Not Clickbait: Woman Cooks in Kitchen
The last few months have been the ultimate test of my patience. It seems like overcoming a hurdle means nothing, because there’s an infinite number of hurdles ahead. But, getting this Cooking Mama video out feels great- it’s the confidence boost I needed to keep it pushing.
Some of the hurdles I faced in this video revolved around technical issues, and the other hurdles were simply morale. To keep the technical blunders brief: I’m not feeling to confident about the audio in the ‘let’s play’ section of the video, where I sit down and crack open Cooking Mama for the first time in more than a decade. We have cycled through several different microphones and lavaliers for these portions of the videos, because it’s simply just too hard to match the microphone that I use in my regular setup! I toyed around with the audio for what felt like several days when making the final cut, and hopefully got it to a place where the audio shift isn’t too jarring. Regardless, it’s pretty jarring. So I’ll be purchasing yet another round of lavaliers and testing them over the next few weeks. I wish I had majored in video editing or audio or SOMETHING.
And finally, the video was ready to be uploaded. I exported the final project, uploaded it to the Youtube studio where I can view it privately before making it public- and yet another problem arises. While editing the project in Premiere, there are no random audio “pops” to be found. They simply don’t exist. So tell me WHY, upon exporting the video, do they frequently appear in seemingly random places in the final export?! This has been happening to me for months, and honestly, I will sometimes just export a video several times and pick the one with the least amount of “pops” because I have yet to find a solution for my problem. Others on the Adobe forum have expressed similar grievances, and I’ve done a fair bit of troubleshooting on my own, but GOD can anything just go right?! AGAIN, Why didn’t I major in video editing?
Otherwise, I feel like the video is great. If you guys end up telling me the audio in the ‘let’s play’ section sucks too bad, then I will remove it, but the video as a whole is something I am extremely proud of. I have my amazing co-editor, Lissa, helping me with research so that I can get videos out faster. We’re excited to crank out SEVERAL bangers over the next few months.
After working on this Cooking Mama project for several weeks, I got a little discouraged, because another Youtuber had posted their own video covering all of the Cooking Mama games right as we were finishing up my video. Now, I don’t know this Youtuber, we don’t run in the same orbit online, but I felt really bummed about it. Not only did this happen with this same Youtuber for Cooking Mama, but NINTENDOGS, too!
Don’t get me wrong, everyone and their mother has done videos on Cooking Mama and Nintendogs over the last 10 years, so it’s not like I feel defensive or anything. I just can’t get the fear out of my head that people who view both of our videos will compare them, because well, let’s be honest- they’re a really great Youtuber and both videos are releasing so close to each other. I’m sort of still getting my footing with crafting narratives and creating quality entertainment, so my insecurity has jumped out. I feel like people will understand that our videos are different- well, GOD, I HOPE they’re different! I didn’t watch their video. I wanted to avoid any potential plagiarism, so I avoided watching it while I was still writing and polishing mine. I planned on watching it before I put mine out just to be sure, but I thought I better not for my ego’s sake. If their video ended up being a trillion times better than mine, I would probably never post mine and hope people would forget about it. I’m just hoping they’re not too similar, but I’m sure you guys will tell me. I’m fairly confident that their video is an entirely different concept that suites their style more.
Regardless, no beef or anything, oh GOD please don’t think that I have beef with anybody. It was just a wrench in my creative process that has nothing to do with this person as an individual. There’s space for everybody on Youtube, which is something I have to tell myself anytime something like this happens. Gotta keep my insecurities in check and focus on the next video: the Mama spinoffs.
Alright, let’s get a little personal. I have been juggling a lot in my personal life lately. My grandpa passed away in early July, which has been really tough on my family. I was able to make it out to go see him one more time, and he passed while I was there in Arizona. This side of the family has had it really rough over the last few years. My grandpa passed in July, and before that, his two sons, my uncle and my dad, had both passed in the last 2-ish years. I haven’t even really begun to unpack all of that. My heart aches for him and my grandma, regardless of how strained my relationship with them has been since my dad passed.
Family’s complicated, though, right? Everyone’s got their own fucked up and weird situation. I tend to throw myself into my videos when I’m going through stuff, because it’s easier than succumbing to the anger and sadness of it all. Just a few days before the Cooking Mama video went up, I had finished the funeral booklet and memorial video for my grandpa’s service, so I had a pretty full plate. I’ve gotten to do this for everyone’s funeral, because honestly, if I didn’t do this stuff myself, it wouldn’t be done right. And no one else in my family knows how to do anything on the computer, so it’s kinda up to me to do all of this stuff to make the services nice. I’m a control freak even outside of work, Jesus Christ.
I’m just hoping that after this month, I can enjoy what’s left of summer and really just go back to my video work full force. I’ve only been to the beach once this whole summer. Such a shame, I live way too close to the beach to not be visiting more. I’m just feeling really positive after this crazy ass month, and I’m ready to carry this momentum through the rest of the year.
