Why am I so afraid to experiment these days?
It's like a fear of losing what you have
by trying something different.
But it makes no sense because
if the path of me continuing to do what I'm doing now
leads to me stopping.
Then changing and experimenting can either
lead to it failing or succeeding.
But the worst case scenario of it failing isn't any worse,
I don't think, than just sort of doing it until you hate it
and you stop it. So then why not experiment?
I have no good reason not to.
[footsteps]
[somber music plays]
♪
I'm not a big fan of shots like that.
They don't make any sense.
Obviously, somebody has set up the camera.
It was me, in fact,
to kind of break the illusion even further.
I showed you that I already came to the studio,
set up the camera and then set it up
and then showed up at the studio.
I guess it's kind of cool. Like vlogs were kind of cool.
I remember, like, really liking Casey Neistat's videos,
and he probably pioneered a lot of that.
You set up the camera, you do it, you set up the camera,
you do it again, you know,
set up the camera of you setting up the camera.
But I feel like YouTube should be a lot more
just to the camera of a medium,
not one where you're trying to really catch
the creator doing things that they're doing.
You know, even though this video itself is kind of
a BTS video, but I just think it should be
a bit more honest and to the camera,
which is interesting because I've already repeated
several of the lines I'm saying to the camera now multiple times
just to make sure that they sounded right.
So is anything really authentic when it comes to YouTube?
I like the SwitchPod. I don't think
I ever really talked about it,
but it's good. It's a lot better than the Joby GorillaPods
that you know everybody used to use. Speaking of Casey Neistat,
obviously the GorillaPod was his weapon of choice.
GorillaPods suck. I bought one. I think I even have
an old video where I was like GorillaPods are great
because they're great for a week or two,
and then you realize that they just suck
because they stop working right and your camera falls
and stuff. Anyway, the SwitchPods are pretty good.
I don't vlog very often, but it's been all right.
Anyway, this place is a mess.
You can see... For me, I'm pretty much of a neat freak
when it comes to keeping clean and this is a kitchen.
I don't really live here anymore.
This is just a studio, but the studio has a kitchen.
And when I come in there with packages,
you can see that I just kind of put things everywhere.
This is going to be one of those weird complaints,
but I've got too many packages coming.
And again, I'm falling into this issue where it's like,
Do I make-- do I just keep making these videos?
These product videos-- Do I have image stabilization turned on?
I didn't. Now I have it on, this camera is normally on a tripod.
So, sorry if that was a bit shaky early on there.
Yeah. So I don't know. Am I editing all this stuff out?
What's going on? Anyway, the struggle here is that I have
a lot of stuff that I've been accumulating that companies
are sending me that, you know,
they expect me to make videos on,
and I don't want to just keep making
the same old videos all the time.
And so I'm struggling with that.
But there's a lot of cool stuff in here.
You know, this is the Atomos Ninja V+.
Purple cables, these were sent over
for a new PC build that I'm doing.
So that's what all these things are, you know,
graphics card, motherboard, power supply,
another computer case.
And then I don't know if I'm allowed to talk
about this stuff much. This is a new iFootage.
Uh, like cool Monopod bases that they're coming out with
next month that, you know, maybe,
maybe I'll talk about it. I don't know.
If I can talk about this stuff, you know,
less formally, I might enjoy that more.
Anyway, so I got all that stuff.
There's like a lens over there,
I don't think I'm allowed to talk about.
And then down here-- we got to move my backpack.
By the way, if anybody's been wondering still rocking
that Tenba backpack, I love that thing.
I think I have a video on it. Maybe not. I don't know.
This monitor is going to get a video.
This is a-- the new ASUS. It's a 32" 4K.
It's like $6,000 or something.
I think Linus has a video on it where he called it,
the God monitor or whatever.
It's the greatest monitor of all time. We'll find out.
I haven't actually tested it yet,
but that's one that I'm interested.
I'm interested in making a video on that
and the computer because I do like computer stuff.
And then over there, I've got more computer stuff,
but it's on top of some lights
that I don't think I'm allowed to talk about.
And then this bedroom, I mean...
This is-- we're not even going to go in there.
Used to be a bedroom. Now it's box storage.
Anyway, so it's feeling a little bit overwhelming
because it's like, what do I get started with?
And then all my videos take a really long time to make,
and it just feels like it piles up like, uh.
What I'm even talking about here?
By the way, in case you've seen in the background here,
you're like, that's not the chair.
