Episode 4 is live as of 5 am or so my time. Episode 3 was supposed to be the last bit of lemonade however this episode went up without a restaurant overview because it was delay another day (I try to launch early Tuesday mornings) while I get footage today or get it out. I’ve adjusted the compression settings so the compression is 8x faster but it takes 5 to 6.5 hours to upload the thing. That would have meant another Thursday launch and I don’t want to feel that burn again.
Because I launched ep 3 on a Thursday before a holiday weekend, it got lost in the throng. Subsequently, I don’t understand YouTube‘s counter because it fluctuates browser to browser and if I look at the analytics from Google, there are massively more views than what the tube admits. Oddly enough, I don’t really care about the view count aside that it poisons a viewer into thinking it’s not worth their time. My main goal is to make steady gains in the production technique and package it all longer format later.
I’ve been up all night making certain that the upload went successfully, so I’m cooked right now and should keep this short. Reigning myself in now.
Pre-production: Given that I had to animate a doll for ep 3 because of the quantity of flakes, I opted to go through Backstage.com and pull some actors. One was vegan. One was not. Both showed up early. The problem that arose was the location people… chose… non-communication as communication. I am not going to go any deeper than that. I’ll just say that it led to the clusterf**k that this episode became. And not that the episode is all bad but I wanted every episode to be a building block not a further display of crisis management skills. Que sera… or wutEVaaa.
Production: Having to split locations and alter the time frame, I gambled that I could get away with on-camera mic only. Master class of WRONG! Audio sounds more hellish than normal. I had to bounce light to the ceiling for flat, whack light. And for the coup’deville to the coupe de grace, I didn’t get a proper money shot on the first food item. Is youuu CRAZY?!! Time crunch like a mofo, man.
Post Pro: Minimal color correction. The first segment took over a day to edit because it had the most going against it. Having to deal with the producer part of the production had sapped my energy and I didn’t push the guy properly. He did a good job on his own but I fell flat as a director in both instances, I feel. So that led into a messy edit and me choosing not to re-cook the dish to cut in. Time was most important so I felt it best to take the hit and put it in the wind. The 2nd segment cut in under two hours. That’s probably because it was more cooking show formulaic and the weight of the location shift had already passed. I normally render segment plates then add music and bugs for the final output but it was more expeditious to copy and paste the edited elements into the output timeline then export it all to Compressor. After that, drag to YouTube, alter the web sites, post to social media, sleep for an hour then type this then hit the streets hunting.
Pre-pro 5: Don’t let the same mistakes occur. Start integrating the plotted elements. Lock down one more participant. Practice the beauty lighting speed. Get the lavaliere working. Keep on pushing.
Megasutra 