- So here's a question,
do you want to know what I carry in my bag?
I mean specifically when I'm going to a really stressful
thing, which for me, is a live blog
or a hands on situation.
I mean, I'm a tech writer, I get to use pretty much
whatever I want, I'm kinda lucky,
and so what I have in here must be the best stuff, right?
Actually, not so much.
So here's all the stuff that I carry into a live blog
and as I unpack my bag I want to tell a really cheesy story.
So there's this movie from the 90s called The Ghost
in the Darkness, and it's racist, it's terrible,
it's colonialism.
Anyway, in this movie, the Val Kimmer is trying to build
a bridge and it turns out there's a lion that's
messing with the village, so he has to shoot the lion.
And so there's this moment where he has to shoot the lion,
and his gun doesn't work.
And Michael Douglas, the grizzled veteran,
rolls in and says, what happens?
Misfire, and Michael Douglas looks at him,
and he says, to Val Kimmer, you went into battle
with an unproven rifle?
And I know it's terrible, but I always think about it.
When you're going into a high stress event,
you actually need to know how to use your tools,
they need to be tested, and you need to be ready to go.
And so, all of this stuff right here that you're looking at,
these are my proven rifles.
So I could talk about this stuff for hours,
but I've already sort of posted a What's In Your Bag,
so I think it'd be more interesting for me to bring in
Vjeran, and he can talk about what he carries in his bag
for doing hands ons, and we can just have a conversation
about why all this stuff is interesting.
So, hey.
(laughs)
Have a seat.
- Hello.
(laughs)
How's it going Dieter?
- Awesome, how are you?
- Alright, this might take a minute.
- Okay.
(soft music)
- There's one, there's two, three.
Alright.
Okay, I think that's it.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- Okay, so, let's start.
Obviously, you're a video director,
you've got lots of lenses,
and the camera here.
So why this thing, instead of, I don't know,
super dragon red, or some little tiny thing,
or your phone, or whatever?
- So, yeah, kind of going off your point
that you know, you need a proven rifle,
things that you trust and things that you know
how to operate and are just easy to operate.
- Yeah.
- So, C-100 shoots great video.
You don't need 4K, you need some other sized files,
you want to get it up and quick.
Same thing with lenses, we don't have the super sharp
best lenses, this is a 17-55.
What's good about it is that it's image stabilizer.
- Okay.
- Because we shoot on, actually, let me grab it,
on monopods and not tripods.
- Okay.
- You gotta keep them stable.
Same thing actually here, we don't have the nicest
fluid drag video head, this one is solid because
it's not too heavy, and we walk around in these lens.
And then we have the wide angle because if you watch
our channel, we love our wide angles.
And macro for any connectors, head phone jacks,
although those are extinct.
- Right.
- And so on.
- So, for me, you'll see I have an iPad here,
which I super don't live blog from an iPad,
but I have it because if I need to, it's a back up,
but also, I have a cellular one, so when I go to an event,
we usually have wifi and then I have a cellular on this,
and I have projectfi on this which can get me Sprint,
and then I also have a third, an iPhone, which will be
on Verizon, and so I have at least three ways
to get online in case the local wifi dies,
which the local wifi always dies, right?
So you carry a wifi as well?
So, having redundancy is super important for me.
- Also, I see you live the dongel life as well.
This is my case with all the dongels.
- Oh my god!
(laughing)
It's so well organized.
- Yeah, so this is actually for the iPad.
You can use that one.
Two thunderbolts, two USBs, HDMI I decided,
because I don't know why.
And ethernet, USB3, USB3, Apple charger,
headphones 3.5 millimeter male and female,
and micro USB, you know, just in case.
- For me, the process of getting to know a new piece
of technology is like, first thing you do is learn
how to use it.
Like, every time I pick up this camera,
I have to relearn how to set up bracketed shooting,
and I have to ask you every time because I suck at it.
But after a while, you get to a point where you feel
like you're good at it,
and I actually think it's really important,
don't stop once you feel like you've mastered it,
you need to start playing around with it at that point,
you need to start experimenting, trying new stuff,
seeing what works, seeing what you suck at,
seeing what's crazy and weird,
and then when you go and when you're in the high stress
environment, you don't do all that experimental stuff,
but it's sort of subliminally in the back of your mind
so you do the thing that you're good at,
but when you run into a tough spot,
you've run into tough spots before because you're
experimenting with stuff you weren't able to do,
and one of those things might actually help you solve
that problem.
Alright, one more question, what's this?
- It's a Nintendo Switch.
- What?
- That's a Nintendo Switch.
- When do you have time and an event to play Nintendo?
- Well, if there's a surprise concert by U2 or something
like that.
- Oh, well yeah, you're not gonna wanna watch that,
fair enough.
- At least it doesn't download U2 music onto it.
(laughs)
- Okay, so my takeaway here is not that we're trying
to teach you how to do a live blog or do a hands on,
the point here is you don't have to have the best stuff
or even necessarily the right stuff,
you just have to have stuff that you're really comfortable
with, and that you've got a bunch of experience using
so that when you go in, you don't panic.
- True.
It kind of reminds me of the videos you see on YouTube,
when they give a little Barbie camera to a professional
photographer, send him out in the field and he comes back
with glorious stuff.
You basically know how to use a camera,
you have a structure for a job you're doing,
a hands on, and you just kind of follow the same format,
so whatever instrument you use,
it doesn't really matter.
- Way back in the day, I used to talk about how
the difference between a coder and a non techy person
is when a coder runs into a problem, they don't be like,
ah all technology sucks!
They just go and google and try to find out the answer,
and literally, everybody can do that,
and that sort of can do attitude applies to really
stressful situations where you have to use technology,
and the only way to be able to handle that
and not be totally frozen by technology failing,
is to have spent a bunch of time using it,
getting better at it, and it's not about being the best
at it, it's about having experimented with it
and having experienced failures and dealt with it,
so that when you experience failures in a stressful
situation, you're fine,
you're like, oh well I've solved problems before,
I can do it again.
- Yeah, we've all been there.
- I mean, we all know what the lesson is here, right?
- Uh huh.
- You gonna make me say it?
- Yeah.
- Don't go into battle with an unproven rifle..
- Raffle?
- Raffle.
Thanks so much for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, I've got another video
that I think you're gonna like even more.
It's about slime mold, which sounds weird,
but it's actually amazing, because it was made
by the folks over at Verge Science
who have a whole new YouTube channel,
and you should definitely click somewhere to watch it
because you'll love it.