Yeah, I stole the chair that I was using here
and brought it to the home office
because I edit there longer.
So I wanted the-- that's Autonomous ErgoChair,
so I'm sticking that there and then put
the gaming chair back here.
Um yeah, this is basically an ingest station.
when I-- what am I just giving you a tour of my--
What am I doing here?
The reason why I'm here in the studio today
is I have to make a video for StoryBlocks, which is,
you know, a recurring sponsor on my channel,
which I'm very thankful for because, you know,
they basically give me, like, a salary in a sense,
if you have the same sponsor that, you know,
I do two spots a month every month with StoryBlocks.
And I negotiated it for a year at a flat rate.
So it's basically like a salary for the year,
which is nice to have in an internet environment
where a lot of things are variable.
AdSense is up and down,
affiliate sales are up and down.
So it's nice to have like a...
But the concern is that they, reasonably so,
expect you to kind of do the videos in a certain way,
like actually get two in each month,
don't do three and one and one and so on.
And they prefer if you can do it a little bit earlier
on in the month. Now that's not happening this month
because it's the 25th of September right now.
So I'll be lucky if I even post whatever this is,
if this is anything, you know before the month's over.
So I'm basically, came to the studio today,
to be like, I got to make a video for StoryBlocks.
And that's kind of a weird motivator if you think about it.
It's honest, though.
This is something that you know probably
a lot of YouTubers might not necessarily talk about.
But because I have YouTuber friends,
this happens all the time. You go,
"Ah, I gotta make a new video for insert sponsor there.
And if I don't get it done by the end of the month,
I'm not going to get paid or something."
That's a real thing that happens.
And so I wonder sometimes if videos are, you know,
made up videos or forced videos, whatever,
just to satisfy the sponsor,
which is essentially what I'm doing today.
But I'm also using it as an opportunity
for me to sort of hopefully break free of this pattern
that I'm kind of stuck in.
So just in case this actually turns into
a video thanks to StoryBlocks for sponsoring it,
the reason why I struggle with
and talk about this whole breaking the pattern thing
all the time is because...
There's a fear that goes along with these YouTube videos
where I've been known for a certain structure.
I remember listening to my YouTuber friends talk about
burnout and the way they describe burnout,
and I always thought that that doesn't make any sense.
You know what that burnout is
because certain aspects of it to me still don't make
any sense. I mean, YouTube as a job,
is a great job and the certain aspects
of the work aren't very hard.
For me, though, what I think
I can actually relate to burnout on now.
And maybe that's what people were talking to all the time.
Is...
that...
It's, it's being your persona,
I'm mostly myself on, on the camera
in what I do, that's pretty much me,
but it's still a performance and it's like,
I don't want to keep performing all the time
and doing the same tricks, you know,
and nobody's making me.
But it feels-- it's like the platform kind of makes you
because you want to keep it going and you want to keep,
you know, cashing those checks, and seeing the comments,
and pleasing people.
And you almost have to stay true to what you're doing
and or like, stay consistent with what you've already
established. But I change, things change, interests change.
And I know that there's so many of you
that are really supportive that would probably just say,
"Yeah, well, you know, you adapt and change,
and there's lots of us that will stay with you."
And I think that's great. But there's part of me
that just doesn't believe it. There's part of me that's like,
if you if you stop doing what you're doing,
you're going to lose your audience
and you're going to regret it. I don't know.
This is the opposite angle of what you usually see.
Right now the camera is against my purple tool pegboard.
Facing the other camera right there.
I was going to start this video...
Well, I had this idea where I was going to start.
Like, I wake up and then I go, do my things,
and maybe I was going to title it, you know,
A Day in the Life of Gerald Undone or-- What am I?
A camera, camera YouTuber?
A day in the life of a camera YouTuber?
I dunno. Who cares?
I was going to title it that and then, and then do
the whole day in the life thing.
But but when it comes to...
My YouTube process versus a day in my life,
they're actually completely different. And...
I don't know how to sort of mesh those two things together
into a cohesive video, so if you know, if I do get up,
I get up and then-- "If I do get up?"
Are there are days where I don't?
So, yeah, a day in the life of me as a YouTuber
is really a lot of sitting at the computer at home,
just kind of, you know, doing that kind of thing.
The shooting, the coming to the studio,
the exciting kind of BTS part of it
is very small in comparison.
