Far From Perfect

There are days when I look at The Brown Knowser YouTube channel and wonder if I'm going to keep it going. After all, I'm a writer, not a videographer, and I take far better stills than I do of video.

I also hate how I look and sound in front of a video camera.

Still, I persevere because I would like to know more about recording video and I do still enjoy reviewing beer, which is what I largely do on this YouTube channel.

At least, until I can get back into my kayak.

On Sunday, I set out to record another Beer O'Clock review. As with all other beer videos, I start out with a beer that I've already tried, one with which I've already made notes about the flavour profile and have already formed an opinion. In the recording, I try to appear as though I'm trying the beer for the first time.

Is that dishonest?

Anyway, as soon as I've selected the beer, I start thinking about how I want to present it. What I want to say about it. I try not to babble too much, as I'm sure my audience just wants to know about the beer itself and what I think of it.

As soon as I have an idea of what I want to say (I never write out a script), I jot down a few notes about what I must say and then I start setting up my equipment. Usually, I use DW's Canon EOS M50 mirrorless camera as my main camera. It's easy to use and has a viewscreen that flips around so that I can see what it sees while I sit at our island counter in the kitchen. This camera is focused on me and the beer as I hold it up.

I also use a second camera to capture the beer can (or bottle) and the glass that will hold it, and this camera rests at the countertop level. I've used my Insta360 camera a couple of times, but when I found it wasn't focusing properly on the beer, I went back to using one of my Nikon D-SLRs, which I first stopped using because of its massive size.

My last two reviews included my Nikon D750, which has never let me down.

A lav mic runs from the Canon camera to me, though I have a telescopic mic that is on the second camera, just in case the lav mic fails me (and it did, once).

Finally, though I usually turn on the overhead lights in my kitchen, I also have a video light that I use to fill in any stark shadows.

The overall setup looks like this:

No matter how many times I check the equipment, something always seems to go wrong when I'm ready to begin recording. One time, I forgot to turn on the video light; once, the lav mic wasn't plugged all the way into the camera; another time, the battery in the second camera died halfway through the recording.

I've always been able to work around these errors or the backup systems have saved the recording.

Not Sunday.

On Sunday, I decided to change some of the camera angles, and I was going to rely heavily on the second camera to cover the beer while I talked about it. While I talked specifically about the beer, my eyes were off the primary camera and it looked like I was looking toward someone off to the side, even though no one was in the room.

As usual, when I'm ready to roll, I press the Record button on both cameras, sit down, compose myself, and then clap so that I can align the two videos in production.

I recorded my review, as always, in one take. If I screw something up, I just say it again and cut out the bad bits later. There are lots of obvious cuts in my videos but I've always hoped that they weren't overly distracting.

When I was finished, I packed everything up, took the SD cards from the cameras, and downloaded them onto an external hard drive, ready to begin editing. It was here that I discovered my screwup.

Though I thought I had pressed the Record button on my Nikon, I mustn't have pressed it properly. When I tried to retrieve the video file, I discovered that the card was blank. Nothing had been recorded. My Nikon D750 didn't fail me so much as I failed it.

I didn't panic. I didn't scrap the project. I told myself that I could salvage this review. All I had to do was reshoot the second camera.

I still have another can of this beer. Though I had lost the ambient light that had been coming through the windows, I could always record again, later.

Today, perhaps.

When I viewed the primary video, I discovered that the camera's focusing was off. In the viewscreen, a box follows my head, which tells me that it's focused and following me. And though I could see it when I was sitting at the counter, it wasn't truly focused on me.

Can I live with this? Can my viewers live with it?

I may reshoot the whole review. This one will be far from perfect, and while I've never felt that any of my videos have been perfect, I've been satisfied enough to share them.

If I'm going to continue with my YouTube channel, if I have any hope of drawing more viewers, being simply satisfied won't be good enough.

Stay tuned.