Be the change you want to see in the world

So I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not the most energetic person and most of the time I am pretty lazy. Still there are some things that I'm very passionate about and for them I don't care how much work I have to do. One I have already presented you quite some time, its writing. To be published in some way is one of the main goals of my life, but there is also another one and this will be our topic today.

I told you I was making a video and as a matter of fact I managed to do so last weekend. I haven't worked on one in more than half a year, and even though I kind of missed it in general, this video had a purpose and there is a reason why I made it now and not a week later. 

Last year when I was still barely new to the whole YouTube world I read some tweets about a project called P4A, which stands for project for awesome. As a curious person with way too much time on my hand I clicked on one of the links that lead me to a live stream of this project. Basically we are talking of a YouTube based charity were every person that submits a video about their favourite charity has the chance of getting it streamed worldwide to all the people watching and thus promote the organisation they have picked.

I genuinely enjoyed myself last year while watching it and I made the decision then and there that next year I would participate with my favourite charity. So December came and I realized that it I was supposed to be revising and studying then, not making a video. I still secretly played with the idea and when I couldn't sleep last week I decided to just start writing what I wanted to say. After all I take pride in at least doing what I promised myself. I knew that it wasn't going to be hilarious or well scripted or anything, but as much as would've loved to make it brilliant, I couldn't do it in the time given. Also in my opinion it's great if someone has the talent to be witty just like that, but in this situation cause over creativity I'd say.

But what did I talk about? I choose the one charity that every person that knows me a little better has already heard of, because I love talking about it. It's the A21 campaign. Their goal is it to abolish modern day slavery and end human trafficking. Since I was fourteen or fifteen I had this idea in my head that I wanted to help females who became prostitutes if they wanted to get out of the business, no matter why it happened or where they are from. It was something that I carried along with me for some years and when I heard of this campaign my heart started beating very heavy in my chest. That was the summer a year ago. Ever since I've been trying my best to talk about it, and just spread the awareness. One day I will achieve my goal to work either with them or with a similar organisation, I will do my best for it.

If you are interested in the video, it is on the end of the post. I really need a microphone though because filming with my laptop on my legs that records every movement of my feet is not helping the quality at all. 
So now you know what I've been up to. Let me tell you, even though it was stressful once again I just love being active on the internet, writing posts, tweeting, facebook stalking, and making videos. 

Oh and if I'm not able to write again before Christmas: Merry Christmas and thanks a lot for reading my blog, I appreciate it a lot :D

Cheerio.

PS: I might just make my P4A video in October next year, just so it doesn't stand in the way of NaNo and my exams...

PPS:  The webside of the P4A for more information: http://www.projectforawesome.com/
The webside of the A21 campaign: http://www.thea21campaign.org/

As it seems YouTube did a thing...

Yes, as of the day before yesterday, there now is a regional YouTube page for Switzerland, meaning there is the address youtube.ch. When I first heard of that I wasn't that impressed as I thought it was nothing spectacular, but a friend of mine changed my point of view a bit. This post will explain at some point how YouTube works, at least what I understood so far.

As you might or might not know, I've fallen in love with YouTube lately. I did two videos, the third is in the process of being done (I need to refilm it as I hate what I did...), but to this point I'm rather consuming than producing. When said friend announced on twitter that it's now easier to become a YouTube partner and that at some point we might even get a creator space, I started to realize what that really meant for the local YouTube Community. So at first let me explain you those two things, "YouTube Partner" and "Creator Space"

There is a thing called the partner program, I don't know the Swiss rules yet, but in the UK you need to have 10'000 subscriber and you can get into that program. It includes some perks like getting money from your video's ads and the possibility to go to the creator space

The creator space is literally one of the coolest things ever. The first was opened in London, there are two in the USA and one opens in Tokyo really soon, at least as far as I know. It's a place where YouTube partners can hang out, film collabs and even get professional help on their work. Also there aspiring but not so famous creators get teachings on how to improve their content. So if we'd get one of those, it would be a huge chance for the Swiss YouTube community.

I can see a problem there though. When I asked my twitter friend how many Swiss vloggers, or youtubers at all, she knew, she had admitted that she knew none, just like me. Where are all the creators here? I'm sure they're out there, not yet known. So maybe this whole YouTube thing gives us a voice. Maybe my friend will start producing stuff, maybe I will, and of course others are already doing great stuff. Let's see what we get out of this. I've heard that it might be a chance for musicians, but I'd really like to see about sketch makers and vloggers, maybe some make-up gurus too.

I still continued to make a little research and found a Swiss vlogger. The thing is her videos are German, and I'm not sure about how I like that, I mean it wasn’t „originally Swiss“, as it wasn’t swiss-german, but it wasn’t as international as it could’ve been if she used English. There are good German youtubers out there, and I don’t want to limit their success, but I enjoy the English language way too much. Maybe I'll do a post about the whole language topic another time, but let's end this here.

the "joys" of being a youtuber

So yes, this is about me making a YouTube video. If you are not interested in these things at all, you might skip this post. Also it might become quite long as I spent the last two weeks working at this project. You'll find the video at the end of this post if you are interested, feel free to watch it.

First I want to explain why I did it. Usually to start something I need to be challenged, as having a goal is essentially to me. When kickthepj uploaded his draw my life an announced that he'd be giving away his notebook he drew in I knew that I should at least give it a try. This decision was followed by many second thoughts about my accent, and especially the fact that I don't enjoy drawing a lot. In the end I thought I might as well give it a go, as I still wanted to do it somehow.

I then started planning. First I watched various videos of other youtuber, until I felt comfortable enough by the fact that most of them weren't very well drawn either. I figured that the best way to get a video in the end was to record my voice first, edit that and then draw whatever I thought suited the text. In the end I'd cut the filmed drawings that they matched the voiceover.

I can't tell you how difficult it was to reduce my life to a vlog length video. Six minutes may appear long for a YouTube video, but it is really short for nineteen years worth of content. I wrote various attempts, some were really funny, others were just terrible, but in the end they all didn't work out. I somehow couldn't fit it all in chronologically and still make sense, so I decided to divide my life into segments. I wasn't pefectly happy with the final result, but it was ok.

The next thing I had to do was recording it. I wanted to use a little microphone I own, but when I tried it out it didn't work, so I had to record it with the intern microphone of my laptop. I'm therefore sorry for the quality. When I listened to my own voice my disappointment was big . I could hear all the background noises and my accent just sounded terrible, and eventually I found mistakes in the voiceover I worked on for about six hours. I was about to delete it all, but I already told my friend about it and she wanted to help me do the drawings the next day, so I just had to work on. Another thing I had to do was finding music I was allowed to use for the background, as I didn't want my voice to stand alone. Check the video description if you are interested in the side I used, it's really good and of course, it's free. Another thing I can recomend is the audacity for sound editing. I've used it before when I tried to sing a cover of a song and it's quite easy to understand. Have a picture :D

 Looking for a free audio program? Audacity I'd say

Filming the next day was chaotic. At first the lightning was terrible (it's still not great, but we improved, trust me). We had to move my friends’ family dining table in order to fix that problem. Then we had to set up the whiteboard somehow, and place the camera somewhere so that I could still draw on the board. We decided that it was best to put the tripod in front of me, between my legs in order to get the best possible shot.  I used her dad's camera which is really good one, but at some point it run out of battery and we had to recharge it. Of course that delayed our work even more. At the end it took us about 7,5 hours to film those six minutes. Oh and yes, if you wonder why the camera is so shaky, even though we used a tripod? I kept hitting this thing with my arms whenever I grabbed a new marker, because that's how I roll.

look, it's a work space

In the evening of the same day I got home and thought to myself that  could just start editing. I had checked the internet for a free program and basically all I found was that windows movie maker was the best solution. Of course when I tried to open the videos with it, it didn't work due to it not recognizing the .mov files. Once again I was really frustrated. I downloaded another free program, which I didn't understand at all. Then I tried another one, but my laptop, which isn't the youngest anymore, could not use it. In the end I spent solid three hours from midnight to 3 am, downloading a free thirty days trial of software called Pinnacle Studio 16. I decided to use the time it took my computer to download the program to make a little Logo, which you might glance at the end of the video. It's really simple but I felt like I wanted to have one that really rempresents me, so it's all fine.

I started editing the next day. At first I felt like a monkey in front of a keyboard, I had no idea how to speed up the single parts, how to shorten the clips and how to edit at all. With the help of the manual and online tutorials I found out what I was supposed to do and eventually I started to really enjoy it. Of course my laptop rebelled against it and decided to become a heater, it even kept freezing every half an hour, but luckily it never crushed.

How video editing looks like (for me)

I was fascinated how each single part got together, I even felt a little proud on myself. It didn't fit perfect everywhere, but now I can watch a video I made more or less all by myself. Of course the quality is still not the best, but at least I tried, and trust me, I tried hard. I've spent about 25 h of work into this little thing, and looking back I'm glad I did it, challenge accepted and fulfilled.
Why do I even care to share this on my blog? I've once checked the entries to this little competition and I've seen several people having "this is my first video" in their title. At first I wanted to do that too, to get attenuating circumstances, but eventually I decided against that. Yes, this was my first ever attempt to make a video, I've never really been involved with such things, but I don't want anybody's pity. Nobody forced me to try it, nobody told me to upload anything, it was my decision and as I said, I'm still proud of it, so I shouldn't try to be overly humble about it. I was proud enough to upload it on YouTube and to enter in a competition, so I should stand behind my work.

So this was it, my experience in doing a little filmmaking. I'm sorry if I was ever annoyed towards any youtubers for not finishing a video in time. I've learned my lesson. If you are interested in more details, or if you have a question, my comment section is open. Who knows, this might not have been my last video after all. Thanks for reading

Cheerio.