Before I dive into this subject, I first need to explain what a vlog is. Loosely, it’s the video equivalent of a blog post. A video journal. You share a snippet of your life by pointing a video camera at your face, and post it on the internet. To truly vlog, you do this consistently. Week after week, sharing your life (or, preferably, portions of your life that you decide to share).
If you’ve ever visited the website youtube.com before, you’ve likely watched a vlog or two. I recently started watching the vlogs of a video director named Casey Neistat, and he inspired me to give it a try. He made me realize that vlogging can be an ongoing creative exercise, rather than an overwhelmingly narcissistic endeavor.
Here’s my first attempt at a vlog:
It was pretty fun to do. To my surprise, our day had a cinematic arch to it that I would have missed had I not been vlogging. It was a good time, and I’ll likely be doing more of it.
To capture the action, I used one of my GoPro HERO4 Black cameras. I used the Touch BacPac LCD accessory on the back of the camera, so I could see what I was doing. The fact that you need to purchase this separately with the HERO4 Black is a real bummer, but it’s totally necessary.
The GoPro was mounted to the 3-Way Pole, which is essentially a selfie stick. This is a rather expensive accessory, considering what it is, but it really is a winner. It’s worth it. You can shoot video of yourself without it looking too obvious. It’s really versatile, and it even has a mini tripod built into its base. I love it.
The other key accessory was The Frame mount that I used to attach the HERO4 to the 3-Way pole. You can attach this camera with the underwater housing that comes with the camera, but that one covers up the microphone, and the audio really suffers. The Frame, which again is a rather pricey accessory, is also key for capturing this kind of run-and-gun shooting.
This GoPro setup isn’t perfect for shooting this kind of stuff. The images look nice, but the audio really isn’t sufficient. But, for a quick, short project like this, it did the trick. However, the video nerd deep inside of me wants to take the production level up. We’ll see.
If you’re curious about this stuff, I recommend busting out a camera and giving it a whirl. My advice would be to try to complete it in one day. Shoot during the day, do a quick edit in the evening, and let it upload to YouTube overnight.
