The End of My First Video Recording Adventure!

This weekend, I sat down to record the video for the collaboration I mentioned last week.  It bwas quite an interesting experience, and I really wanted to talk about it so here we go!

 

First and foremost, I just want to say it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  I think I mentioned that before, but after actually  doing it I just want to reiterate how very, very simple it is haha.  Like, I had to ask for some help from my Mom (which is something I don’t like doing but that’s more because of my personal dumb hangups about asking for help) and she did my makeup, helped me position the camera, and I did all the recordings on Saturday night.  And, it was surprisingly easy!  At first I was really nervous, because I was just really focused on the fact that I was filming myself, but after a few botched takes, I realized it was no different than when I record my audio:  Start the instrumental, start singing, stop recording after the instrumental had played out.  Only difference was, I was on camera doing it, instead of in front of my mic.
So then I went to trim the video footage, which wasn’t really hard either.  Of course, I showed it to some friends, and my Mom before sending it to my collaborator and unfortunately my Mom thought my mouth was way too open (like, seeing my tonsils and stuff open) so I redid it on Sunday.  To be honest, I…don’t quite see why showing that much of your mouth would be such a big deal while singing because you know, you’re singing, but I figure since I was going to be on another person’s channel, I would redo the footage with my mouth looking “normal”.  It was more practice for recording video anyway, so it only irritated me for a little while.  I just had to put into my head “My Mom is just doing what she thinks will show the best side of me, so whatever I’ll roll with it” and instead of usually being uber annoyed for the rest of the day, I asked her for recording tips, we adjusted the camera accordingly after each take, and after we got everything well situated, I re-uploaded the files and sent them on their way.

 

So yeah, it was waaay easier than I thought it would be!  A lot of it is tedious, more than anything, but that’s dealable and now I know that when I record video of me singing that I’m going to just mute and sinc up with audio, I don’t have to sing the way I would while recording.  You don’t need to get the best sound, you just need to get a good take of video footage to use.  I’d like to work more on facial expressions while singing, so I think I am going to do so with my covers/arrangements I post on YouTube from now on (unless I really want to have an animated video or something lol).  Granted, in this session I was just doing a ton of “Ahs” so there isn’t really much to be done for emoting or facial expressions, but something I need to practice for other songs.  I think putting myself out there, both with audio and video is going to help me grow as an artist, because after doing this video recording session, I felt exhausted in that “Oh yeah I accomplished something it’s going to be great but now time to chill” way.  And, I got tons of ideas for shooting video footage, just in my house and on my patio!  Now to buy some instruments already…

 

So, that is the end of my heralding first video filming session specifically for YouTube.  Was super fun, and learned a lot of stuff!  Can’t wait to post more videos, and show you guys this collab when it’s finished!