Hot tip, if you open a lot of boxes,
everybody's always got their knives
and they're like, ooh my every day carry and all that,
your knife gets bunged up pretty good from cutting boxes
open and all that tape and it loses its edge.
Want a little tip? Get one of these.
These are like waiters knives or butlers knives
or whatever you want to call them.
They have this little serrated edge on them
for opening wine bottles.
You see there's a corkscrew there,
this little serrated edge.
It doesn't matter how bunged up with tape it gets,
you can open boxes easy,
and it's sort of like safer because it's only
a little bit of a blade sticking out.
And if it does get all chewed up, what do you care?
It's not some, you know, premium knife,
so I leave that there open up the boxes.
These shots are part of the process of relaxing
a little bit with the form of these videos because normally,
you know, I have sort of like the one perfect shot.
I thought if I move around the space
and just shoot a bunch of different angles.
It would help me sort of break down that wall.
I guess that is sort of the fourth wall in a sense.
But I mean, YouTube videos are always about breaking down
the fourth wall. But the set, the idea of the set, you know,
I'd break down the conventional set
and kind of move around. So I'm trying that now, and...
I think that I think it's working
and I'm shooting at 1.8, so am I,
am I fully leaning into the idea or not?
And I've been keeping the white balance consistent.
I just have it locked at
I think like 5100K, let me check. Yeah.
So you're getting to kind of experience,
the different light temperatures
of the regular lights in here,
plus the studio lights. By regular lights I mean,
just, you know, household fixtures.
So, yeah, you're going to see when it goes warm or cool
and that kind of thing.
I suppose I should tell you about StoryBlocks just in case
this does become a video with the StoryBlocks integration.
You know, I've got I've got this read memorized,
by the way, which is funny.
So what if I try not to do the memorized one?
If that's even possible, I'll think of it,
but then say something else.
So the idea is, you need stock footage
for something, right, to fill in a gap,
probably in a project because you couldn't get
the shot for whatever reason,
StoryBlocks is a huge catalog of stock footage,
and a lot of it is in 4K.
But if not, at least 1080p, the subject matter is very,
very broad. Honestly, I've made this a challenge before,
the last one, I got Daniel,
the guy who edits the Not A Podcast,
was I just said some random things.
And of course, he's able to find the stuff on StoryBlocks.
So literally everything is on there
and the interface is easy to use.
And that's all you really need when it comes to stock footage.
Like, can I find the stuff?
Is the-- is the pricing structure going to give me
a, you know, a headache?
No, you pay your fee and then you can use
the stuff however you want commercially
or personally unlimitedly. And you just-- you go at it.
So it's a great platform. It's easy to use.
I think what I'd like to be able to do is...
Sit down here.
You know in a future video. And just go...
Here's something you know. Got this thing.
Let's talk about it a little bit.
Talk about what I'm excited about,
what I'm not excited about.
Well, maybe I just need to do something completely different.
October, October is going to be a busy month.
I've got a bunch of stuff that I agreed to do.
You know, and some of the stuff is exciting,
there's some things in October you guys are going to want
to see. Definitely.
there needs to be a point where I go, okay,
I want to do something different.
I want to change it up a little bit
because if I don't sort of commit to it somehow,
then like I said between now
and finishing up that October burst,
there's going to be a bunch more emails that are
for November where, oh,
"I guess that's exciting and I should probably talk..."
And they just, it's going to go on forever,
and it's hard to complain about it because it going
on forever isn't terrible. It's not a terrible life.
And so I don't want to make it seem like
I'm dumping on YouTube. Like I said, it's a good job,
but I think I'd rather maybe help other people become,
be able to do what I did or, you know,
have the advantages of the lifestyle that I have now.
Thanks to YouTube.
I think I'd rather pay it forward in some way
instead of just sort of milking the Undone platform,
my show or just doing more episodes of my show,
something I always thought about.
You know, TV is-- a great show, has never run too long.
And... I think I'd like to do a different show now.
Not in October, I guess in October,
we're going to keep doing the same show.
Or some kind of hybrid,
but I'm hoping after that to change it up.
Why am I so afraid to experiment these days?
It's like a fear of losing what you have
by trying something different.
But it makes no sense because
if the path of me continuing to do what I'm doing now
leads to me stopping, then changing
and experimenting can either lead
to it failing or succeeding.
But the worst case scenario of it failing,
isn't any worse, I don't think,
than just sort of doing it until you hate it and you stop it.
So then why not experiment?
I have no good reason not to.
So I guess I'll start now.