I THINK LIKE A YOUTUBER TOO MUCH.
I recently realised that I think like a YouTuber too much.
I realised this a couple of days ago when I filmed a video where I moved the camera around quite a bit. I’d film something from one angle, move the camera, get the same action from another angle, maybe get a close-up shot. And I actually really like how the video came out; I'm not gonna lie. But it just made me notice how automatic it’s become.
I’ve been making videos for over a decade now, so when something's happening, part of my brain immediately starts thinking about how I’m going to film it. It's literally the first thing that comes to mind.
Where should I put the camera? Do I need another angle? Should I get a close-up? Which hand did I pick that thing up with, for continuity when the angle changes?
And there are absolutely times when I want to think like that. Sometimes I’m deliberately making something, and the process of figuring out the shots is part of what I enjoy. That's the creative side. The crafting. But I don’t think every video needs me to do that, and I need to be ok with that, because there’s a difference between:
“I want to make a video out of this.” and “I simply want to film this.”
I think I’ve blurred those two things together over the years. And over the course of this year, I've really been trying to undo this.
Most people who pick up a camera to film a day out, their kids, a trip, whatever… they’re not thinking about producing. And to be quite honest, on a normal day out, neither am I. I'm not thinking how am I gonna cut this video together, I'm just filming what I want to remember and filming what I can. I see something I want to capture, I point the camera at it, the moment happens once. Done. Whatever I got is what I got. Rinse and repeat throughout the day. And that's precisely why action cameras and small cameras became my go-to.
But Creator Tamara, with a filmmaking brain, has spent years training herself to think: Right. Now I need another angle. And again, there’s nothing wrong with knowing how to do that. There is something satisfying about crafting a video in that way. I just don’t want the fact that I know how to make something more crafted to convince me that I have to every single time.
Sometimes I want to move the camera around and properly build a sequence, because they're also satisfying to piece together in the edit. Sometimes I want to put the camera somewhere, let life happen in front of it and leave it the fuck alone, whilst I focus on what I'm doing. Sometimes I might only get one angle. But none of that automatically means that the video would be worse off for it.
And I think this is also where perfectionism can creep in. Especially with people who want to start making videos and posting them on YouTube. Because they see other YouTubers producing a lot more than just filming. And with that mindset, a really simple video can suddenly take way longer than it needs to because you start thinking it needs more angles, more coverage, more… stuff. And then maybe the video doesn't get edited because you look at the footage you captured and shots seem like they're missing because you feel like you missed some angles.
So if you think like Creator Tamara did: that a video somehow isn’t good enough unless you’ve moved the camera around loads, got different angles and made it feel more “produced”, I’d challenge that.
For me, I'll get creative when I feel like getting creative and have the time to do so. But it won't be an absolute requirement for every single video. And don't feel like it has to be for you either. Especially if it becomes the reason you don’t make the video at all.
