Collegiettes, most of us have favorite YouTubers that we like to watch on a pretty regular basis, and some of them probably vlog (shortened version of video + blogging) their weekly/daily lives.
I don’t know about you, but I love to watch them. From the outside it looks like a pretty easy task; film your day, edit out the parts you don’t want on the internet, and post. So I decided to give it shot.
Here are 4 things I learned about myself and YouTube/YouTubers after I tried to vlog a day in my life.
1. Filming in public is scary
Everyone looks at you weird when you pull out your phone in public and start talking to your camera about what you’re doing. Most YouTubers have been doing this awhile and/or live in LA where the residents are probably used to seeing cameras on every street corner, but here in my small town, I might as well had another head on my shoulder based on the looks I was getting.
Yes, I am narrating my life to a camera. No, you do not need to stare at me to make this even more awkward than it already is.
2. Good lighting is hard to find
Okay so I already knew this from my various (failed) attempts to take the perfect selfie to post on Instagram, but with videos, the perfect lighting becomes even more crucial. I don’t know about you, but I am not going to sit around and watch a ten minute long vlog where I can’t even see the person who is talking to me. I had to cut out so much footage and get up to move so many times just to talk to the camera that at one point I just gave up on what I was trying to film and said I would get back to it later.
If your lighting is bad you might as well just give up right now…
3. Editing is not an easy process
By the end of the day I had an hour’s worth of film and it took me nearly two hours to get my video down to under fifteen minutes without the whole thing feeling choppy. YouTubers who do this for a living truly have to have a type of patience that allows you to sit at a computer for hours hearing your voice on loop until you finally get your perfect masterpiece. I don’t know if I am cut out for that!
An accurate description of how I felt once I had spent an hour hunched over my laptop trying to edit this video.
4. I really like vlogging
Okay, so despite the hassle it can be to get good quality film, vlogging is actually a pretty fun activity to do and its super useful for if you want to document your life to look back on in the future. I am so excited to do this more often and have something to share with my friends and family who don’t live close to me so they don’t feel like they are missing out on my life!
How I’m about to look walking around town talking and smiling to my camera. (Also… Obama needs to vlog his life now… just saying.)