Goofy Fears

I'm afraid to shoot video. I have the following fears.

Editing and Conversion:

I'm afraid that I will not have the ability to freely manipulate the video on Linux as people do on a Mac or in Microsoft's sandbox. This is true to a point. I cannot use the same software. Nor, do I have the range of choices for software. I can, however, do the basics. I can do what is needed to be done to get the end results. I know I can get Cinelerra running. I know it has problems. I know I can get Kino and that other AVI software going. Between them all, I can do most simple things. This would at least be enough to get me started.

Just the idea of not having the options is enough to sap my enthusiasm.

Pictures:

I'm terrified of loosing the enthusiasm I've had for years for still photography. I know this is nuts because I have already lost much of the drive I used to have foe pictures. I just don't feel the calling like I did once. That is a bad thing.

People also seem to expect me to take pictures. That wares on me as well. I'm not getting paid for God's sake. I'm not a repository. People as me for all kinds of pictures and I just hate digging through my archives for free. I'm considering deleting my backups and just having what is on the web. If you don't want it on the web, I don't keep it. That sounds like a plan to me.

People's response:

For some unknown reason, people have twice the aversion to being videoed as they do to having a snapshot taken. If I'm carrying around a video camera, people will duck me and try to escape more than if I'm carrying a still camera. They don't want what they say to be recorded. Well then, don't say it. Why say something if all your are going to do is deny it later?

Sharing and Storage:

Where the hell am I going to store all that video? Some video formats are huge. Of course if I have a place like YouTube to share the videos, I still have to store the full size and length videos. I don't like the idea of leaving them on DVDs because they ware out over a long time just sitting on the shelf. I have a feeling Disks are going to go the way of the VHS in the next ten years or so. I don't know what's going to come next.

Places like YouTube are both picky and short sighted. What happens in a couple of years when you want to move all your videos from one site to another? What happens when YouTube wants to cull videos that haven't been hit in a couple of months? What happens when you want to preach the word and YouTube calls you a radical or offensive?

Good or not:

I'm not very good at videography. My hands shake. I'm not particularly good at photography. I just take a bunch of pictures and know a few rules about how apertures and shutter speed work. That knowledge transfers to videography too. You have to plan shots. Taking a good video is more about planing your content. You need to make sure something is happening. Then you have to worry about blocking or framing the shot. Then you have to worry about the same stuff as a photo. That is light, focus angle, yadda yadda.

It adds time and sound. Two things that just are not normally in stills. The only interesting YouTube videos to me are the ones that are short and have really one primary theme. That is, only one thing is going on, and it is going on over several seconds. Police chases come to mind as a great example. Lots of "stuff" happens, but the theme is usually pretty constant.

Good videos don't have to be all about action. They might just have people walking around. Shooting a good scene is like framing a good paragraph. One theme and some bullet points that support that theme. Each scene then comes together in a movie. Calling a short one theme video a movie is off by quite a bit.

All that stuff I mentioned at the top is just background. Yes, I may be limited on the tools. Yes, some of the options are not the most robust. It is direction that matters. It is not what you use to cut, but how well you cut. The tool limitations can be overcome with practice and effort. What I need to do is just shoot some videos and try to make them what I want with what I have. Isn't that true about just about anything in life? Well, the same is true in movie making.