Autobotography Approach – TateY

Title: Create to Connect and Collaborate

Summary/Abstract (1 sentence) Use YouTube to create an online presence by sharing vlogs about my story as an artist and my ambitions and journey to make films, create music, and collaborate with like-minded and creative people.

Problem: I live in a very rural area, making it extremely hard to collaborate with other talented, creative people. So far, my attempts at creating an online presence on other social media platforms such Instagram and Facebook have felt inauthentic and just not enough. I need to be able to connect with others in a more “face-to-face,” authentic manner.

Solution: Vlog and share my journey to create a multi-functional space for my main interests in photography, video making, and music that is large enough where it fosters and allows for creative work with others within the general vicinity of Maine. Essentially, I will use my camera and YouTube to capture my ambitions in an authentic “real-time” way and create an online presence that matches and helps my dreams become a reality. I will be using YouTube to show my ambitions and ideas to a larger audience, and eventually share content that has emerged from this creative space, such as short films and documentaries or live music sessions.

Explanation

About the myself:

Increasingly throughout the past few years, my identity has dramatically revolved around cameras. My interest in visual media in both viewing and creating has brought me opportunities to travel around Maine time-lapsing landscapes, work for non-profits to tell their story, and has even gotten me here to University of Maine, where I will be majoring in New Media. When someone creates something, they inherently express some aspect of themselves. Even though I love capturing photos and timelapses, I have found just photos or text (for captions) aren’t enough to express who I truly am. With video, moving visuals and speech can occur at the same time, making it, in my opinion, the best way I can express myself. Combining the creation of videos and taking advantage of YouTube to eliminate the need for the “middle person” I can share videos about myself, my ideas and ambitions, and anything else that I want directly to the world. Specifically though, I aim to connect with local people around coastal and inland Maine.

About the space:

For the past several years, I have dreamed about having a space for collaborating with like minded and creative people in a multi-functional space that could meet the needs of my interests in photography, video, music, and carpentry/crafts. I rarely get the chance to interact with any of the many talented artists, musicians, photographers, boatbuilders, etc. around me, let alone work together and collaborate on projects. The space I’m dreaming about would be large enough to have various areas for certain work, i.e. video and photo editing, recording studio, small woodworking shop, and still have room for larger events where I could do live “studio sessions” with musicians, show films and other works, and host parties which inevitably creates conversations and sparks creativity.

Obviously this kind of space doesn’t just magically appear. Thankfully have a space that is already partially completed at parent’s house where I frequently go back to on the weekends. There is a structure adjacent to the main house, 26×26 with a lowest ceiling height of 9 ft and a tallest height of 15 ft. The floor is concrete, and the walls and roof are in place, and most of the insulation is in already in the walls. However, there are no windows, insulation still needs to be put up, shingles on the outside walls, and there is several days worth of cleaning inside. Obviously I won’t be able to complete the entire space within the first vlog – in fact this entire process will take several months, but to get started, I will be mainly talking about my very first vlog: introducing myself, my problem I want to address, how I will address it, and then begin cleaning.

About vlogging

Vlogging has taken YouTube by storm in recent years, with thousands of people taking a stab at trying to create interesting, mainly dialog-based videos for their audience to enjoy. Many have been quite successful and now have millions of followers as an audience. All someone needs is a camera and some cheap editing software to begin. The initial cost to start vlogging is low, making it an accessible and affordable way to express oneself and create an online presence. Vlogging is not just merely setting up the camera and talking to it. It’s about bringing a camera along to tell a raw, first-hand account of something you are experiencing. In doing so, it gives the vlogger the ability to talk about what they are doing with matching visuals, which allows the audience to feel more connected to the vlogger.

*Added after critique* My particular “vlogging-style” has yet to be determined as I aim to figure this out as I go, but I will aim for videos that have a point – whether that be to show a process, give an update on a project, or help promote my ideas/projects – be authentic and show the good and the bad, and have them as condensed as possible. Our attention spans are getting smaller and smaller and the last thing I want is for someone to find my videos/vlogs to be boring. I will be using Final Cut Pro to edit my videos.

Audience

*Added after critique* The potential audience for this project is aimed at those who are interested in digital visual art – photography, video-making, timelapse photography, animation, etc – as well as musicians and just all around creative people. My own personal interests are audio recording and using cameras, but that doesn’t mean that I might not want to collaborate with a sculptor and create a stop motion short film later on. So while the audience initially is fairly focused, I would love a broad range of creative people as the audience. The goal is to get people involved all in the name of creation. I think so much good can happen (for the creators themselves as well as the audience and viewers) when a group of people all with different interests and backgrounds get together to create something – whether that be a music video, stop motion film, short documentary, etc. My goal is to use YouTube to help my own ambitions to create, as well as invite others to join in as well.

Inspirations: Casey Neistat, Foster Huntington, Levi Allen, NPR Tiny Desk Concert Series

Budget

*To complete first vlog, which is about introducing myself and the problem I hope to address, and begin cleaning the space*

As I addressed earlier, to create a simple vlog, you merely need a camera and some basic editing software, however this gear list is for gear I already have and will use, so the price is much higher than it needs to be if one was to start completely fresh.

Camera (Lens, SD Card, Battery included) – $750

Tripod – $100

Timelapsing Set Up – $850

Macbook Pro – $1,200

Editing software: Final Cut Pro X – $300  *Added after critique* 

Total: $3,200

Time

*To complete first vlog, which is about introducing myself and the problem I hope to address, and begin cleaning the space*

10 days @8hrs per day