why i don't make videos anymore
The memory of making videos already feels so distant to me. It feels as if it never even happened. That is obviously not true since all the videos I've made still exist somewhere.
If you know me, you'll probably know that I used to make videos with aspirations of producing short films. At some point though, I eventually stopped making them. Some people say it was a phase but I believed the passion was certainly real though. I never gave it much thought to why but the answer always lies beneath the surface. Here are few reasons to why I stopped making videos.
I don't like making videos. I like offline editing.
There are some levels of irony to this. I got my start making videos from tinkering with After Effects, doing VFX, which is online editing. It eventually became boring to me since all I did was making short VFX clips so when I learned you could combine clips to make a coherent video, the rest is history. After spending a good amount of time making videos, I always notice I loathe adding texts and transitions, basically doing online editing. I prefer working with the pace and structure of the videos. I realized depending on how you cut the video, it can evoke something different to the audience.Videos take up so much storage, processing power, and time.
I hate when I'd export a video, the program tells me the video takes up at least 1gb and it proceeds to fry your computer. The entire process from planning to exporting the video just takes so much time.Limitation leads to collaboration
At some point, I realized I could only do so much by myself. I have limits with my resources, time, and location yet I still dislike collaborating. From my experience volunteering as a video editor, the job mainly entails dealing with lacking and horrible footages. As fruitful the reward is (which only the production team only knows), it is not worth the effort to me.
I also had a funny, almost nightmarish experience. So I assisted With shooting the interviews for my church's anniversary video with this lady. This lady was essentially our benefactor, she had all the professional gears. Beside the interviews, I also took the time to record the b-rolls. The lady told me I could help edit the videos. That never happened. Weeks after the shoot leading up to the anniversary day, she never contacted me. For the record, I might be at fault here for not reaching her back. The day of the anniversary, the video was unveiled, everyone was there to witness the video. My God, let me tell you, that was the worst video I've ever seen. From the transitions, choice of fonts, audio, the cut, everything, it was horrible. Worst of it all, my name was placed in the credits like a middle finger. Would it have never happened if I had told my mom the lady never reached me out? Fortunately, that video was unimportant so it doesn't matter.Revealing yourself
It has always weirded me out when I see myself in the videos I produce. I bet this is how our ancestors felt when they realized they could see themselves from the puddles of water. As you can probably tell, unless it is a video that doesn't involve me in it, I never rewatch my videos.
In the end, video is probably just not my creative medium. Today, videos to me are just simply for memory, something to be kept in the gallery, even then I don't record videos. I'm happy just being an audience because videos are fun to watch. At the very least, I've experienced what it's like being on creator side.