Look, I'll be the first to admit that sitting and watching an hour-long YouTube video is a little bit of a stretch for anybody. Even though, when you think about it, we happily sit in front of both our televisions and computers for longer periods of time AND the distinction between computer and TV continues to grow ever more vague. But an hour-long YouTube show that's kind of a talk show and kind of a vlog and kind of a variety show? Well, okay, if you're anything like me, sitting down and watching this video actually isn't hard at all. Probably because MAKING the video wasn't hard. Editing it was -- okay -- a little challenging, but I've never been so happy to put forth such an effort. It should go without saying that this episode of the VAL is a model for an upcoming show .... a damn successful model, if I do say so myself. I've long wanted to be able to execute a production with various segments, and I think the way we "grew into" the segments on the Vlog-A-Log was a pretty good way to do it. I did record a huge amount of footage, both for the main segments and with Billo. For those who are interested, I'll be posting Billo's extended chat (a whopping hour in and of itself) early next month, but it is looking like this is the last episode of the Vlog-A-Log. For everyone who's watched the video, saw the last few minutes, freaked out and demanded more info, here you go: starting in January, we will producing a more razzle-dazzle version of what you see above and it will be called "The Horbawrong Show". That's all you get for now. Stay tuned and stay creative! I took a break from TheRagingBeaverCo's epic library in order to focus on the gentleman I intended to start with: Angrypunkbronxkid. And again, the point of this little project of mine is to go through and watch all of my friends' videos. 100% of them. When I come across a video that is flat-out spectacular, I will blog about. In a somewhat fortunate (for me) turn of events, Billo cleaned up his channel a short while ago, removing what I assume was a lion's share of his videos. Of the 38 remaining videos, the two main highlights are his internet show "Dear Vloggity" and "Critical Times". After plowing through his earlier work (NINJA BEAR! HE'S A NIN-JA BEAR!) I settled in to re-watch Billo's freshman internet show, "Dear Vloggity". The show spans 11 episodes and it's abrupt ending may or may not be continued at some much later date. As with most all of Billo's work, conceptually it's really great. Execution, on the other hand, doesn't always do the concept justice. Again, considering that this is Billo's freshman effort, most of the niggling complaints are more than forgivable. The important thing, above all, is that "Dear Vloggity" is actually enjoyable. The concept, as established in the title and the pilot episode, is that the character of Billo is telling the story of his life by way of vlogging on the internet. To make this work in all the ways that talking to a webcam doesn't, Billo setup the pilot episode a vlog, but then relegated the "vlogging" to narration as he proceeded to show us what he was talking about. Again, conceptually, this is a great idea and great way to execute an internet show. When I was trying to decide on an episode to feature here, it became a quick toss-up between the pilot (an excellent presentation of the premise), episode 3 (wherein the premise is expertly applied to a fully-realized episode), episode 4 (Billo's first toe dip into the abstract, but with enough sentimentality to make it the most memorable episodes) and finally episode 5 (which is a delightful tribute to Talking Heads/WEBCAMS). Clearly, I settled on episode 3 as it really does represent "Dear Vloggity" at its very best. Another thing I noticed (and I'm hoping to have Billo back on the Vlog-A-Log to talk to him more about all of this) is that after a handful of episodes, he gets a bit creatively fatigued and lets his otherwise strongly character-based episodes become far more abstract and "film schooly" (that's a technical term). I haven't decided if this is necessarily a bad thing or not. Finally, I do have to say that in rewatching "Dear Vloggity", I have a much finer appreciation for the depth of the characters that Billo was developing. I think it's a shame if he can never return to this show because these first 11 episodes serve as an excellent introduction. Watch the video above and then check out the whole series here. I've been making a handful of changes in my life lately, and this is the first major change I'm applying to my youtube habits. It occurred to me that as much as I claim to want to support and encourage my fellow creative compatriots, I probably haven't actually watched 100% of anyone's videos (other than my own ... and even that's not true!). My thought was that if I can sit and watch the entire X-Files library, certainly I can do the same for some of my favorite youtubers. So this is "Daily Viewed" where I pick a youtuber and watch all of their videos, start to finish, from first to last. I'm not going to blog every single one, but obviously when I find something truly remarkable, I'll be sharing it here and on Facebook. First up was AngryPunkBronxKid. Unfortunately, he doesn't have that "All Uploads" video view option on his channel page, which is counter-productive to my little project here. I left a comment asking him to reinstate the option and in the mean time, jumped over to Eric's channel. I watched Eric's first four videos this morning and I can honestly tell you that there was nothing bad about any of them. It's clear that Eric has dramatically refined his technique over the years (his first video is dated December 20, 2007) but even his first videos are better than most of the junk cluttering YouTube and all demonstrate this guy's commitment to his creativity. One video did stand out, and that's the one featured above. It's called "Invisibreakfast" and it really needs no description or commentary. Suffice it to say, when we sit down to generate an idea for something, one goal is to always be original and come up with something no one's ever seen before. I can honestly say that I've never seen Invisibreakfast before and the sheer simple brilliance of the concept makes me wonder why. Kudos, Eric. If youtube isn't your thing, you can download the .mp3 of this episode below. ![]()
Our 10th Episode! I used a different technique to compress the master episode down (usually the file is over a gigabyte and that just takes forever to upload) and that explains the ickiness at the very beginning. Not that anyone WATCHES these videos ... at most you might LISTEN, but you definitely don't watch. I mean, I'm pretty sure I screwed my credits for three episodes in a row and NOBODY said anything. Yeah. Thanks for caring. Love, Krumbine |
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