, there is a whole new language and none of it makes much sense to me. For example, the simple act of shrinking a video by a few seconds so that it goes from ten minutes and ten seconds to exactly ten minutes apparently requires a trip to Mordor to fetch a special ring of power. Video editing is a jobs program and as such the video editing guild has made it as opaque as humanly possible with esoteric language.Anyway, the plan is to entertain myself learning this stuff until I either reach the minimally acceptable level or I find a new hobby. I have recently discovered the world of LED track lighting, which is something I plan to use in the basement project. It comes with lots of fiddly gadgets and the chance to electrocute myself. Maybe I can combine video editing with the art of dodging stray electrons while wiring up LED lighting.

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