Video killed the radio star...

So, somehow, my maidensuit YouTube account -- which I created just to upload a couple of videos back in '10 about the horrendous hair my Very Vicky and Vinter Arden had out of box -- has gained a lot of subscribers. ("A lot" for me is 86.  I mean, for a channel I put zero time/investment into, a channel that is just a dumping ground for a few randomly-uploaded Blythe-related videos, that strikes me as a lot.) The video where I deboxed Petaline has almost 20k views.

Putting together videos has been a longtime hobby for me. I know, I have a lot of hobbies. I've had another YouTube channel for a while so I've gotten to watch numbers rise, sometimes seemingly randomly, on some of my video projects that I put actual hours of editing effort into... so it's a surprise to me that the handful of Blythe-related videos I've made, which usually don't take me any effort and consist of low-quality footage pumped out through the joke of a program that is Windows Movie Maker Live, have found an audience.

I've gotten comments along the lines of, "Are you doing another deboxing video soon?" And some requests for me to "review" my dolls, which I have to admit, even as a consumer of beauty review videos, I don't totally understand. I just assume they mean to do a video showing which dolls I have. And I think that sounds fun.

Someone asked me to do an "outfit collection" video, so, thinking dubiously of my ginormous box of dresses, I was like, "Well... I have no idea how to even go about that... but... I do like making Blythe videos... so I'll try to make it happen."

A frustrating couple of months then passed! I tried to consider the best way to do it, with my limited knowledge and equipment. The point-and-shoot camera I've filmed all my other little videos with is on its last legs; its battery doesn't last very long, and its quality is not really great anyway. I don't have a smart phone, which I think a lot of people film YouTube content with. I'm shy, so I didn't want to film anywhere except in the privacy of my bedroom, but I don't have any natural light at my disposal, so I had to find a way to light the video. My laptop's webcam doesn't show anything true to color. I decided to use my Canon. It takes super-HD footage!

I filmed it three completely separate times.  It was this hours-long to-do each time, between filming and I suppose what you could consider pre-production... and post-production, checking out/messing with the footage. I had so many technical difficulties in pulling it all together, it would be like writing a novel to go into them all!

While I am moderately familiar with encoding and transcoding and quirks of the job such as the excruciatingly long time it can take to render and export videos (even when they are only 3-5 minutes in length!), I was just in for a whole new experience in filming a subject, myself, even slightly properly -- with lighting and the like -- and working with this kind of footage with a computer as slow as mine.



After a frankly ridiculous amount of research and work and waiting, my final product got uploaded to YouTube today!

I feel accomplished for getting it off my plate, but at the moment, not very happy with it. I'm a bit weary and wary, both. This was a ton of work! More work than such a thing warranted. It did provide me with a reason to begin learning the ropes of working with my camera's video footage. Gaining experience is a huge plus, so I'm just going to try and focus on the positive, even if I honestly feel rather negative and exhausted by this thing. I'm going to try and focus on the fact that I created something!

I still would like to do more (shorter) Blythe videos, and keep improving.