"I don't Dream of Labor" Blog

I don’t dream of labor blog.

It may surprise you guys but I wasn’t very happy with this video. I won’t say that I take myself too seriously as an “artist” or whatever, but I do feel like there’s a creative vision and overall level of quality that I want in all of my work and this didn’t fully meet it from my perspective.

I don’t know how pretentious this is going to sound so bear with me…

Firstly, the production process was a bit challenging. My process usually works like this. I already have an idea or 2 or 3 in my head at all times for videos I want to do. A subscriber mentioned this a while ago and it peaked my interest, so it was on the menu. Usually when I drop on a weekend I’ll give myself a few days to chill before scripting out the next video. But the Bo Burnham video was such a huge thing that it took up half the week. Good problems overall but still I was suddenly on a shortened window.

So I didn’t record until Thursday of the next week which is a bit late for me. Then I saw CJ the X’s Bo Burnham video and it sent me down a spiral. It’s soooooo good! If you haven’t watched it, watch it. I post in the comments that it legitimately elevated the genre of video essays. Knowing CJ and considering him a peer, I looked at the footage I recorded and considered that if I was going to be a good steward of my new found success, that I had to do better than what I had recorded. So I scrapped it and went back to the drawing board.

That was good and bad. I did eventually land on a better script by that Monday (the week the video would drop), but now I had 4 days to record and edit. Often I record and start editing by the beginning of the week. This lets me see how the product is shaping up and sometimes when I feel like there’s gaps and elements missing, I won’t just do the “standard editorial addendum” I’ll legit rerecord footage to make sure my themes have the appropriate impact. But I just didn’t have time for that. I also had to record at night just to give myself the maximum amount of time, hence a different angle which I actually kind of like but idk I may go back to the old angle for now.

Anyway, the worst thin is that the first half of the footage had a serious lighting issue that I didn’t catch until I had recorded it. I covered it up in post (mostly) but it also required me to play with contrast and idk it just shows how amateur I am technically.

Also, at the end I felt like I kind of fumbled my final thoughts and had to edit a lot there to come to a cohesive conclusion. I kind of went on a critique of “left tube” or leftist rhetoric on social media which as I watched it on play back, just didn’t fully represent what I wanted to get across, and then I felt like it was unfair to pair with the “I don’t dream of labor” discussion because I don’t know if that’s really a “left tube” discussion topic. Normally I would have found time to rewrite and re-record but I just didn’t have time…

It has me really thinking about how to best balance the newfound attention and the quality. I am still very happy with most of the video from a writing standpoint. But I just really cringe at how I feel like a few things didn’t land at the end. I think endings are really important as a creator and if the ending isn’t right… idk it just doesn’t feel right. I will probably still drop another video next Friday keeping my 2 weeks cycle going, but after that I’ll go on a short break to make sure my next video really lands like I want it too cause it’s a big idea project.

That said, I oddly don’t have a lot more ideas on this topic outside of what came out on the video. Here’s a few bullets though

- A comment asked about guys like uncle Phil. Although Uncle Phil is a top tier black father figure in media he didn’t really fit any of the archetypes I wanted to talk about.

- I did have a section where I talked about “iconic” black men who were high achievers but it felt superfluous so I cut it.

- I included in that section conversations about “hustler” criminals who became kingpins like Nino Brown, Frank Lucas and a whole rant on how the imprisonment of Larry Hoover is a key factor to modern Chicago street crime. However it ended up getting way off topic so I cut it, but it was some good shit though, Ill find an excuse to talk about these figures in the future.

That’s all I got folks. Thank you guys so much. I am rethinking what to do with the patreon