Thursday, June 3, 2010

Adventures in Video

So I've done two videos from my spiffy basement studio so far. The first one was yesterday.  The second one was today.  I think we'll be doing them weekly at first. If they get popular we may do more. If they don't get popular I suppose we'll burn the tapes and pretend it all never happened, like "Fletch Lives," "After M*A*S*H" and "The New WKRP."

Ever hear yourself on a tape recorder and think you sound awful?  Multiply that by a gabillion for video.  People are telling me that they're coming out OK, especially for a hopeless newbie like me, but I'm not so sure.  I have a face and a voice that lend themselves to the written word.

This is not evidence that I lack self-confidence. Quite the contrary, actually. I have no problems being pasty and bald, for example. But when you're bald you don't spend all that much time looking in the mirror, and as a result you start to think you're thinner, more handsome and less pasty than you really are. And my inner monologue voice sounds a lot like Cary Grant and that just somehow doesn't make it to tape. Having an overly healthy self-image challenged in such a head-on way is a rather sobering experience.

But I suppose I'll press on with it. I'll admit, I was more comfortable today than I was yesterday. I'll likely feel even better about it next week and the week after that.  By mid-summer I'll be yelling at production assistants and shunning my unfamous friends like a genuine TV star.