OMG I'VE BEEN MAKING MOVIES!!!!!

Hey ECI 831 and the WORLD-

I've been away- Sorry :( But I've got some great news and learning etc. So as some of you may have been reading, you know that for my project I was going to create a HOW TO Cooking Channel on youtube called "Poets In The Kitchen." To research and develop this project, I spent a week literally watching hundreds of Youtube Cooking Channels. In future posts, I'll include some links to some of my favourite videos. Additionally, I watched a range of amateur to professional videos- I was joking to my students that I now, sound like Gordon Ramsay (except without the cussing).

Anyway, I never realized how much work actually went into making online videos. I've had so many struggles these past two weeks with rendering/exporting, and uploading videos. Additionally, I was trying to find artists and figure out what I was going to teach. But the work paid off... I now have a production schedule for the term, and a bunch of confirmed artists, and my first series of videos is up.

The first series is actually only 1 session, broken up into 8 x 10 min videos. What I learned here is that I can/should/will condense the show way more. So the next video which will be posted this week will only be 30 mins long. BTW- My first video series is up! You can see the imbedded videos below :)

So what happened?

For my first video, I enlisted the help of my good friend Jeff Moser, the first artist I collaborated with upon my arrival to Regina, and a long standing colleague who is doing some amazing things. I also entreated my new friend Michael Andersen, a scholar, athlete, model, and all around great guy to join us for dinner.

For Dinner, I decided to go with a crowd pleaser, my Thai Panang Coconut Red Curry. I chose this as my first dish to share because its easy to make, often a bit scary for people to make, and it can be very versatile in terms of what you put into it. Also, it's relatively affordable, and since it is a stew/soup base, it can last several days. I really wanted to focus on an accessible dish that my ideal demographic (university/young adult/adult folks) would actually try.

There was definite rehearsal and preparation, I started to analyze and breakdown what I noticed about pretty much ALL cooking video channels, especially the ones done professionally. Some key things which I tried to incorporate/consciously disassociate myself from at various times:

1)  Always add very positive qualifiers/adjectives to your recipe/food list/ingredient list, because if we say "this AMAZING kale" vs "kale" viewers will believe you
2) Every few seconds, decrease the level of challenge of the task at hand "As you can see, this is easy... anyone could do it... even one with such a culinary ineptitude as you."
3) Show the food, then show your face, then show the food and your face, and then show your food while smelling and tasting it
4) Have good looking people in good shape and form in your videos to show that "if pretty people eat my food, it must be good" (this is only sort of a joke, and absolutely NOT why I enlisted the cast that I did- they actually are my friends, and my friends simply tend to be attractive INSIDE and Out :)
5) Include somewhere the health/nutritional value of what you're making- and defer to the experts. And if what you are making is NOT healthy- the GO DEEP into how decadent, rich, sinful, and DESERVING you are of it.
6) DO NOT PROFESS AUTHOURITY if you ain't got none. Circumvent the trolls and haters, and open the doors for actual constructive feedback so that You the creator can learn and grow. I think the biggest part of GROUP learning and managing your publics online is making sure that you are as receptive as you give out.
7) With youtube, show your mistakes, don't sensationalize them, the more you make, the more human you become and the more accessible you become.

For a first run, I found many mistakes, that I actually ended up doing AGAIN in my second episode, but Episode 2 is a special case, I'll get to that in my next blog post.

SO- my goals with "Poets In The Kitchen" was to find a balance of really showing everyday folks making food, the time it takes to make the food, and the fun you can have while doing it. I wanted long shots, simple takes, and a lot of candid camera time. I was playing with the balance between being a "host" to the camera, and practicing that voice with a casual hang out with friends. My first mistakes were an assumption of interest from viewers.

1)We haven't established any sense of "character" or hook for the viewers, so they don't necessarily want to hear about our lives.
2) Some viewers really just want to get the recipe, and do the cooking, not experience this tween-age reality show.
3) This isn't meant to be a reality show persay.
4) I've studied social media, and youtube in the past, and as with all things internet-related, things change. I actually hadn't created videos like this- ever, but I thought some principles would be the same- not so. Video length, and upload time are huge factors.

That was probably my biggest mistake, and the main reason why it's taken me so long to post things was that it took hours to do even the simplest edits, and more hours to get them uploaded online. I was travelling a lot, so I was unable to get to campus where the bandwidth and upload times were significantly faster.

The part that got me the most worried was the art. This is meant to be unrehearsed, and candid, and so personally I don't think I did the BEST job, but I also wasn't sure how effective the content would be, and if it would help/hinder the spreadability of the media, because obviously- an eventual goal is subscribership/shares/and distribution. I want EVERYONE to make my tasty food, get a cookbook deal and a show.

To make the videos and edit them, I stuck to the use of my iPad/iPhone, and as little of my MacBook as possible. Part of my practice and research is creating media with personal mobile devices. We're continually inundated with messages of intuitive user-friendly apps and functions, and my work looks heavily at diy, user generated, audience/viewer generated content- so as a methodological framework I wanted to stick to that. This became a big ordeal for episode 2, but more on that next blog.

Overall though, and the reason I'm going ahead with my first attempt, I think I hit most of my goals. I'll know better for Episode 3, and I want to honour and respect the work that my guests did, and recognize that they did great, despite the systematic challenges that some of my oversights placed upon them. At the same time, I want to honour the parts where they excelled, again due to the same constraints that I established.

So that said, here is are links to my first episode, and if you continue to follow the channel, you'll see the rest of the videos! Woot!

Thanks for watching, subscribe and share!

Johnny.