YouTube success
The Kuiseb river video is a runaway success on YouTube! I guess people are just naturally attracted to water running in the desert. Together with that video, I made a little one of the scenery in Sossusvlei when the pan was full of water. That video is also taking off nicely. Of course, not millions of views, but tens of thousands in a couple of weeks is a achievement for me.
Just today, a full week after Awesome Chapters’ YouTube channel passed 100 subscribers, Google allowed me to pick a custom URL for the channel. Of course, its: www.youtube.com/awesomechapters
It also gives me a little hope that I might be headed in the right direction with this filming stuff. Of course, now I have to double down and really get editing. Unfortunately, real life gets in the way of all the good stuff.
From the 20th till the 26th of January, I had to spend some time in isolation. The reason for that will be clear later, but I had a laptop and the footage from our excellent road trip to Sossusvlei.
The laptop had a woefully anemic 4Gb of RAM, which I managed to upgrade to 12Gb of RAM. (Don’t ask how) 4Gb of RAM was just too little to make a video. With the 12Gb of RAM I was able to make a video for Sossusvlei. I am sure the colors are not right, as I was working on a Samsung TV, and that messes with the colors, despite my best efforts to calibrate the screen.
That video was also wildly successful, and is clocking up the views as I type this. Of course, it’s in line for a re-do when I have some time.
With a bit of spare time, I also made a short video for Spitzkoppe from old footage. Because of the poor quality, I would love to go back and get some professional-looking footage. Here is the video for your enjoyment:
One Strange Rock
One Strange Rock is the name of a National Geographic series. They were recently shooting in Namibia, and the company they worked through in Namibia hired me as a driver. As this is still COVID-19 times, we had to isolate and be tested to make sure that we are not propagating this terrible affliction. While in isolation I had a great internet connection, but once out on the road matters were different.
Will Smith was on this production. We were instructed not to bother him when we see him, and the only time I saw him was at Epupa falls. He was being swamped by locals and I thought that he would not appreciate even more attention. He does look just like he does in the movies, and a personable chap to boot.
All in all, I had quite a bit of fun on this adventure, and would like to be doing something like that again. I did get some great footage from Epupa from before the camera & safety crews arrived, and will turn that into a little video for my fans too. Unfortunately, the only camera I had with me was a Samsung S7, so don’t expect world-beating quality footage in the upcoming YouTube video.
Still, the software I used was pretty powerful. Filmic Pro, which makes a nice Android app. It’s main feature that I like is that it re-programs the Samsung camera to film at 25 frames a second. Standard is 30 frames a second, and Samsung sees no reason to make anything else available.
Advertisements
Awesome Chapters is now well and truly into the business of producing advertisements. On our Youtube channel, the ad for Agama Lodge is gathering views at a good rate! You can check out the video that we made for the lodge here:
