Friday, November 8, 2024
7:16 a.m. Room 19, Hotel Malahayati
Tanjung Balai, Sumatra, Indonesia
(4,328 words)
I guess you would call this a typical morning of late in Tanjung Balai. It’s raining outside and the roar of traffic is intense. Plus, for some reason, I feel exhausted. I’m like a bear coming out of hibernation, shaking his head, blinking his eyes, slouched over, just trying to bring the world into focus. I don’t know why I should feel so tired or like a hibernating bear. I think I went to bed early enough yesterday. And I think I slept enough to feel okay. Yet, there is something off. Perhaps this feeling will fade as I type and slurp on my first cup of coffee.
The big event of yesterday was getting a haircut, and that was fun. I had been planning to get a haircut for a long time. And this neighborhood has tons of small barber shops. I kept thinking about getting a haircut on a daily basis because I would walk or cycle past a half dozen barber shops every day. However, I also wanted to record at least a little bit of the event on video. It’s a classic overseas experience for me. And then on most days, there wasn’t a good time to get camera gear ready and then sail out. Popping into a barber shop is more of an impulse thing for me, and it’s harder to plan to do it. I always end up procrastinating.
But yesterday, the stars aligned, and I did it. And I decided to shoot the event with the Insta360 X3. I’ve been thinking more and more about the potential advantages of using that camera. I had two GoPros mounted on the bicycle when I rode my bike from the ferry to this hotel and then when I rode my bike around the town looking for a SIM card and a kettle. That’s my usual routine of late. But that comes with the penalty of needing to copy, organize and keep track of two sets of videos of the same events. And then that video has to be synced in the editing program. That was a big job this time because I am editing on my smartphone using KineMaster. There is no automatic function in KineMaster to sync video. You have to do it manually, and KineMaster doesn’t even show you audio waveforms. So you have nothing to guide you. You have to line up every single pair of video clips simply by playing them over and over and making incremental adjustments until you finally bring them into sync. It takes a long time. And then, because of the way KineMaster works, the two tracks are pushed out of sync on multiple occasions as you edit the main video, particularly when you add transitions. So you end up having to go through the entire video multiple times and putting all the video clips back into sync. It’s so easy to make a mistake and lose track and get confused, so it increases the editing time by a lot.
And while I was doing this work, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t have to do any of this with 360 video. The X3 automatically films both forwards and backwards (and side to side and up and down). So I wouldn’t need to use two cameras. Plus, the 360 video would capture any moments when I’m talking to people at the side of the road no matter where they are standing. I often don’t get any video of those moments with the GoPros. I have two GoPros running simultaneously, so you’d think that would be enough coverage. But one GoPro is pointing back at me and the other GoPro is pointing forward up the road. Neither one is pointing to the side of the road and the side of the bicycle where people I talk to might be standing. The X3, on the other hand, would capture everything. Of course, using the X3 for a big video project would come with its own drawbacks and challenges. I would have to reframe ALL of the video, and that is a big time commitment. It’s hard to say which would take more time: syncing video from two GoPros or reframing 360 video. Plus, the only time I can make a decision about which camera perspective to use is during the reframing. But when using two GoPro cameras, I can switch from one perspective to the other at any time during the editing. It’s never fixed in stone until I do the final export. I can make changes right up to the last second if I wish to.
It just occurred to me that a possibility (though a daunting one) is to mount the X3 AND the two GoPros simultaneously. That’s essentially what Noraly does. She has a GoPro on the chin of her helmet. AND she has a 360 camera (the X4 I think) mounted on the handlebars. I don’t think she actually shoots 360 video with it, but she could if she wanted to. It’s possible that she uses single-lens mode normally but then switches to 360 mode when she loads the motorcycle onto boats or gets gas or leaves the motorcycle unattended for a while. (Though, to be honest, I find it hard to imagine her taking the time to change modes and settings throughout the day.) I could use my regular GoPro setup but then also have the X3 mounted somewhere. I wouldn’t run the X3 the entire time. That would be too much even for me. But I would have it there in case something interesting started happening. Then I could remove the cover and hit the record button just for those moments. That would entail having the X3 mounted and bouncing around and exposed to the elements for a long time. But it is a tool after all. A tool is of no use when you keep it safely wrapped up and protected in a soft case inside your bags. It’s just a brick if you’re not using it. Tools are meant to be used even if that wears them out and puts them at risk.
