Retired Fan Fiction

That looks good!

I don't do youtube as a hobby, but I have a couple channels as a way to document my other hobbies. I have one for my RC builds that I've shown here before, as well as one for my guitar related interests.  That kind of brings me to my point... I'm not sure how you'd get into Youtube as a hobby unless you're using it as a mechanism to share something else that people will be interested in watching.  Assuming that you have something that people are going to want to watch, your next steps are learning to talk to a camera in a way that is interesting and engaging, learning how to make videos look and sound as good as they can, learning video editing software, and learning photo editing software.  All of those aspects influence the outcome of a video, and to be honest, not many people find all of them interesting, so it becomes necessary to slog through some crap that you may not really enjoy in order to accomplish the things you do enjoy.   Here's a real high level $.02 summary of each of those areas: 1. Talking to the camera.  99% of what determines the popularity of a channel is the ability of the host to be interesting, entertaining, and charismatic. No matter what the subject is, it's how interesting the talking head is that determines how many repeat watchers you get.  A video about the joys of watching paint dry that's hosted by an interesting, well spoken person that can connect with an audience will ultimately be much more popular than the most interesting topic imaginable if it's hosted by a monotonous person with no personality and poor public speaking skills. 2. How it looks:  Your lighting and your background make or break how a video looks. Stand there with a nasty or boring background under a single ceiling light and it's going to look horrible. Find an interesting location that has some depth to it, some tasteful things in the background and some colorful accent lighting that brings color and interest to it, along with some foreground lighting for the host (a couple diffused light sources and a "hair" light to add contrast or mood) will make a huge difference. 3. Sound: talking into your cell phone's microphone sounds bad. An inexpensive lapel mic makes all the difference in adding a professional sound to your video. Background music or sound effects may be appropriate depending on the type of videos you do. 4. Video editing software: This can be a big one.  There are basic editors even the one that comes with Windows that will get the job done if your videos are very basic, but if you're going to want something more professional, you'll need a good quality video editor and you'll need to put in the time necessary to learn at least the basic functions of that editor.  I use DaVinci Resolve because it's very good and mostly because it's free.  If it ever stops being free, I'll probably be sunk because there's not much else out there that's worth a damn unless you want to get into subscription services. 5. Photo editing is more or less the same story as video editing, except that it's generally a bit easier and not something you'll spend as much time in. At minimum you'll need it for your thumbnail images, but I also use edited photos occasionally within my videos.  I use GIMP because it's a very powerful, open source video editor that does all I could ever need.   You can research each of those areas via other youtube videos.  There's a wealth of creator information out there, so each of those 5 topics are very well covered via youtube tutorials.  But ultimately, unless you're doing something other than the usual "talking head" style videos, 99% of the effort is in area #1.  Your personality and charm matters more than pretty much anything else. 

it's been a long time since I updated this thread, and a long time since I did any work to any vehicles in general, but I expect to resume some of my efforts soon, so I wanted to catch this thread up. A while back  I built a TWS CJ7 Jeep RC kit.  I made some minor modifications in that I printed a modified set of seats from the 69 Charger model that I printed the 69 Charger interior from. I did this because the TWS kit came with the later high-back style seats. The earlier CJ7s like they used in the show had the low back seats which looked very similar to the charger seats, so that was a good way to get the right style seats.  Additionally, I was able to carefully cut out the doors on the lexan body and I hope to build some hinges so I can put them on when desired, but that's a project for another day. Because of the open jeep design, it was absolutely necessary to have a driver, and these options were very limited. There aren't any action figures that look anything like Daisy. I looked into some of the proper sized action figures available on Ebay but those seem to be aimed mostly at Cosplay people and perverts. They're expensive, anatomically accurate for pornstars, and the clothing all needs to be bought separately. Since my daughter is involved in this whole process, that approach was scrapped and I found this 3d printable option that I decided to go with.  It doesn't really look like Daisy, but it's better than the scale pornstar option! Next step for the Jeep is a more correct wheel/tire package and the decals. I'm not terribly impressed with the decal set that I bought on Ebay, so I'll probably work up my own and have MCI print them for me. He's the one that I got the General decals from, and the one that printed the police decals that I designed. Hopefully soon I'll start my 3rd General Lee build.

Some random advice: 1. Take lessons from a local instructor. Learning guitar is hard. Having an instructor vastly improves your chances of success. 2. When you're learning chords, just hold the chord while you're watching tv. Strum it a little bit during commercials. At first when you pull your hand away, you have to carefully reposition your fingers. After a while you'll notice that your hand will snap back to that spot. Once it does that, you'll start to be able to just grab that chord without positioning your fingers. 3. Once you can grab the chord reliably, start working on a 2nd chord. Once you can grab 2 reliably, start switching between them 4. When you're actually practicing instead of just holding chords while watching Dukes reruns, focus on having good timing. That's a critically important skill. Go as slow as you need to. Whether you use a metronome, a youtube drum track or play along with the song, timing is everything.   Even if you can only strum the chord once per beat, your timing is always your priority. 4a. Learn to tap your foot to the beat. Do it to every song on the radio when you're not practicing. Make it become 2nd nature, because you'll need it to keep good time, especially when you start getting to songs with stuff that's off the beat. 5. A bunch of old Waylon and Hag songs are only 2 chords.  6. This probably should have gone near the top, but take your guitar to a competent tech or luthier for a setup. Make sure he knows that you're a beginner and he should be able to set up the guitar with lighter strings and lower action. This will make it easier to play.  Like I said above... learning is hard, and frankly, it's a lot harder when you start on acoustic.  It's bigger, it's farther from your body, it's harder to see what you're doing, the strings are thicker and they're farther from the frets.   Hope this helps.  

The French Dukes of Hazzard words in English. You got the blues inside We can see it in your eyes The blues is pretty good  Ok, but you have to put some country in your mood Dream in the day And make your honey With the fire that shines In every girl's eyes The country life is the one I have chosen I can tear your fog With a single guitar chord Don't be pushed around again Without playing the bad man If there's a law You will have to show your claws And make the Sheriff go