Stepping Outside the Digital Comfort Zone

On Sunday, for the first time in a while, I had nothing planned for after lunch. No D&D session; no overdue movies to watch; no video game I had to beat before I could play a more fun one.

Nothing.

Bafflingly, instead of hacking away at my lengthy to-do list, I sat down and played Deja Vu, a point-and-click adventure game that two GameCola staff members made videos for in the past. The idea was for one person to play the NES version, another to play the GBC version, and another to play the PC version. The third set of videos was never made, however, and as much as I love adventure games, I figured I'd be the perfect person for the job.

Well, as soon as I finished my Mega Man videos, that is. At least, that was the plan.

Yet I took a break from Mega Man to record a flat-out fun run of Deja Vu. I knew all the puzzle solutions from watching the NES and GBA versions, so I decided to do things a little differently and be a total oddball in my methods. Sure, I accomplished all the major goals, but along the way I talked to unconscious people and punched bathroom mirrors and tried to eat pieces of paper.

I ended up with close to an hour of video footage, which is on par with the NES and GBA video sets. Of course, no such video would be complete without audio commentary, so I assembled the footage into six videos and prepared to run my mouth off.

Except this time I'd do it all in one take.

For my Mega Man videos, I'll record the commentary for one stage at a time, and if I'm really having trouble, I'll splice a few different takes together. For Deja Vu, I'm watching the entire video and just letting the microphone record until the video is over. It's all one huge take this time around, and it's helping me to be satisfied with something less than utter perfection.

Trust me; I need to learn how to be satisfied with something less than utter perfection.

The end result thus far? It's very fun, and it's not taking as much time and energy to record as usual.

Correction: The recording aspect doesn't require as much time and energy. As has been the case with every video I have ever made, at least one new and frustrating problem has cropped up during the processing/uploading phase, but I'm at least becoming efficient enough at audio/video troubleshooting to solve my inevitable problems at progressively faster rates.

I hope to have the videos ready by the end of the month, and I'll be sure to promote them when they're ready. I'm excited not only because they should be very entertaining, but also because these videos are a departure from what I've grown accustomed to. Or, if you prefer to be grammatically correct, they are a departure from that to which I've grown accustomed. Possibly.