Reluctance

There really is no excuse.

Now that DW has a new, super-fast laptop (albeit, a Mac) and some dedicated video-editing software, there's no excuse for me not to put my recorded clips together into a cohesive video that I can upload to my YouTube channel.

Last year, as a comparison, I was working on my old Windows-based computer with a massively clunky video-editing program, and I still managed to crank out 15 videos over 12 months. This year, I've only produced two videos, the most recent one being put together over this past weekend.

The most time-consuming part of my workflow is to edit my 360-degree video clips. I wirelessly connect my phone to my camera, edit a clip, and export it from the camera to the phone. When I've finished editing the clips, I have to get the footage from my phone onto the Mac computer.

In Windows, that was easy: I simply plugged my phone into the laptop and moved the files from one folder to another. Because my phone is an Android device and Apple doesn't play nicely with it, I had to download some third-party software that would talk to my phone and allow me to copy the files to the MacBook.

It's only one more step but one that I wish wasn't necessary, and it still eats up time.

But once I had all of my clips organized into a project, working with either photo-editing software was straightforward. Except, my Windows program was clunky, as I said. I can produce a video on the MacBook in about a third of the time, if not faster.

So why am I not cranking out videos? I still have lots of footage of Costa Rica to go through and feel I have four or five videos to make from it. I've also started kayaking again and have recorded two of my last three paddles.

Which comes to the point of today's blog post: on Sunday, I produced and uploaded another YouTube video—the second one of the year. Take a look:

It took a couple of hours each night for about four nights to get the video from my camera to my phone. Maybe eight hours: maybe a little less.

On Sunday, I started work on the Mac at about noon. Both DW and Kid 1 were heading out for the afternoon so I took advantage of a quiet house to get my work done.

I have to admit that I don't like working on the Mac. I'm too used to how a Windows computer works and I find I have to stop and think about so much. For me, a Mac isn't as intuitive.

It took the most time to transfer my files from my phone onto the Mac and to set up a library, event, and project in Final Cut Pro X. But as soon as I had my video clips, sound recording (bird call), music, and photo in place, the workflow of FCPX was pretty smooth. By about 4:30, I had the MP4 video ready to upload to YouTube.

By 5:00, DW and I were watching the video from my YouTube channel on our big-screen TV.

I think my hesitation with producing videos comes from my initial reluctance to use the Mac. But as soon as I get going, I'm fine.

I've already started downloading the video clips of my latest kayaking adventure, so I may have another video out by the end of the month or early July, depending on when I actually have time to sit in front of the Mac again.

My June calendar is pretty full.

My clips of Costa Rica have already been saved to a hard drive, so it's only a matter of coming up with a storyboard and recording some voiceover material, but I hope to be more frequent with my videos.

(You can help by subscribing to my channel... hint-hint!)