The problem for me, as always, is that mounting a camera directly onto the handlebars doesn’t provide a very nice perspective. It’s more natural on the higher handlebars of a motorcycle. On a bicycle, the handlebars are very low and close to my body. But I could work something out.
In any event, because I’ve been thinking about more imaginative ways of using the X3, I decided to test out my theory by using it to record my haircut. I had the GoPro Hero 9 around my neck on the Telesin as usual. But I also got the X3 ready. I didn’t walk around with the X3 in my hand. But when it was my turn to sit down in the barber chair, I got out the X3 and put it onto the counter on the Ulanzi tripod grip. I have no idea if it was a successful experiment or not, because I haven’t tried to reframe the video yet. In one way, it felt like it was more effort for no particular reason. And that’s because the camera was naturally sitting against the mirrored wall. Therefore, even though the camera was filming in 360 degrees, 180 of those degrees was just the mirror behind it, which duplicated the view in front of it. I will end up using only the video from the forward facing 180 degrees. And in that case, it isn’t that different from using a GoPro. I could have mounted a GoPro there and it would have captured largely the same field of view. And the video quality would be better. However, the X3 is still capturing a lot more than a GoPro would. In the reframing, I’ll be able to aim the camera towards the waiting customers, towards the street, towards the receptionist at the desk in the back, down at the counter with all the barber tools, straight ahead at me, and off to the side to record the barber no matter where he goes. It could be fun. Plus, with the X3, setup is faster and easier. I don’t have to aim the camera at all. That’s a bigger advantage than one might think. If I had used a GoPro, I’d have to spend some time mounting the camera at the right angle and pointing it in the right direction. And that’s really hard to do in a tight space like a barber shop. But with the X3, I just needed to plop it down and hit record. There is no need to aim it in a particular direction or worry whether it is pointing in the right direction. And anyone can move it or push it or bump into it, and it won’t matter. I could move it to a new location any time I wanted to very easily. If I wanted to move the GoPro to a new location, I’d have to go through the careful process of making sure it was pointing in the right direction again.
When it comes to selecting a barber shop or something like that, I often go with my gut feeling. So when I left the hotel, I had no idea where I was going to get a haircut. It was possible I would walk down the entire street and none of the barber shops would feel right that day, and I would just turn around and give up. But in this case, I popped into the very first one I came across. And that’s because as I walked past, a man called out to me and said hello. It turns out that he was a customer waiting for his turn, but because he called out to me, it kind of broke the ice, and I walked up to him and chatted with him and asked him in sign language if I could get a haircut here. That’s when I found out he was a customer and didn’t work there. But now that the ice had been broken, I felt comfortable going inside the barber shop itself and speaking to the barbers.
There were three barber chairs and a desk in the room, but only two of the chairs were being used, and the desk was empty. Both chairs were occupied, and a barber was busy at each one cutting a man’s hair. I picked one barber at random, and I showed him a message on Google Translate asking him if he could cut my hair. I figure it’s not dumb to ask because maybe they wouldn’t feel comfortable cutting a foreigner’s hair. But he said it would be fine. And then I typed out a second question asking him if it would be okay for me to record the haircut on video. And he indicated that would be okay as well.
I ended up waiting for my turn a lot longer than I expected, and that’s because even these simple barber shops offer a lot of service. Whenever I thought one of the barbers was finished cutting a man’s hair, he would just move on to the next stage which generally would be giving the man a shave. And then there would be a head and shoulder massage. And then there might be some more finetuning of the haircut and some trimming here and there. So it took a lot longer for the two initial customers to be dealt with. And then there was one other man ahead of me in line. So when one chair and one barber became available, he took that spot. I had to wait for the next one. And it wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit. The waiting area was outside, and it was quite hot, and we had to sit on small plastic stools.
The heat is another reason I have trouble getting a haircut. The natural time to get a haircut is at the end of the day when my errands are done and I’m heading back to my hotel. I might be passing by a barber shop, and I could just pop in and get that chore taken care of. However, at those times, I’m usually quite hot and sweaty and probably stinky. So I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing myself onto some poor barber. If I’m going to get a haircut, I plan the event such that I take a shower inside my hotel room, put on fresh, dry, clean clothes, and THEN I go directly to the barbershop as quickly as possible while I’m still in good condition. And yesterday, I did exactly that. However, I waited so long for my turn and I was so uncomfortable on that plastic stool that I started sweating and overheating while I was waiting. I was worried that I’d end up sweaty and stinky even though I had left my hotel dry and cool and hopefully stink-free.
When it was my turn, I tried to get ready quickly while also taking enough time to not make a mistake with the filming. My plan at the time was to put the X3 on the counter but hold the GoPro Hero 9 in my hand. I wasn’t going to record video with the GoPro. But I thought it would be handy to have it running just to record any potential audio. The X3 would be too far away, I thought, to record any voices. And I hadn’t set up any kind of Rode microphone. I’ve been trying to be more relaxed about audio these days. When I have a GoPro on the Telesin around my neck, I don’t bother with an external mic anymore. The built-in mic audio seems good enough. And I’ve been recording more and more with my smartphone, and I don’t bother with an external microphone then either. It’s nice to NOT use external microphones, and it makes me more willing to record video at any time.
I think I did okay in terms of getting set up. At least, I don’t think I panicked and made mistakes. It’s easy in these situations to move too fast and forget something. But I made sure to hit the record button on the Hero 9 in my hand. And then I took my time to find a safe place for my knapsack. I also had to remove my reading glasses and find a place to put them where I wouldn’t forget them. I had removed the key from around my neck back in my room, so I didn’t have to worry about that. And then I placed the X3 on the tripod grip on the counter and turned it on and hit record. And even though I didn’t want to make the barber wait a long time, I took enough time to make sure that I did it relatively properly. At the very least, the X3 was in position, and the red recording light was blinking. And that was the important thing.
I didn’t plan on recording any video with the GoPro, but since it was in my hand, I made the snap decision to record a short bit at the beginning just talking about how I was getting a haircut. And then after that, I just held the GoPro in my hand in my lap to record audio and relied on the X3 for video. After a while, I turned the GoPro off completely because there was no audio to record anyway. None of the barbers and none of the customers spoke any English, so there was no barber shop chitchat to record. I just closed my eyes and let the X3 record. Twice, I leaned forward and stopped and restarted the X3 recording. I did that to reduce the size of the final files, and to reduce the risk of losing everything. If I just let the X3 record all the time, it would record one massive and very long file. And there’s a much greater chance there would be a failure as it tried to save the file. By stopping the camera from time to time and restarting a recording, I end up with a few smaller files instead of one giant one. And I’ve made sure to save at least a bit of video. As long as I manage to save the first file successfully, I’ll at least have a bit of video to work with even if all the other video files are corrupted and lost.
The haircut itself was great, but not without its quirks. I think he did a nice job. I just looked at myself in the mirror for the first time just now, and I think I look fine. I look a lot better than before with that longer mop of unruly hair. When the haircut was over, the customer in the other chair actually spoke up in English and told me I was very handsome. I think other people echoed that feeling. And the haircut ended with a quick but extremely pleasant head, neck, and shoulder massage. It felt great. What didn’t feel great was when he cracked my neck in both directions. I could feel he was about to do that, and I almost stopped him. I’m worried about damage to my spine. I always think that spines and joints are nothing to mess around with. But just for fun, I let him do it. My neck seemed to crack quite loudly to the right side. And then I tensed up a bit, so the cracking on the left didn’t seem quite as dramatic. I think I instinctively resisted the twisting motion.
Overall, it was a great experience. I hope the video turns out okay. I don’t know if this will be a separate “I got a haircut in Sumatra” video or whether I will just use a short bit of this video as part of an ongoing vignettes sort of video. I don’t even know how much the haircut cost because one of the customers paid for me. He went to the desk to pay for his haircut and shave, and then as he left, he stopped at my chair to tell me that my haircut was free. He had paid for me as well.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time working on YouTube videos. It seems like I should be fully caught up, but this always takes far longer than I expect. I’ve also been experimenting with different types of video content for a future Patreon launch. For example, I’ve been shooting a lot of random video clips using my smartphone. These clips aren’t part of any particular day or any particular adventure. I just thought that I might as well record these moments whether I end up using the video clips or not. And for one video, I took all of these clips and strung them together almost in a random order. I think the first video clip is something I shot on my phone on the night I first arrived in Tanjung Balai and I went to the Alfamart to get some drinking water. Some of the video is about having a meal. Some clips are about walking down the streets and recording everything going on around me. Some are about the heavy rainstorms and thunder. And I recorded a video of the night when they laid down the new tar on the road outside my hotel. I also recorded the experience of taking some selfies with a group of schoolgirls and getting some fried banana snacks and filling up my Dromedary bag with purified water. There were a lot more of these video clips than I thought, and the final video (which I called “Vignettes”) is about an hour long. I thought this would be a bonus Patreon video, but I decided to make it part of the Sumatra 2024 series for Planet Doug.
Making this vignettes video was supposed to be quick and easy and painless, but I discovered once again that there is no such thing when it comes to making videos. They all require a lot of time no matter how simple you think they are going to be. I’ve also continued with making various companion bonus videos for the main videos to be posted on Patreon. These are the Blue Dot videos, the Photo Montage videos, and the Relive videos. I’m getting better and faster at making these. I figured out how to record the computer screen when using Windows, and I’ve got the audio figured out. I seem to be able to make the Blue Dot videos much faster now. I don’t have to think about the mechanics involved and technology anymore. And for the Photo Montage, I’ve been developing the habit of taking screenshots as I edit the final version of the main videos. I can use these screenshots in a variety of ways, including in a Photo Montage. My original idea was just to play music over these videos. However, I’ve started doing a voiceover instead. I haven’t gotten that system fully figured out yet. I’m still working out the kinks. I do the voiceover for the Blue Dot on my laptop. But for the Photo Montage, I do the voiceover directly into the video on KineMaster using my smartphone. That isn’t quite as simple and easy as using the laptop, but it’s more efficient in the long run.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t done much in the way of completing the Patreon and launching it. I did manage to change the cover photo and profile photo. That took a surprising amount of time. It was a tedious task to sort through all my various photographs and video screenshots to finally come up with a headshot that would work for a profile photo. And then I had to figure out how to resize it properly. And for that, I guess I found a relatively simple way to do it with a program that is built into Windows. I don’t even know what program it is, but I was glad to find it. I simply double-clicked on a photo file on this VivoBook, and it opened up in a default program that allowed me to change its dimensions relatively easily. I was even able to take the profile photo and apply a portrait filter that blurred the background and softened my skin. And I did all this without needing to download and experiment with a dozen useless apps as was normally the case on the MacBook. I continue to find working in a Windows environment suits me better. It’s simply more intuitive and things just seem to work how I want them to work without any struggle.
Finding a cover photo also took a long time. The cover photo needed to be 1600px by 400px. Luckily, with this new Windows program, it was relatively easy to adjust photos to those dimensions. But I spent a long time going through my SmugMug account and downloading potential photos and experimenting with them till I found one that I liked and which could be altered to those dimensions. I concentrated on simple scenery shots. I guess it would be nice to have a fancier cover photo with some graphics and information. Paddy Doyle, for example, uses a nice banner that is made up of three separate photos. Of course, since this is Paddy Doyle, each photo is a photo of himself. So his Patreon cover page consists of four heavily photoshopped photos of himself with blindingly white teeth. I don’t think I want to do that. But it probably works well for YouTube and Patreon. For now, I’m using just a scenery shot of rice paddies and palm trees and against the backdrop of a volcanic crater lake. It’s a picture I took while riding a scooter around Lake Maninjua near Bukittinggi. It’s one of my favorite pictures. And the astonishing thing about it is that there is nothing fake or photoshopped about it. The place looked exactly as it looks in the picture: stunning. It might be a boring or ineffective banner photo for a Patreon, but the scenery looks nice.
And speaking of Patreon, it occurred to me, after chatting with a couple of other experienced YouTubers, that I should consider turning on YouTube Memberships at the same time as launching Patreon. I don’t really understand how YouTube Memberships work. I was never that interested in the idea because there didn’t seem to be the same variety of content as you can produce on Patreon. I didn’t really see how Members would benefit in any way on YouTube. But I’ve learned a few things, and there do seem to be possibilities. And it occurs to me now that you could have both. And I don’t think it would be that much extra work.
For example, if I make a special video just for Patreon, then the work of making and uploading the video is already done. That’s the bulk of the work. And since the video is finished, I could easily make it available to YouTuber Members as well. I think it’s just a simple matter of a few clicks. And I learned that it is possible to have written posts for YouTube Members as well. I didn’t realize this, but these posts show up on the Community Tab. And then, just like on Patreon, they are locked unless the person is a member of your channel. So it seems like it wouldn’t be a big burden to have both a Patreon and YouTube Memberships. You just have to make sure that the same items are available to both as they are supposed to. One potential conflict is that YouTube Memberships don’t have a free level available. So it is not possible to match it perfectly with Patreon.