Week 5: Baby's First YouTube Video, Burnout

My work week started early; I spent a few hours on Sunday having a huge workshop tidy, in preparation for hopefully getting in some new equipment.

I'm trying to do so many new things at the moment, and of course everything takes longer than I expect. I spent a bit of Monday catching up, and actually completed that big rainbow book from the other week.
While it was close enough to the end to take photos, I still needed to infill the covers: wrapping the leather around the boards leaves a gap in the centre, which I fill with several layers of carefully cut paper. This provides a flat surface to which I can then glue the bound pages into.

So, while I might have been able to take this photo with the pages slipped loosely into place...

 ...I wasn't able to film the final shots for the build video (embedded at the beginning of this post because apparently I can only upload one video file per patreon post and right now I'm too lazy to find a gif conversion).

So I got that done, and finished off some other video edits.

I found some more markets to apply to, some further afield than I would like, but frankly I think I need to make bigger steps with my business, and I'll never know if it's worth the combined table, travel, and potentially hotel costs, if I don't give it a go!

I finished my third earring design, and did the photos and shop listing for those.

I also tried to film myself wearing each of the designs, for a quick bit of content. Except that turned out not to be so quick either, due to a mix of insecurity about my appearance, and inexperience with the subject matter.

The former had me dressing up and even trying to apply makeup, which is something I've done about four times in the last twelve years, I think. You have to look good, so that people will want to look like you, and buy your stuff, right? That's what models are for, and that's why the photo above includes eyeliner. And the latter just meant that I failed to get the earrings still and centred for long enough in most shots.

After an hour or two, it felt like I had something decent, but when I came to review the footage later in the week, I realised that in many shots the earrings are lost amongst the busy shelving in the background of my workshop. I forgot that, with all the new tripods and things, I'm no longer chained to filming at my workbench. So I'm probably going to re-shoot all that footage in my living room where I have a nice blank white wall to model against.

Wednesday was a break day; my long-distance partner was heading home, so we spent our morning enjoying each other's company while we could. I accompanied her to the airport and took the rest of the day for myself.

I had recently gotten a custom order for a pair of Bolo Ties, and thought they'd be a good, simple build with which to start my YouTube journey. I knew that it would take me a lot longer to make when filming, especially when working with a new camera, so I planned to spend my entire Thursday & Friday just making that video. I'm trying to learn more about manual focus, shutter speeds, etc. though I think I probably didn't get everything right and still had some settings running on auto.

I did get the hang of setting up manual focus for awkward shots. When I initially set up the camera, I followed the advice of another YTer, but it quickly became apparent that his Function Menu and Shortcuts setup weren't appropriate for me. So it felt good to be customising those for my own uses as I worked on the Bolo video.

I finished filming on Friday, but didn't have enough time for video edits. I did find some good free software to use, and get everything transferred to my PC. I've got over 200 clips totalling 60GB of 4K footage to sort through and edit down! A daunting task, to be sure.

I tried to do the voiceover as I was filming, but in the end decided that, for many clips, it would be best to record the sound later, to make it easier to cut things around. So there's still a LOT of work to do.

Apologies for this summary post being late; I think I finally need to admit to myself that I'm burnt out. My life has gone through a lot of changes recently, in good ways and bad ways, and some really disruptive ways. I started writing some stuff out but it quickly became long enough to require its own post.

I feel like my business is starting to flounder, and I've been wanting to try a dozen different things to support it. This is one of them, as is YouTube. I'm not expecting anything to be a quick solution, of course. The point of trying is just to see how much effort it will take, and whether I can keep up with it. But, each thing also takes time in which I can't be making stock, which is another source of stress.

I'm dreading my Mondays, and the beginning of a new work week, so I'm starting to look into options for part time employment. Hopefully if I can guarantee my rent each month, I can relax a little bit and find the enjoyment in my craft again.