Successful Completion

There are probably better things that you could do with 50 minutes of your life, but that’s how long YouTube says it will take to watch all 31 of the videos that I uploaded during VEDA.

It’s that time of year again: time to sit around and think about this massive time suck project that I did, which will inevitably be forgotten shortly.

I uploaded one four minute video, but set a two minute limit which I stuck to for the other 30 videos — and that’s including the 7 or 8 seconds of outro. This isn’t the first time that I’ve successfully uploaded a video every day for a month, but it is the first time that I did that without relying on cell phone/tablet/laptop/direct uploads. Meaning: I managed to record and edit 31 videos. Some were better edited than others, of course, but the end result is that I’m actually pleased with most of these videos — which hasn’t always been the case in years past.

And that’s the big takeaway, I suppose, from a month of making videos; time and effort generally pays off. Go figure. I’m also going to recycle that two minute rule in the future. It was incredibly rare that I struggled to keep the videos under that line and even on those days I had to admit that the video was, in the end, better for the cutting.

I am a rambler. I have a recurring problem of talking too long, saying too much, and not knowing when to cut myself off. This becomes incredibly obvious in video form, especially while editing. I assume everyone who vlogs has run into this moment where you want to punch yourself in your own stupid face. Maybe it’s just me. But listening to yourself stumble over the same phrases and choose words poorly is a very instructive experience.

As, of course, is starting a thing and finishing a thing. Starting a thing just because it’ll be fun, for you, and seeing that thing through to the end.

And so, for posterity’s sake — of if you really do have an hour to kill — here are my 31 videos: