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"I don't Dream of Labor" Blog
🕑 Added 2021-09-01 13:27:06 +0000 UTCI don’t dream of labor blog.
It may surprise you guys but I wasn’t very happy with this video. I won’t say that I take myself too seriously as an “artist” or whatever, but I do feel like there’s a creative vision and overall level of quality that I want in all of my work and this didn’t fully meet it from my perspective.
I don’t know how pretentious this is going to sound so bear with me…
Firstly, the production process was a bit challenging. My process usually works like this. I already have an idea or 2 or 3 in my head at all times for videos I want to do. A subscriber mentioned this a while ago and it peaked my interest, so it was on the menu. Usually when I drop on a weekend I’ll give myself a few days to chill before scripting out the next video. But the Bo Burnham video was such a huge thing that it took up half the week. Good problems overall but still I was suddenly on a shortened window.
So I didn’t record until Thursday of the next week which is a bit late for me. Then I saw CJ the X’s Bo Burnham video and it sent me down a spiral. It’s soooooo good! If you haven’t watched it, watch it. I post in the comments that it legitimately elevated the genre of video essays. Knowing CJ and considering him a peer, I looked at the footage I recorded and considered that if I was going to be a good steward of my new found success, that I had to do better than what I had recorded. So I scrapped it and went back to the drawing board.
That was good and bad. I did eventually land on a better script by that Monday (the week the video would drop), but now I had 4 days to record and edit. Often I record and start editing by the beginning of the week. This lets me see how the product is shaping up and sometimes when I feel like there’s gaps and elements missing, I won’t just do the “standard editorial addendum” I’ll legit rerecord footage to make sure my themes have the appropriate impact. But I just didn’t have time for that. I also had to record at night just to give myself the maximum amount of time, hence a different angle which I actually kind of like but idk I may go back to the old angle for now.
Anyway, the worst thin is that the first half of the footage had a serious lighting issue that I didn’t catch until I had recorded it. I covered it up in post (mostly) but it also required me to play with contrast and idk it just shows how amateur I am technically.
Also, at the end I felt like I kind of fumbled my final thoughts and had to edit a lot there to come to a cohesive conclusion. I kind of went on a critique of “left tube” or leftist rhetoric on social media which as I watched it on play back, just didn’t fully represent what I wanted to get across, and then I felt like it was unfair to pair with the “I don’t dream of labor” discussion because I don’t know if that’s really a “left tube” discussion topic. Normally I would have found time to rewrite and re-record but I just didn’t have time…
It has me really thinking about how to best balance the newfound attention and the quality. I am still very happy with most of the video from a writing standpoint. But I just really cringe at how I feel like a few things didn’t land at the end. I think endings are really important as a creator and if the ending isn’t right… idk it just doesn’t feel right. I will probably still drop another video next Friday keeping my 2 weeks cycle going, but after that I’ll go on a short break to make sure my next video really lands like I want it too cause it’s a big idea project.
That said, I oddly don’t have a lot more ideas on this topic outside of what came out on the video. Here’s a few bullets though
- A comment asked about guys like uncle Phil. Although Uncle Phil is a top tier black father figure in media he didn’t really fit any of the archetypes I wanted to talk about.
- I did have a section where I talked about “iconic” black men who were high achievers but it felt superfluous so I cut it.
- I included in that section conversations about “hustler” criminals who became kingpins like Nino Brown, Frank Lucas and a whole rant on how the imprisonment of Larry Hoover is a key factor to modern Chicago street crime. However it ended up getting way off topic so I cut it, but it was some good shit though, Ill find an excuse to talk about these figures in the future.
That’s all I got folks. Thank you guys so much. I am rethinking what to do with the patreon
Comments
Tyler Martin
Just finished the CJ the X video. Took three sittings at the 2.5 hour runtime. Well worth it. And contextualizes this post well. CJ's commentary for "transcendent artistic experiences" and goal to "communicate something long form, intentionally, in a curated fashion designed to affect people and to create more beauty in the world" is clear and adds clarity to this post. I'll also add that while "I Don't Dream of Labor" may fall short of your standard, "perfect as the enemy of the good" is still a risk: your commentary in this video may not have been as distilled as you would like, but it had solid points that delivered value. For what its worth, my commitment through Patreon is so that you can produce videos that will sometimes fall short of your standard without reprise, without the fear of how it will impact likes/metrics. Putting out videos like "I Don't Dream of Labor" still need to be funded in pursuit of the worldbeater videos.
