Otakon Vlog Reflections

My photography teacher is always telling us to write reflections about how our assignments turned out so we can figure out where we went wrong and how we might be able to fix it in the future. As I'm going through and finishing the last half of my Otakon 2013 vlogs, I'm noticing some problems, and I figured I could talk about it! I'm at a loss for what to blog about right now.

I recorded my Otakon videos with a new camcorder I had bought this spring. I had recorded my Katsucon videos with my digital camera, but I wanted something that would take "better" video, as well as avoid having to switch between the photo / video options. Unfortunately, the camcorder is bulkier than my digital camera, and because of that I didn't use it as much as I probably would have with the digital camera. I'm still trying to find settings on the camcorder that work for me, but as of right now I haven't found how to make the quality better without making everything on my computer run slow while trying to use that footage.

It was also harder to get things in the frame while recording with the camcorder. It had a hand strap, but that made it hard to turn the camera around to my face. The camcorder is also heavier than the digital camera so I had trouble holding it up high enough while I was recording. I ended up cutting off my friends' faces a lot...

My camcorder does have a better zoom to it and doesn't have dust in the lens (as of yet) like my digital camera does. It can also take pictures while you're recording, and often takes them automatically every few minutes, though those usually aren't the best. (All of them somehow made us look bad ...)

This point isn't related to the camera issue, but with time management of sorts. I didn't really vlog while we were doing things. A majority of the video I have is while we're sitting down and resting between going to panels or Artist Alley / Dealer's and photoshoots. I'm not sure how much of this could be avoided, because I know at least Anime USA had a policy against photo / video recording in their Dealer's Hall last year. I'll have to look into that for Katsucon.

So, ways that I can improve for Katsucon 2014:

• Aim -- getting everything in the shot is good
• Vlogging more -- hopefully not just when we're sitting down and resting. I'd love to get more "action" video, or at least give a recap of what I did. 
• Content -- more talking! I need to get better at talking while I'm vlogging. 

Of course, I'll probably come up with more later, especially as it gets closer to Valentine's weekend. I'm already excited for Katsucon and it's still about two months off! I'm not sure how I'm going to bide my time until then. 

5.21 updates

I had a few posts planned out in my head, and of course I totally forgot them by the time I sat down to actually write them. Go figure. So I'm just going to talk about a few things that are on my mind and hope that suffices.

So within the past week or so, I've recorded a lot of video. About two hours based on my really rough calculation. Theoretically good, right? I have stuff to put into videos and make them interesting. But all this video is bothering me and is more of a hindrance than anything. I use my vlogs as a way to remember things, but since I'm posting them on YouTube I also want them to be interesting. And I try to trim them down in order to keep my own attention, since I tend to have a hard time re-watching my own videos during the editing process. The problem is finding the line between keeping things interesting and making the video really disjointed in order to get it to a reasonable time. I'm afraid of making things confusing by cutting out parts of conversations, but they're also not all that interesting to watch... So yeah big dilemma there.

Saturday, Chris and I went on a "hike" in a nearby ... park? Nature reserve? Big wooded area with trails. I took over an hour of video, keeping the camera running almost the entire time we were in the woods. Mainly because I was scared of what would happen if I turned it off. (I do not like being that isolated, and there were deer and probably tons of other animals out there.) But how do I cut that down to something anybody can sit through? That's a lot. ＿ﾉ乙(､ﾝ､)_     And I don't look all that good in some of the video I recorded on Sunday, so I'm cutting that part out too. If I can ever cut last Tuesday's video to under five minutes.
--> TL; DR The more video I have to edit into vlogs, the less I want to do any of it.

On another note, I also decided on a Chimecho gijinka for Otakon. It might be a little difficult (and kind of expensive, considering) but I'm excited for it because Chimecho is one of my favorite pokemon and is an essential on my team in two games.

School ends in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to the summer. I'm still hoping to do the "no Internet for (x amount of time)" project, and also doing vlogs where I sit down with a non-moving camera and talk at it about whatever topic I can find. Easier to edit because background isn't moving. And also I'm going to find a way to sell most of my manga, trade them with someone, or stick them in a tumblr giveaway. Because I could really use the shelf space for something more useful. Like my growing collection of Happy Meal toys.