How Shooting Daily Videos Changed Me

A lot of us face camera shyness. We don't wanna goof up on tape and have to live through the memory of a bad video. I can totally understand that. I face that sometimes too. But unfortunately for me, I love to express myself and so I had to eventually try to get over this problem.

Lucky for me, I had stage experience and a YouTube channel to give me some confidence. But I had (and still have) a bit of a problem with my consistency. And part of the reason for that was because I would face self-doubt and, frankly, give all sorts of excuses. It would either be that I didn't have the right place to shoot or I didn't have a good idea or that people wouldn't be into my content, and so on.

And this is only videos where I basically have to talk and inform people about a particular topic. No complicated shots or major cinematography involved.

So anyway, I was browsing the tubes one night and came across an underrated channel. It had good self-development content (I'm into that stuff). I loved the guy's energy and positivity and instantly got hooked.

While watching one of his videos, I stumbled upon a comment he left on the video which led to a Facebook page of his. Now I was sceptical 'cause I thought this would be another one of those self-promoting groups that doesn't really serve real value, right? But turns out it was a tiny group, but one with some great, positive people on it!

So here's where the "Video Every Day" part comes in. So the group started a 30 day challenge where, guess what? You had to make a video every day for 30 days! (I know, plot twist, right?)

Alright. So you got one of the mysteries of the title figured out. But now how did this experience change me?

Well, first off, I am still doing the challenge. It has been about 9 days now that I've been uploading videos and with just that, I'm already seeing a change in me.

Making videos for the challenge is getting easier for me now. I'm hesitating way less than I used to. I just quickly figure out what I wanna say and then whip out my smartphone and start recording. (Yes, you don't need a fancy DSLR to get started! Not that I'm racist towards DSLRs or anything 😘)

DSLR users be like

For my YouTube videos, I tend to have hiccups here and there (not literal ones, of course. At least, not usually 😉). So I end up doing retakes and having multiple shots for different parts of the video (gotta get those jump cuts in too, am I right? YouTube attention span and all 😂).

But in this challenge, one of the rules was to shoot it raw and in one take (or one continuous shot, at least). You could talk about whatever interested you that you wanted to share with the group. The important thing was to do it! So it put me in a position which I was not used to (no jump cuts? Gasp!)

That feel when jump cuts are not allowed

Initially, I did hesitate a bit. But I really wanted to improve my confidence and spontaneity, so I kept going. And as I draw near the halfway mark (well, okay, there's still a bunch of days till I reach there, but yeah 😜), I'm seeing myself become more confident and less hesitant already. I'm able to express myself a bit more freely and able to do so without having to do jump cuts 😂.

So yeah, this experience is helping me with my on-camera presence, confidence, and consistency, and I think it could benefit you too!

You can, of course, find other similar groups having a similar challenge, but what I like about this group so far is the high level of interaction I've been getting (relative to the group size).

Since it's a closely knit group, there tend to be more replies going around. There's a great sense of positivity you find in there that's contagious. It's also relatively tiny, so you may have less hesitation getting started.

If you're interested, you can get started in the CreativeGo community here. If you have any issues, feel free to contact me on Facebook. I'll see what I can do 😉.

Thanks for making it this far. Really appreciate it. Hope you have a wonderful day. Remember: keep believing, find solutions, and get success. Peace! 😃