VLOG season 2, sad progress report

As it turns out, I really did do it all over again. Including the part where I don’t really publish anything even though I really wanted to.

So far, I’ve scripted, filmed, edited and uploaded three whole episodes for the second season of the VLOG. The first episode is about the whys of the season, second more about general background about me, with the third episode finally talking more about the game project this season is to be about.

I’ve been quite satisfied with where the videos have been heading, but that’s also the problem. They are not there, yet. They are mostly just fluff, without proper content that would be useful in a broader sense.

What I would have liked to show is me building cool things, while making insightful commentary. To make matters worse, I have built cool things and thought a lot of insightful thoughts. But I’ve done it off-camera.

First: I don’t know how to efficiently present things afterwards. All those previous episodes required writing a script – a task which takes a considerable amount of time to reach the quality I’m satisfied with, and then some extra time to edit it together. I am rather awkward when I try to present things unprepared, plus it makes the editing process much more tedious.

Second: I haven’t been able to find the right mind for doing things live. Most of the time I struggle to find the energy to focus and do things. I’d rather just code in short bursts and then recharge. Or at least have the ability to do so. Sure, I may have pulled “all-dayers” all through last week coding IoT things. But if I set up the camera, I feel pressured to produce value, and be energetic in commenting the stuff I do, all the while also looking presentable. That’s a lot of extra to ask, and I just haven’t been able to do it. But I’d really like to. I even tried to make the live coding editing easier by introducing a recording pedal (tested with my recent Minecraft videos), but it’s of no use when I can’t even start due to the reasons above. (Plus, the project is so very overwhelmingly ambitious…)

So now instead of coding and providing quality content, I don’t produce anything, and feel really bad when coding things off-camera. It was supposed to be the polar opposite!

I’m sad and depressed, and I don’t know how to proceed.

VLOG season 2

OMG. I did it! …again?

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I have a VLOG in finnish. A few years ago, I shot and edited eight episodes of me talking about what I’ve been doing, or what I’ve been cooking. I also made one special episode about some low-level serverless technology alternatives with C# and dynamic code compilation and execution, including syntax tree editing. I didn’t dare to publish any of these, but they exist.

Now I’ve began the second season, with more focus on technology. Perhaps gamedev. And this time it might just be good enough for public release! The format itself is still subject to evolution, but the two episodes I’ve so far completed serve as an introduction to the series and the reasons behind its existence.

Though, truth be told the first episode isn’t that good, and made me hesitate on the whole thing. Ultimately, I decided that I’d shoot an episode or two more, and if they are good enough, they could perhaps redeem the farce that is the first episode. I think it would be quite bad if the only episode available was the first one, and it was unbearable to watch. But if there’d also be some better episodes immediately available, the viewer could perhaps skip the first one and, and decide to like the series based on those later episodes :3

I’m now at the point where I have one better episode ready. Although even that starts a bit weary. But it gets better! Content-wise I’m still debating. So far, the series has been only about me, and isn’t really useful for anyone ­– unless they just want to get to know me better. That would be perfectly fine if I had a fanbase, but the case is completely the opposite, so I’m not sure why I’m bothering with this. But, as said, at least the episodes still have the purpose of laying the foundations for the episodes to follow, should someone want to invest (more of) their time in all this right now, or at a later date.

I’m also still not sure of the best way to present the auxiliary information about each episode. Not that anyone would really care. First of all, I have a short description of each video in YouTube’s video description field. That is fine. But I also have some ‘technical’ notes about the video there just in case; perhaps to deter some obvious commenters. Much of these notes are also duplicated on my own website, but not all. And vice-versa the site contains some notes not on the video description. I’d like to unify these somehow. I’d like to have as much information on my own site as possible, yet I feel like there should also be some on the video description for those obvious cases. But maintaining these two in sync is a pain, and they have each have their own purposes :( So what do?

But, anyway. Here’s the page for the new season. It goes a bit more in depth into the production of individual episodes. There's also the near-complete script available for each video if you just want a quick overview of the stuff. Then there's also those video links. Videos themselves are still unlisted, but the links are there D: