Friday, October 1st, 2021
6:45 a.m. Green Guest House
Mae Sot, Thailand.
Just now, I woke up from a dream that I remember quite clearly. In this dream, I was sitting in a large restaurant booth with two YouTuber reactors sitting across from me, the brothers Greg and Jaby. They each have popular YouTube channels where they post videos of themselves reacting to and discussing movies, movie trailers, and TV shows. Greg was sitting on the right and Jaby was sitting on the left. But every time I turned to look at Greg or talk to him, I’d turn back to find out that Jaby had turned into someone else. A completely different person was sitting there. It was very surprising and funny, but I did something that I tend to also do in real life. I just pretended not to notice. I knew that it was a trick. Greg and Jaby had planned this joke, and I knew that a bunch of people were actually sitting underneath the table on the other side, and every time I looked at Greg, Jaby would duck down and a different person would sit up in his place. And they did it so fast and so well that I never saw the change. It really was an astonishing trick. But I didn’t react to it at all, and I pretended nothing unusual was happening.
If someone does a magic trick in front of me, I don’t generally react with astonishment and run around and get excited. After all, I KNOW it’s a trick. It’s not actual magic. In the case of Greg and Jaby and the dream, I did the same thing. But this went on for a long time, and suddenly each new person that popped up was holding a different, very fluffy, white puppy. And I couldn’t help myself, and I fell over with hysterical laughter. I rolled around and laughed and laughed in delight, and all the people and all the puppies that were under the table came up and they all sat on the booth bench opposite me, and we all laughed for the longest time until I woke up. It was a delightful dream.
An interesting thing is that I’ve never seen Greg and Jaby together. They have separate YouTube channels. Jaby reacts with his girlfriend, Achara Kirk, and Greg reacts with another guy and other people. I only know they are brothers from them saying so in their videos. So I had no reason to physically put them together other than the knowledge that they were brothers. I’d never seem them together in a YouTube video in real life. Normal people populate their dreams with friends and family members. I apparently populate mine with YouTubers.
I have a bunch of tasks for today. The first and most important, of course, is to go to immigration. I’ll leave the guest house around 8:45, I think. And after that, I have a range of things I’m going to do.
As far as yesterday went, my main accomplishment was to test the audio in my new DJI Pocket 2 camera. This is something I needed to do for myself as part of getting to know how this camera works. And I recorded the whole process as a Learning Curve video. And it worked out quite well. My penchant for organizing is on clear display in this video. I often watch similar videos on YouTube as people test certain cameras, and I’m always frustrated at how poorly they do it and how incomplete their tests are. They always leave questions unanswered. Based on that experience, I made sure to organize my tests so that I wouldn’t be open to the same criticism.
With that in mind, I prepared a list of the seven possible microphone configurations I wanted to test:
MICROPHONE SETUPS
- DJI Pocket 2 Built-In Microphones
- Lavalier Mic with Do-it-All Handle
- DJI Creator Combo Wireless Mic
- Lavalier Mic with DJI Wireless Mic
- Rode Wireless Go with Do-it-All Handle
- low decibel output
- medium decibel output
- high decibel output
- Shotgun Mic with Do-it-All Handle
6b. Shotgun Mic with Do-it-All Handle (closer)
My plan was to test each of these microphones by reading a prepared script. The script would be nearly identical so as to be better able to hear the difference between the microphones. And I would do the recording in the exact same place and in the exact same way. I also took photographs of each setup at the time so that I could insert these photographs into the video later on. I also prepared title cards for each video sequence clearly identifying which microphone I was testing.
However, I also had to repeat this test in different environments based on how I shoot my actual YouTube videos. I’m not sure I have a complete list yet, but I’m assembling a list of what I’m calling SHOOTING ENVIRONMENTS. And I will do a test of all seven microphones in each of these environments:
SHOOTING ENVIRONMENTS
Quiet Environment Outdoors
Quiet Environment Indoors
Noisy Environment (traffic)
Noisy Environment (market)
Noisy Environment (restaurant)
The end result is that I will do forty-five separate microphone tests spread out over five unique locations. And I will post the tests in five separate 12-minute Learning Curve videos, all clearly labelled and with illustrative photographs.
Yesterday, I completed the first one: Quiet Environment Outdoors. I was relatively pleased with the results. I went to one of the sections of canal here in Mae Sot. There is no traffic noise at all there. And I was the only person there. It was the perfect place to conduct a microphone test in what was supposed to be a representative quiet place outdoors. Today, I will test the seven microphones inside my room at the guest house as a Quiet Environment Indoors. And if I have time, I will do a test on Mae Sot’s busy downtown street in the afternoon as a Noisy Environment (traffic).
To be honest, those three tests would be enough for me. The final three probably would be unnecessary if I get clear results from the first three. I’m mainly interested in how the microphones sound indoors and on a busy street with traffic. Once I know that, I will be able to choose which microphone to use most of the time.
So, that will be part of my day.