Annihilation Video Essay: Behind the Scenes (Patreon)

SO IT TURNS OUT FILMING VIDEO ESSAYS IS HARD

My first attempt was an absolute disaster.

I put together this fucked up setup where I had my phone running a teleprompter while tied to the side of a tripod with a hair tie I found. But without a proper teleprompter mirror device like I have now, this means my teleprompter and camera were in two different places, so I'm very clearly not looking at the camera the whole time, which was already enough to make me scrap the footage.

But on top of that, the camera I had on hand was garbage, and I got it in my head to try to film on a dark set. But without my expensive lighting kit all I had was an IKEA lamp with a purple bulb, and my box light, which is bright as fuck. I tried putting plastic purple filters over it, but that didn't seem to actually change the color of the light, so I tried dimming it with a blanket I think.

Nothing was working.

And then I felt my timing window closing and I really wanted to get it done, so I just powered through the whole recording in one sitting, finishing just in time before our usual evening stream. I hoped for the best, but when I checked the footage later I decided it was unusable. I did keep the audio, though! Not this camera audio, but the microphone audio I was recording at the same time. I always record them separately and sync them because I didn't pay for this expensive-ass mic to not use it.

So now you know: the audio of the Annihilation essay was originally paired with embarrassingly unprofessional video all along lol

If you haven't seen the video essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZKsltnGcZE