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kerubimcrepin · 6 months ago

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A random analysis of the Japanese subs.

This post is so, so self-indulgent, but I hope it'll be fun.

The reason I am making this is simple: I am a linguistics major, I like Dofus and Wakfu, and I really like the way the Japanese language allows one to express themselves by using pronouns and honorifics, both for oneself and others.

It's always fascinating to see what can be said about characters through their usage of Japanese language: both in translations, and in original texts. I'm sure you've heard about the Japanese translation of Undertale, and for a good reason.

...Just like every other post on my blog, this will only be about Kerubim, Atcham, and Joris. But this time, not just because I am so hyperfocused:

Our main sources for Japanese translations of Wakfu are fan subs (hard to find), the lost media dub that has been wiped from the internet (impossible to find), and the official Netflix subs. I do not have Netflix, so I had to employ @dullard's help in this endeavour... except Dullard doesn't know any Japanese, and since Netflix is very anti-piracy, we couldn't screenshare it, which means he had no help from me. It made finding interesting dialogues hard, and the thought of covering more characters is actually scary.

I hope you will enjoy this regardless, and mind the fact that I am not a Japanese speaker — just an enthusiast. (I do study foreign languages for my future profession, but they are English and Chinese, not Japanese...)

A cursory Japanese lesson.

In Japanese, there are many pronouns that mean "I" and "you", instead of just a singular word for each, like in English. It is a little bit similar to the tu/vous system many languages have.

In Japanese, it's quite rude to say "you", and usually, people just use each other's names: "[asking someone named Alice] Does Alice want tea?" is the polite, proper, normal way to ask people things. Saying "you" is usually either something done between people who are close, or people who are way above you on the social ladder.

(For example: "anata" is used/was used by wives towards their husbands, is a generic word when you don't yet know someone's name. It can sound arrogant. "kimi" is used by older male superiors towards employees, older friends towards younger friends, and boyfriends towards girlfriends. It can convey the feeling of closeness with one person taking care of another, or, it can show that someone doesn't respect the other person. "omae" is used to express anger and hate, or to playfully show affection between close friends and family. As you can see, all these words imply a degree of intimacy, when used positively.)

The most common personal pronouns are "watashi" (neutral in polite settings, feminine outside of them), "boku" (soft masculine, light polite), and "ore" (harsh masculine, not polite)

It is normal for pronouns to change with age. All young boys start out using "boku", and usually begin using "ore" or other pronouns later in life. Besides that, many people use different pronouns in different situations: a man might use "ore" with male friends, "boku" with family and women, and "watashi" at work.

However, in a lot of fiction, a character's most used pronoun (and sometimes, the ways they deviate from those pronouns — with whom, and why?) is a part of their character design. Besides pronoun usage, there are also sentence ending particles that exist to show emotion, or speaker's attitude, and their personality. Really, the possibilities are endless. This usage of Japanese is rarely realistic, and is instead something unique to anime, and it's called "yakuwarigo", or "role language".

So, today we will be having a look at the ways the three guys this blog is about were translated in Japanese.

NOTE: Due to anti-piracy functions of Netflix, the screenshots came out completely blank, save for the subs. For this reason, I just added the official Japanese subs to screenshots of the English fan sub + added some colours to a couple of them, in longer sentences, so you can see the boundary of different words.

Atcham

"Ninmu kanryōshita zo" [Mission accomplished]

"ぞ" [zo] is a rough masculine sentence ending particle Strongly asserts one's will, opinion or decision. Very masculine, and at least in media, almost always seen paired together with the usage of "ore" personal pronoun.

Speaking of which...

"Asshu ni fukushū suru chansuda. Ore mo iku!" [It's a chance to get revenge against Ush. I'm going too!]

"俺" [ore] - I, me. Masculine personal pronoun, and like everything masculine, in japanese it's associated with a certain degree of arrogance, antagonization, and rudeness.

PERSONAL NOTE: This pronoun is not something one can use in polite speech, but imagining Atcham resorting to using "boku" or "watashi" gives me psychic damage. If Wakfu was a Japanese series, I assume he'd be a character who is always a bit rude.

We can also observe the usage of the informal "だ" particle, and "行く" [iku], which is a verb that means "to go" in an informal conjugation.

Kerubim

"Washi-ra o hīrō hyouzou no korekushon ni kuwaeyou to" [He wanted to add us to his hero ice sculpture collection, pretty much.]

"わし" [washi] I, me "わしら" [washi-ra] - we, us Here we can see the personal pronoun "washi" with the pluralizing suffix "ら" [ra]. In media, "washi" is used by well-learned, elderly men. If there's a white-bearded centuries-old wizard-king who gives out quests, he probably uses "washi". Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit uses "washi" in the Japanese translation.

PERSONAL NOTE: I think Kerubim, as someone who perpetually dies and is reborn and has to re-age, would probably spend most of his life switching between "ore" as a "young" man, and "washi" as an "old" man. He cares a lot about appearing a certain way, and "a strong man" as well as "a nurturing mentor" are his two favorite images of himself.

"と" [to] is a quote and opinion marker. Japanese language favours vague statements, instead of saying that you're sure of something. There will be a more interesting usage of it later, but here it simply shows that this is being observed. It softens the statement, in a way.

"Washi mo iku, hisabisa no Ekafurippu da. Kono neko ni makase toke!" [I'll go too, it's been a long time since I've been to Ecaflip. Leave it to this kitty!]

There isn't much to say here, besides noting another usage of "washi". The only interesting thing is that Kerubim isn't using official speech, — especially with the informal だ [da] ending particle, which fits him, and the situation itself, well, — as well as the fact that he explicitly calls himself a kitty. (cute)

Joris

"Arumando Ōji, dengon-o otsutae-shitaku, ekken-o oyurushi itadakemasu ka?" [Prince Armand, I would like to deliver a message. Won't you please grant me an audience?]

Three words of this sentence use polite conjugations usually reserved for royalty (shocking, I know...), or someone else much higher than oneself on the social ladder.

"伝える" [tsutaeru] — to report, to convey. This word has had the honorific prefix "お" added to it

"許し" [yurushi] — pardon, forgiveness, permission. This word has had the honorific prefix "お" added to it.

"いただけます" [itadakemasu] — to be able to receive. This is the polite (kenjougo, humble form showing being lower than the person being spoken to) version of multiple other verbs. (don't confuse this with "いただきます" [itadakimasu], which is said before eating food.)

"Desuga! Bonta no masutā kara tsuyoku iwaremashita. Sheran Sharumu-ō e chokusetsu todoke nebanaranai to." [Nevertheless! The Master of Bonta had strongly insisted. It was said to me that the message must be delivered directly to King Sheran-Sharm.]

"ですが" [desuga] - nevertheless, however, alas. It is a polite word, mostly used in official written texts and not in casual conversations, which is befitting this conversation.

"言う" [iu] - to say, to speak, to tell This word is heavily conjugated into the next forms: "言われる" [iwareru] - to be told (impolite) -> "言われました" [iwaremashita] to have been told (polite)

ねばならない [nebanaranai] - must, should, have to This word is mainly used in literature, and is not the typical way to say "must/should/have to" in day-to-day life. It is not just polite, but downright literary/stiff language.

"と" [to] - grammatical quote marker, "it was said..." particle marking a quote that the speaker heard.

"Sagare. Watashi ga aite suru." [Get out of my way. I'll handle him.]

"下がる" [sagaru] - to move away. The word is conjugated with a "-re" ending, which gives it an extremely strong and authoritative tint, as if used by someone in a position of power towards someone below them.

"する" [suru] - to do, to take on, to perform Has no polite ending here. and is very casual/impolite.

In this "heat of the moment" situation, he drops all politeness out the window, and commands Armand to get out for his own safety's sake.

Here we also get Joris's personal pronoun:

"私" [watashi] - I, me (polite, feminine) Because it is used here with someone Joris has used polite language with, like Armand, it doesn't mean much. But when used with people he otherwise drops his politeness with, — or is supposed to drop it, — this pronoun takes on a different tint. It sounds cold, distant, and aloof, — like he is treating even casual conversations like a buisiness exchange. And if it's not aloof, then it might sound a bit feminine.

"Maa, ochitsuke" [Heey, calm down]

"まあ" [maa] - well, I guess, just, now, This is an adverb used in casual speech, used to express things like a mild level of hesitation or uncertainty, or to soften a sentence or a request into a more gentle, relaxed one.

"落ち着く" [ochitsuku] - to calm down The conjugation here is, once again, the commanding imperative. However, it's less of a big deal in this situation, considering:

rough language is good and normal, in casual, friendly speech between men.

it's not him using it with a prince that he was previously showering in highly polite speech, but instead a man he's been living with for 600 years (even if said man is his father).

"Watashi no nou wa mada koutteru rashi" [My brain is still frozen it seems]

This sentence is neither polite nor rude. Mostly notable as a yet another usage of "watashi" in the translation.

"kimi-tachi mo issho ni tsurete ikitaiga, mada keiken ga tarinai" [I'd really like to take you two (affectionate, derigatory, arrogant) with me, but you're lacking in experience]

Here we can see the first translation error: plus tous jeunes being translated as "too young", instead of "not young anymore". But we'll disregard this, and instead focus on something that deranges me:

"君" [kimi] "君たち" [kimi-tachi] - you (plural) "たち" [tachi] is simply a pluralizing suffix, identical to "ら" [ra] in usage.

Yeah Joris "君" [kimi]'d them. He kimi'd them to death. He looked at his dad and called him kimi. He looked at his uncle and called him kimi too.

I know it's likely that the translator just doesn't know better about their relationship, but Joris WOULD do that. he DOES do this by calling them "kids" in french here, so it fits! (I have a huge analysis of this entire scene in my drafts...)

...What is even wrong with him. I love him.

#ro liveblogs dofus #krosmoz #dofus #randominfopost #wakfu #no manga liveblog today just this + another little post + an announcement in an hour. however posting will resume as normal after today #bc itll be running on a queue loll #see you in 2 weeks.#joris jurgen #kerubim crepin #atcham crepin #When I have the time (after my trip)#I'd like to make an index of tu/vous usage by these three and also look at the unofficial japanese sub of the movie.#because im normal about linguistics. obviously.

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keefwho · 9 months ago

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April 04 - 2024 Thursday

11:24pm

6.5/10

This morning I showered immediately and got ready to go to the store. Mom drove me to the market in Seeley. I brought my Switch to play but put it down in favor of enjoying the scenery. Shopping went well, I guessed a total of $350 and the cost was $345. The cashiers seemed REALLY gay which was nice. On the drive home we saw a freshly hit deer which was very gross and we drove over it's legs. I didn't get as much freezer stuff because they don't have a great selection of frozen foods. I need mom or one of her coworkers to pick me up chicken from town. And maybe the extra big bags of french fries.

I had meant to stream after settling down after my groceries but I didn't. I did do my finances which I've had to do late due to a late payment from someone. I was also looking into my dental insurance situation and how to pay it, I have to do it before the 12th. I also chopped all my vegetables I just bought so I could freeze them and was hitting up anyone I could to chat while I did it. TK was down at first but she had to get ready to go somewhere instead. DV wasn't responsive. BR was getting ready for work. BD hadn't responded at first but she did in the end and agreed to chill in her server VC while I chopped. I appreciated that a lot, I desperately wanted company during the task. We made basic conversation and a couple of her friends joined. When I was done, I started cooking my chicken stew from the fresh ingredients and switched to my PC. She started screensharing the just chatting section on Twitch and we watched at least half an episode of every popular adult swim show being streamed on different channels. She left to make dinner and I was supposed to work next.

Instead of working I called DV because he's always down to talk about important stuff and I really needed someone to talk to about some things. This proved to be great, I got a lot off my chest and he gives good feedback. He's good about being honest instead of blindly supporting everything I'm saying and telling me what I want to hear. It feels great to be told I'm wrong about something because it means I have something to think about and maybe improve on. He told me about his problems too which I had my own feedback on. We talked for a couple hours before he had to go pick up his sister and I wanted to get into VR. BD said she was feeling meh so I asked if we could chill. I was hoping to get some more deep conversation out of it and that's what happened. In a driving world we started talking about how we feel about relationships and view them very similarly. Like how using the word "love" is a really REALLY big deal and its a red flag when someone uses it so lightly. She also told me about this guy that's been clingy around her. The weird part is that I know I've been like him in the past but maybe not to his degree. Seeing that (and not supporting it) gave me a little bit of perspective on the times I've also been clingy or overbearing. Sort of like I was forced to step back and look at the times I was like that. It's something I sort of hide from because it's uncomfortable to admit that sometimes I behave in a way I don't like for various reasons. It got REALLY awkward when the guy she was talking about joined the world and vaguely told her "we need to talk". My first thought was he had joined and spawned in the back seat where we didn't see him and he listened in. But maybe that didn't happen. He might have just seen that we were hanging out together after she told him she wanted space, making her a liar in his eyes. Apparently their talk went well and he was understanding about the situation so I'm happy for them.

I got off and joined AE and friends while they played No Mans Sky. I was asking them sort of random questions because I was in a good and social mood after processing things with DV. I think they liked me? As in, they seemed receptive to the kind of conversation I was bringing. I was there until DS was in bed.

DS and I talked about our days and she showed me this cool thing she did with all her con badges. Also the stuff she bought for her new rats she's getting this weekend. I greatly enjoyed chatting with her tonight, I was in a great mood. We did our puzzles and caught up on the old ones, she read me a Frankie chapter from the Monster High book, and I continued the KH2 playthrough. It was a good night.

~~~

Today's topic was presence so I tried to keep that in mind while I did things today. It was harder in the morning but in the evening I had some thoughts. Part of presence is the idea that you attend to things as they are in the current moment. It's sort of submitting to whatever the current task or state of things is. Thats something I struggle with because I'm usually thinking of whatever is most important to me in general. But I know to be most effective, different times should be spent on different things. In the evening I employed that by being more attentive to the different people I talked to today. They all had their place in my evening and were beneficial when given the proper focus.

Other than that I feel a bit bad that I ditched any kind of schedule today, I did 0 work.

#journal #diary

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somniumoflight · 3 years ago

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... has anyone ever known someone (online or otherwise) that just - seems to have a mental breakdown over something, but what they’re having a breakdown over seems... kinda minor?

Like, there’s this girl I know online, met her through a tentative new friend maybe a month ago, who RPs with me sometimes on an MC server we’re mutuals on, and she’s in a bunch of discord chats. Usually she’s pretty okay, but today, she started crying in VC because people on an RP discord chat she was in demoted her a rank. Like, she was full-on crying, sobbing like a family member had just died about how people there hated her. But when she screenshared with the people in the VC, showed them the reason she was given for being demoted, it seemed... honestly, like they were being pretty reasonable? Like, their main problems with her was that she wasn’t giving everyone’s characters time to shine, and they wanted her characters to be less angsty so that storytelling was more fun. Personally, if I’d been told the same thing, I’d have been a little irritated at them wanting me to change my characters, but I would’ve done it and I wouldn’t have minded it too much, and if i HAD been accidentally acting like I was the only star of the show (which she said was the case with her) I would’ve tried to change that, because it is kinda dickish to do that to people. ‘

And my not-quite-friend was having a full-on weeping breakdown over this, and screaming at them in the chat i could see over screenshare.

I wanted to tell her to just - to just calm down and think about it rationally, wanted to say that these people might have a point, and that it wasn’t the end of the world that she’d been demoted a rank because ranks don’t really matter as long as you can still have fun on the server you’re on, and that her reacting the way she was was just making it worse since the other people were being very calm and reasonable about it even while she was all-caps screaming at them. But the other people in the VC were agreeing with her on everything except the “don’t all caps scream” thing, and calling the people on the server toxic, and they didn’t seem to see that the people on the server had a point. And I’m a very awkward person, irl, not great at talking to people when it’s not about things like my hobbies or things we both share interest in or rping - so the only thing I ended up actually saying was the “dont scream at them itll make it worse” thing, when i really wanted to try to say the other things and show her how her attitude was hurting her relations with the people in the server. Because I didn’t want to make her more upset, and I wasn’t sure if the other person in VC would be upset at me or not, and i like these people enough that I don’t want to ruin our budding friendship because i said the wrong thing.

I’m just... I guess I’m saying I'm torn about this. I like the girl, when she’s not weeping about things that won’t matter in a year or two - she’s fun to RP with and I’ve never noticed any problems like the ones those server people were having with her. But at the same time those people had a point, and the way she was acting was just... I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m at least a few years older than her, and I’m apparently more mature in some ways than other people my age (according to the folks, at least), but it just seems so immature? And I feel bad thinking that because I like rping with her and she usually seems pretty nice, and thinking that sort of thing just makes me feel like a jerk.

What should I do guys?

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wulferson · 6 years ago

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i saw a post earlier that is incredibly relevant™ and let me fucking say if you fucking think it’s okay to use your mental illness as an excuse for shit you need to stop right the fuck now because it is so fucking manipulative and shitty and there is no excuse for that, and it really made me think of all the shit that’s been going on with me aside from the fucking ADHD - more under the cut (tw: emotional abuse, self harm mention)

The past few weeks have been absolute fucking hell for me, leading up to the last couple of days being a disaster. For years I have been friends with somebody, and we used to get along so well, but we grew apart. I’ll admit, I was never perfect, and I used to do some shitty things a long time ago, but I grew up and realized my mistakes. I thought we were happy and fine for such a long time, and didn’t realize that for fucking years now I’d been emotionally abused and manipulated.

She has anxiety and depression, and I get it, it’s hard. I have anxiety, I’ve been depressed, I know the feeling. However, I didn’t fucking use that against anybody the way she did with me. Maybe I did when I was younger, and that was shitty of me - I was stupid as a kid, and kids do stupid things, but like I said I grew and I learned, and I stopped doing that kinda thing.

She told me that she felt like I didn’t care anymore, and I told her time and time again that I did and that I was trying to fix the issues between us. She still refused to believe me and just said that I didn’t care, didn’t want to fix it. About a year and a half ago, she tried to break it off with me, and I wasn’t ready. I really couldn’t bear with the thought of her leaving - even though it would have been the healthiest thing for me. We got back together, it was fine for a bit - and then the cycle began again. Again and again and again, we always came back to shitty stupid fight, make up, be nice for a while, something dumb happens and another shitty fight ensues. And it would repeat. She always fucking pinned the blame on me, every single time.

I’m not perfect and I know that, but I was trying so fucking hard to be good for her. I would take time out of my day to hang out with her, and I would let her know if I was gonna be busy with something for a few days so she knew why I wasn’t able to hang out or something. This was never fucking enough for her, though. She always had to pull up how lonely she was when I’d do something with friends, she’d always (like i said before) tell me it really seemed like I never cared and I really don’t understand where the hell she was even coming from with this. I constantly showed her that I cared about her, I did so much for her and she just didn’t acknowledge it in the long run.

She also just... always had to know what I was doing. She would tell me that she didn’t, but she always asked “what’s up, what’s going on,” etc., etc. I added two of my friends from school on Steam and she got so pissed that I didn’t fucking tell her right away. The same happened when I was DM’d by somebody in a server over Runescape and I didn’t tell her until she saw it on a screenshare. Like, it was a brief message where we literally just talked about some Runescape, but apparently I was the bad guy for not telling her right away that I got a message from some random person I don’t even really know.

Kind of related to knowing what I was doing (I guess), she felt very controlling, and I just brushed it off for such a long time. I wouldn’t even take a sip of the slightest bit of alcohol at 21 because I knew she’d be so fucking disappointed/angry that I willingly did that without being pressured.

We hit another one of our stupid fights earlier this week, and she had already been kind of mad about the fact that I was involved with more people since getting back on tumblr while she didn’t have anybody with the same dynamic. I offered for her to make friends with my friends on several occasions, and I offered for her to come join me with all the Hollow Knight stuff (even though she hadn’t finished the game), and she’d always say her anxiety got in the way. I understand that social anxiety is very hard to combat, and I don’t blame her for that. What angers me is that she would still get mad at shit like me getting gift art of my OC or the fact that i was “doing shit for other people” when I had requests going and shit.

I finally worked up the courage the other night to end it after she fucking came onto my blog without telling me, looked through several pages of it, and got pissed off at a silly doodle I did of a friend that I posted but didn’t show her right away. She argued like hell with me for a while, and eventually turned it into a whole “you don’t care this shows you don’t care you’re being sneaky about shit you’re doing” bblblaabalblaa. I have nothing to hide, but she had me so stressed out about even being with my school friends and hanging out that I was afraid to share shit i was doing with her. Should I have done that? No, but god was I fucking afraid to piss her off or upset her. The amount of times “I want to kill myself” has been said to me in the context of an argument is so high I can’t actually count it.

She realized at this point that I was at my wit’s end, and I was ready to end it. She starts fucking pulling all the “we were gonna do this together, and we had plans” bullshit, starts sending pictures of all the old art we’ve done for each other and just... really starts fucking guilt tripping me into not breaking it off, and making it insanely fucking hard.

Later that night she tells me “hopefully there will be room in my life for you again, I’m sorry I’ve been such a problem” after going on about how sweet and kind of a person I am. I thought that would have been the end of it, but after a day of not hearing from her she came back immediately accusing me of being the reason the entire relationship went to shit. She literally said she hurt me because of the way I had hurt her, and that I have problems and my behavior ruined her as a person. She’s going on and on about how I never cared, and I never wanted to fix the issues and all I want to do is run away from them. No, I tried so fucking hard to save this relationship.

I was never quick to blame her for my issues like she did to me. I physically fucking hurt myself over how shitty I thought I was to her, because I thought I genuinely deserved it because I was that terrible. Thing is though, even when she found out about that, I still didn’t blame her. I told her that I made the conscious decision to do that, and it was on me, not her. She came in so fucking quick blaming me the instant she messaged me.

The last thing I would have wanted was for it to be over, but now that it is, I feel so fucking free. I didn’t realize for years how fucking shitty and manipulative and downright abusive it was.

sorry if any of this is incoherent nonsense, it’s 6am and i’m still awake, so my typing isn’t the greatest right now

tl;dr: I’ve been part of a shitty abusive relationship without realizing for a very long fucking time, and it’s been killing me terribly for forever, but I finally broke it off and accepted that I can’t keep fucking living like a caged animal.

#wulf rambles #abuse #self harm #long post #im exhausted good fucking knight zzzzz #forgot to tag alcohol #alcohol #mention of it anyways just in case

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chaosd1 · 7 years ago

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You know, when I reblogged that, it was mostly to showcase an issue that’s been present for YEARS, but keeps cropping up every now and then because most of Channel Awesome’s fans still think it’s 2010. If I had a Patreon dollar for every person who asked me something about “____ DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!” despite that not being a thing I’ve done for over half a decade, I would probably not have to worry about paying off that damaged tire, or any future repairs to my car and/or PC. Long story short, they aren’t very good at letting things go.

I know people who want me to share my story are hoping for the same level of juicy gossip or levels of hypocrisy or betrayal that have accompanied so many of these other stories but I’m sorry to say it’s not quite that interesting, or even remotely “gotcha” in any sense of the word. If anything it’s more a reveal of how the company feels about its low-tier producers, and symptomatic of the larger issue that they clearly DON’T want anyone but the Chicago crew, or anyone that’s possibly bringing in their own audience. Remember when JonTron and PBG posted on Blistered Thumbs? I’m pretty sure they’re still kicking themselves over that one. As a bit of background, I always wanted to be on the CA site in some form, and by the time I had a show to offer up, I was already pretty close friends with a lot of the producers. In fact, it was Julien (Sad Panda) who decided to post up one of my videos in his schedule slot as a way to offer me a test spot. It was well recieved enough, but video games were almost always relegated to BT at the point, so off I went.

Despite being the more “respected” site by some audiences, all snafu’s aside, I felt that Channel Awesome treated Blistered Thumbs producers as second class citizens. Posting on there was like the Wild West. You put up whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, and as often as you wanted, and hoped someone with a show that consisted of a three-hour long livestream split up into 15 minute increments wouldn’t end up pushing your video off the main page slider within the next few hours. It was very much for that reason I pursued some means to get myself listed on the main site by cleaning up the YEARS worth of spam and reported comments. After bringing it to the right people, I was permitted to post videos on the main site as well. It went well enough... for a while.

Once BT was shut down, a few of my friends (specifically MegaGWolf) were unceremoniously let go without an ounce of communication. (Most everyone on BT who wasn’t brought on to the CA “merger” had to find out via friends, as Michaud didn’t directly inform them.) Despite the promise of rebranding and stronger promotion, the BT audience didn’t really follow over to CA as the site didn’t really fit their desires, and the core CA audience was basically “NC, Linkara,and that’s it.” Views tanked and it was around the time I decided to move over to Youtube as the Blip waters were already pretty troubled.

At some point I started doing relatively well on Youtube, to the point CA felt like an annoying afterthought. I had to make special titlecards for CA as they had a ridiculous format I’d purposefully ignore later on just to see if they were paying attention. For example, the images were all supposed to be JPGS, though I always made them PNG, and since they were hotlinking them from my site anyway, WHY DID IT FUCKING MATTER?! It most felt like this ridiculous push for control and a power play that no one bothered to enforce anyway. Each time we scheduled we had to provide a link, a title, and a link to a special made titlecard. Did you have a special instruction or link you wanted to include when posting on CA? Good fucking luck they would ever include it, or spell half that shit correctly. Hell after a while, I figured it was pretty non-coincidental that after changing the title format from “MMO Grinder: Name of Game” to “Name of Game - ChaosD1,” views coming from CA were barely a percentile of the overall views I’d get from every other source. It wasn’t worth making them a stupid special title card and hopping onto a painfully broken scheduling site (a site that, by the way was designed for Sporting Events, and was so filled with non-updated dead links I occasionally would troll them by posting my category as “Blistered Thumbs” and “The Inebriati” both still available in the category dropdown menu. I’ll bet you they are still there to this day.

My issue didn’t come about until a sudden rule change. A rule I didn’t really have an issue with until the market started dying down, and my constant crushing depression over winter and my wife’s illness kicked in. Basically, “Post one video a month, or you’re stricken from the site.” later on that was changed to TWO videos per month and my show was almost always a ONCE per month deal. Seemed a bit suspect and draconian. There were people who didn’t post videos for several MONTHS that were still listed on the site, but they suspiciously had pretty strong followings elsewhere. Still I figured some form of warning or amnesty would take place to some extent. So in April of 2017 it was a pretty shitty month. Most of it was spent working on Eternal Crusade which was such a miserable slog none of us felt like doing much of anything else, there were no games to Sidequest for the suddenly required 2nd video per month, and I was pretty sure I was going to get some flak for it.Keep this in mind, I was WELL AWARE of the risk I was taking by not posting a second video, despite me rather often saying my show was monthly at the most. I figured they might know this, I’d get a warning, and that’d be the end of it. However, I was able to get out Eternal Crusade at the very end of April, but didn’t get around to posting it on the schedule until May 1st. May 1st rolls around, I check the site for any feedback and comments, and notice the video isn’t posted at all.... and I can’t access the scheduler anymore. One day late of posting consistently for 5 fucking years, and I’m locked out of the site like I stole a laptop from the studio. So I hopped on Twitter. Partially to express dismay, and partially because... I noticed I didn’t really have an audience on Channel Awesome anymore. I asked this very specific question and joked with some of the replies, most of whom confirmed my suspicion. They really only watched me on my site or my YT channel.

Still in talking with the CA chat in Skype, (I’d be on that Producer’s chat more often if I didn’t basically swear off Skype after Discord included screenshare. The producers and former producers really should make a Discord channel already.) they informed me that they’d probably reverse their decision if I just contacted Greg. While I didn’t think it was likely worth the effort, I figured I would anyway. Maybe pipe dreams of being included in an anniversary special some day. I just couldn’t wait to be the guy sitting slightly out of camera range in every shot with the one exception of getting to say “What should we do now, Critic?” for my first and only line in the movie. So I contacted Greg. It went a little something like this (for the Skype uninitiated, my words in Blue, Greg’s in grey):

So yeah, always fun to have to wait several days for a sentencing to the crime of being a day late on a post.

Of course, I cropped out the rest of the image, because the response without any contact in-between immediately afterward was this:

Yes I was being a sarcast there. I’m a sarcast... but when I’m last told “we’ll go through everything” and that is immediately followed up by “Sorry I took so long to get back, but... get lost scrub” I’m probably going to be a bit miffed about it. Of course this is CA and you can’t talk bad about them... or post something on Twitter they presume is talking bad about them, as this was the response to my sarcastic reply:

So yeah, Greg not quite understanding the concept of linear time (again I posted the tweet BEFORE I sent him the Skype message, not after) apparently you can’t even ask your audience where they still watch your videos most. They take it as a personal insult, like I didn’t enough appreciate those generous table scraps us low-tier producers had to fight over.

All things considered though, I knew the risk of not posting a second video in that month, and I valued my sanity over tossing out content for the sake of a suddenly imposed deadline. Could I have contacted Greg? Yeah, I suppose so, but why should I even have to? To be only a day late and have everything stricken without warning, like a robot looked over the feed and said “Well a month has passed, and there was only one so fired lel” without considering why, or even checking in on the employee in question, is the kind of corporate "numbers-only” bullshit that I swore off retail for. It’s fitting so many people in charge of Channel Awesome used to work at Circuit City is all I’m saying.

So that’s it. Nothing major, something I basically brought on myself, but still a fairly telling story of how you’d be treated as a content producer on that site.

And to all the current and remaining producers that aren’t showing up to the studio every day, or have a sizable enough audience to make a dent if you were to leave... they don’t WANT you there. They do not care about you. You are a liability. The very second they have a logical-to-them reason to cut your ass from the site, they will. Why put yourself through all that stress for a job that makes demands of you, without even paying you, promoting you, or benefiting you in any way? You know they don’t care about that site now that they are where they are with their YouTube channel. (Currently there are two producers that haven’t posted since December, that are still listed on the site. I must have been a special exception, or maybe it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a video as long as you keep telling them you don’t.) You’re white noise to them. Stay or go. As much as you think it might, it probably won’t make a difference to you...

...but it definitely won’t make a difference to them.

#channelawesome

148 notes · View notes

theemperorsfeather · 3 years ago

Text

I'm working on a freelance project right now, one I've done every year for the last 3 or 4, and the woman I'm working with is driving me a bit bugfuck.

It's typical that when she has a list of changes to make, she'll just call and expect I can immediately sit down and start working through it, and even if I say, "I am taking notes but I do not have the documents open right now," she'll keep right on with things like "and then on the next page, those two images at the bottom, do you think ..."

What's really grinding my gears this week is that she wants to do a video call to go over moving some images around, so I said "I can be ready at 6:30 or later any evening this week" and we agreed that yesterday would work and then I was ready and online at 6:30 and she didn't show and didn't show, so I emailed her my current draft and said to let me know if she still wanted to meet, logged the fuck off and moved on to other things, and she called less than 10 minutes later to start rattling off some edits. She actually emailed first, "Let me know when you're ready," but I didn't see it because I don't hang on my inbox every minute of the day.

In all my years of schedulign fucking meetings, if someone says "X or later will work," and "X" does NOT WORK for the other person, they fucking SAY THAT, not assume "well I can just drop in ANY TIME at X or LATER and of COURSE you'll be ready willing and able!"

And I hate how I never know, when she calls, if it'll be a quick 5 minutes or she'll be expecting to do more indepth work, so most times I've just started to ignore the calls, and then she'll email the list of edits.

An extra frustration with this is that the computer I have my owned copy of InDesign on cannot handle screensharing (it is over 10 years old), so I have to switch to my newer laptop and get a subscription from Adobe for that work, which also means making a bunch of changes to all the damn files, because for some fucking reason, some of the fonts don't work the same, AT ALL. And, bonus round fuckery this year, there's still 1 or 2 articles that aren't ready for me at all. So I had gotten the damn subscription set up and was hoping the last big article - already delayed by weeks - would be coming soon and now I find out last night it'll . . . be a while yet. So after tonight's working session I'm putting all my work on hold so I don't end up paying for multiple months of access when it'll do me no good at all.

------

If this was a normal freelance client I'd be all "Thanks but I'm not available" the next time she/they wanted to hire me, but a) it's for a group I'm part of, and b) she's kinda sorta a friend (we clearly have some clashing communication styles but things are otherwise friendly), and in the grand scale of things the money is worth the irritation.

#angst and woe

1 note · View note

hgfstreamchats · 3 years ago

Text

Centuarworld: Part II

Zephra859:41:03 PM

I can guess why but come on, Blades, Zulius is clearly the best character

thenightetc9:41:08 PM

Wait, is this the right episode?

Knock Out9:41:09 PM

He is!

thenightetc9:41:33 PM

I think we may have skipped over the mole one.

Knock Out9:41:38 PM

Oh, true.

Zephra859:41:49 PM

oops lol

Knock Out9:42:01 PM

Unless anyone is in favor of skipping the mole one.

Zephra859:42:12 PM

I'm fine with it

Knock Out9:42:19 PM

It's not a favorite.

thenightetc9:42:26 PM

Alright.

Knock Out9:42:35 PM

Unless you like it, night human.

thenightetc9:42:49 PM

Ehhhhhh.

Smokescreen9:43:12 PM

owo whats this

thenightetc9:43:13 PM

It's somewhat plot-relevant, that's all. For anyone who hasn't already seen it.

Knock Out9:43:28 PM

"Something something her tail tells jokes now."

Smokescreen9:44:05 PM

Oh, rip

Zephra859:44:13 PM

Hi Smokescreen!

Smokescreen9:44:19 PM

Hi Zephra!!

Knock Out9:44:19 PM

Smokescreen!

Smokescreen9:44:23 PM

Woojit!!!

thenightetc9:45:36 PM

Their FACES.

Zephra859:45:44 PM

The best spell in the show

Knock Out9:45:57 PM

By far.

akabra9:46:51 PM

hiya

Zephra859:46:56 PM

Yoo

Knock Out9:47:07 PM

Hello!

akabra9:47:13 PM

it is ME, the dude from the server obsessed with ultrakill

Knock Out9:47:24 PM

Ched is the only character on this show I never learned to like.

akabra9:47:37 PM

I'm lagging ugh

Zephra859:47:50 PM

HERE WE GO

Zephra859:47:53 PM

FAVE SONG

Knock Out9:48:06 PM

Because we all have a Splendib.

akabra9:48:32 PM

also why do they need the sash

Zephra859:48:35 PM

I have an entire bar full of Splendib's and Zulius's

Knock Out9:48:42 PM

There's a piece of the key attached to it.

Zephra859:48:46 PM

I've seen this exact confrontation a dozen times

Knock Out9:48:47 PM

My kind of bar.

akabra9:49:15 PM

why can they not punch eachother over ot

Zephra859:50:54 PM

whole a$$ mood

thenightetc9:52:23 PM

Her face.

akabra9:52:59 PM

that guy did not in fact have a cheer

thenightetc9:54:42 PM

I do feel bad for her.

akabra9:54:52 PM

i frozw

Zephra859:54:54 PM

poor girl is SO not cut out for this

Knock Out9:55:45 PM

Someone help her.

Zephra859:55:54 PM

Zulius is trying, man

thenightetc9:55:56 PM

She's. Already walking on her tonails all the time.

Zephra859:57:26 PM

SO FAB

thenightetc9:57:34 PM

Zephra was that your mic

Zephra859:57:46 PM

Wait that's my mic that's on??

Zephra859:58:26 PM

Oh snap Y'ALL HEARD NOTHING

Knock Out9:58:42 PM

Not to worry. You have a nice laugh.

thenightetc9:58:55 PM

Annnnd THAT'S why I feel bad for her

akabra9:59:48 PM

it keeps freezing

Zephra859:59:54 PM

(buries hands in face) stooooop

Zephra8510:00:46 PM

SA;DLJFSDLK LOSING IT

Zephra8510:01:08 PM

beware the cute ones

Zephra8510:04:03 PM

the creature of this show actually uploaded one of these on her twitter

thenightetc10:04:33 PM

Wammawink why

Zephra8510:04:54 PM

Everybody's got a kink

thenightetc10:05:07 PM

No reason to drag Glendale into it though

Zephra8510:05:23 PM

true lol

thenightetc10:06:14 PM

Yes. Just one thing.

Knock Out10:07:06 PM

This one certainly is an...experience to rewatch.

thenightetc10:07:16 PM

It really is.

thenightetc10:07:28 PM

He tries.

Zephra8510:07:55 PM

with new context, yeah... he's really just trying to help people man

Zephra8510:10:02 PM

HER TEARS ARE RAINBOWS I CAN'T

thenightetc10:11:25 PM

"Let's move on!"

Zephra8510:11:32 PM

Not sus at all

Knock Out10:14:08 PM

If I transformed into something out of Tiny Bee's universe, I'd be tempted to take a dive into a whale's mouth too.

Zephra8510:14:22 PM

I'm sure you'd make it look great

Knock Out10:15:01 PM

I would, but thank you nonetheless.

Zephra8510:17:27 PM

Aww Sunfish

thenightetc10:17:31 PM

ikr

Zephra8510:23:37 PM

'That one's mine' kldjs;afkads wammawink

Zephra8510:23:57 PM

oof we've all been there

Knock Out10:24:02 PM

Oh yes.

thenightetc10:27:24 PM

awwww, she's tired

Zephra8510:27:55 PM

Glendale honey NO

Knock Out10:28:22 PM

I like how ever so slightly awful Glendale and Wammawink are to one another.

thenightetc10:28:35 PM

Oh god

Knock Out10:28:44 PM

Let him speak!

Zephra8510:29:42 PM

Creativity is being stifled for all

thenightetc10:30:49 PM

Why.

Zephra8510:31:11 PM

I hate how much I love Comfortable Doug

Knock Out10:31:58 PM

Life would be so much easier if you could hate him completely, and yet...

Zephra8510:32:24 PM

srsly

thenightetc10:34:03 PM

gaaaaah

thenightetc10:34:22 PM

WAMMAWINK?

Knock Out10:34:56 PM changed the video to Knock Out's screen

thenightetc10:36:08 PM

Everything okay there?

Knock Out10:36:51 PM changed the video to https://www.netflix.com/watch/81134550?trackId=155573560

Knock Out10:37:07 PM changed the video to Knock Out's screen

Zephra8510:37:59 PM

It's not a real stream night unless things go horribly wrong and Knock Out is spending half the night frustratingly trying to fix it

thenightetc10:38:07 PM started the video at

thenightetc10:38:21 PM

There, there

thenightetc10:38:43 PM

Also ignore whatever that was.

Knock Out10:40:13 PM What *was* that?

thenightetc10:40:16 PM Oh, there we go!

Zephra8510:40:46 PM I wanna know more about Trevor

Knock Out10:41:10 PM Likewise.

Knock Out10:41:18 PM The clones never get old.

thenightetc10:41:21 PM It's working now and that's all that matters.

Zephra8510:41:28 PM they honestly disturb me

thenightetc10:43:47 PM aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Knock Out10:43:50 PM "Convince each one of what needs to be done." They stole two of them.

Zephra8510:43:54 PM Bye Lizard Person, we barely knew ye

Zephra8510:44:15 PM It got the job done lol

thenightetc10:44:42 PM oh dear

Knock Out10:45:00 PM PIT.

thenightetc10:45:31 PM Try vbrowser instead of screenshare

Knock Out10:46:10 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO Knock Out's screen

Knock Out10:46:53 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO Knock Out's screen

Knock Out10:47:54 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO Knock Out's screen

Knock Out10:49:21 PM It won't unless I subscribe.

Zephra8510:49:33 PM uuugghh

thenightetc10:49:40 PM Here, let me do it

thenightetc10:49:45 PM It'll just take a minute

Knock Out10:49:49 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO Knock Out's screen

Zephra8510:50:01 PM YAAAY

thenightetc10:50:03 PM Oh, nevermind

Zephra8510:50:49 PM Rider really took the whole 'my horse can talk and is a weird cartoon now' in stride didn't she

thenightetc10:50:58 PM She really did.

Knock Out10:51:01 PM I mean, she did come close to stabbing her.

Zephra8510:51:04 PM that's kinda something I would imagine takes more than a second of adjustment

Zephra8510:51:35 PM fair, but it's still pretty fast

thenightetc10:52:23 PM Centaur statues.

Zephra8510:52:41 PM the Centaurworld one had human statues

Zephra8510:54:08 PM THE BUMMER DIMENSION

thenightetc10:54:41 PM Pfffff

thenightetc10:55:10 PM I'm sure it's fine.

Knock Out10:55:15 PM It's probably fine.

Zephra8510:55:33 PM Nowhere King: (shows up 15 minutes late with Starbucks)

Knock Out10:55:49 PM Hah!

thenightetc10:56:09 PM What the hell kind of starbucks do they have where YOU live

Zephra8510:56:11 PM god I love this guy's design all

Zephra8510:56:28 PM sooooo creepy and cool

Zephra8510:57:46 PM Oh my god THIS AGAIN

Knock Out10:57:51 PM I'm so tired.

Zephra8510:58:01 PM why do all your streaming services hate joy, Knock Out?

Knock Out10:58:02 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO Knock Out's screen

thenightetc10:58:33 PM Honestly, the vbrowser one works a lot better

thenightetc10:59:03 PM I'm sensing some backstory here.

Zephra8510:59:16 PM WHY DOES THAT MAKE ME LAUGH SO HARD

Zephra8510:59:25 PM just 'no'

Zephra8510:59:27 PM sdkj;lfasd

Zephra8511:00:56 PM Zulius actually SAYING 'gasp' FFFFF

Zephra8511:04:09 PM GOD THIS FRIGGIN' SHOW

Zephra8511:04:57 PM Rider finally absorbing how weird this all is

thenightetc11:06:55 PM It kind of looks like part of him is already getting out

Zephra8511:07:17 PM OHH SNAP

Zephra8511:07:59 PM sorry gotta brb

Zephra8511:08:44 PM my grocery delivery is almost here, I'll have to go in a minute

Knock Out11:09:00 PM Glad you could make as much as you did!

thenightetc11:09:05 PM Backstoryyyyy

Zephra8511:09:15 PM Zulius is all of us lol

thenightetc11:09:20 PM he IS

Zephra8511:09:32 PM oh god this is intense man

thenightetc11:09:44 PM What did she DO

Zephra8511:10:10 PM Sadly g2g now

Zephra8511:10:20 PM Thanks for the stream, Knock Out! Say hi to the fam for me!

Zephra8511:10:24 PM Bye everybody!

Knock Out11:10:25 PM Always!

thenightetc11:10:33 PM Gnight!

Knock Out11:10:35 PM Good night!

thenightetc11:11:30 PM Sheeeeeeee... made it to centaurworld!

thenightetc11:12:37 PM HA

thenightetc11:13:42 PM NEITHER DID YOU

Knock Out11:14:24 PM All because he charmed you with some "I forgive you"s and "Let me lower my head so you can stab me in it"s.

Knock Out11:15:36 PM Wait, did she just say what I think she said?

thenightetc11:16:32 PM 😭😭😭😭

Knock Out11:19:32 PM And there we have it!

thenightetc11:19:35 PM Man, I can't wait for the second season of this.

Knock Out11:19:44 PM Agreed.

Knock Out11:19:54 PM Hopefully by then, we'll have a reliable streaming service.

thenightetc11:20:03 PM It's going to be amazing, I know it.

thenightetc11:24:14 PM Me, too!

thenightetc11:20:47 PM Honestly, I think it's just the screensharing thing.

Knock Out11:21:12 PM It's always *something.* That's the problem.

thenightetc11:21:29 PM Me and my friend use the vbrowser mode pretty frequently and that always works fine

thenightetc11:22:08 PM You do have to make an account for it, but there's not a ton of setup, just setting a password and email address iirc

Knock Out11:23:08 PM I'll keep looking into it.

thenightetc11:23:19 PM Not like that other one where you were supposed to download software and all that nonsense.

Knock Out11:23:50 PM I appreciate a lack of nonsense!

Mimic11:24:34 PM very desirable quality in a steaming service

Mimic11:24:38 PM *streaming

thenightetc11:26:51 PM Did we want to finish up with something else?

Mimic11:28:14 PM I do have a short youtube thing if we do

Mimic11:28:48 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmQE4qdb9fg

Mimic11:28:53 PM PAUSED THE VIDEO AT 0:00:00

Knock Out11:29:49 PM CHANGED THE VIDEO TO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmQE4qdb9fg

thenightetc11:31:16 PM Heh.

Knock Out11:32:50 PM PAUSED THE VIDEO AT 0:02:58

Knock Out11:33:00 PM JUMPED TO 0:02:50

Knock Out11:33:00 PM JUMPED TO 0:02:53

Knock Out11:33:13 PM I think that's a decent note to end on.

Mimic11:33:16 PM yes

thenightetc11:33:22 PM Thank you for hosting!

Mimic11:33:28 PM thank you!

Knock Out11:33:36 PM Thank you for putting up with all the technical difficulties!

Knock Out11:33:39 PM Good night!

thenightetc11:33:39 PM It is nice to mostly be able to actually watch the stream. Enter a message...

thenightetc11:33:54 PM THESE technical difficulties are nothing compared to the usual ones with discord.

thenightetc11:35:15 PM Thanks for toughing it out anyway!

thenightetc11:37:03 PM And goodnight!

Knock Out11:37:19 PM Good night!

0 notes

suzanneshannon · 5 years ago

Text

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings

I've had a lot of people ask me to write up a guide to creating great technical screencasts. This is an update to my 2011 post on the same topic.

What are you doing? STOP and reassert your assumptions

Hang on. You're doing a screencast or sharing your screen in some way for a meeting, presentation, or YouTube. What does that mean and why did I suggest you stop.

This isn't a stage presentation or even a talk in a conference room. Screencasts and remote meetings have an intimacy to them. You're in someone's ear, in their headphones, you're 18 inches from their face. Consider how you want to be seen, how you want to be heard, and what is on your screen.

Try to apply a level of intentionality and deliberate practice. I'm not saying to micromanage, but I am saying don't just "share your screen." Put your empathy hat on and consider your audience and how it'll look and feel for them.

Initial setup and tools

You can use any number of tools for screen capture. They are largely the same. My preferred tool is Camtasia. Other valid tools are CamStudio (a free and open source tool) and Expression Encoder Screen Capture. You can also use OBS to record your screen and webcam.

When you're using Skype/Zoom/Teams to record live, you're already set as those tools will share for you as well as record.

Windows Look at Feel

At the risk of sounding uptight, how you setup Windows and your environment is the difference between a professional and an amateurish screencast. It's shocking how many folks will start recording a screencast without changing a thing, then wonder why their 1600x1200 screencast looks bad on YouTube at 360p or low bandwidth on a phone. If you find yourself doing screencasts a lot, considering making a custom user (maybe named Screencast?) on your machine with these settings already applied. That way you can login as Screencast and your settings will stick.

Resolution and Aspect

First, decide on your aspect ratio. Your laptop may have a ratio of width to height that is 3:2 or 4:3 but MOST people have a 16:9 Widescreen system? A VERY safe resolution in 2020 is 1280x720 (also known as 720p). That means that you'll be visible on everything from a low-end Android, any tablet, up to a desktop.

That said, statistics show that many folks now have 1920x1080 (1080p) capable systems. But again, consider your audience. If I was presenting to a rural school district, I'd use 720 or a lower resolution. It will be smoother and use less bandwidth and you'll never have issue with things being too small. If I was presenting in a professional environment I'd use 1080p. I don't present at 4k, especially if the audience is overseas from where I am. You're pushing millions of pixels that aren't needed, slowing your message and adding no additional value.

On Windows, consider your scale factor. At 1080p, 125% DPI is reasonable. At 720p (or 1366x768, using 100% scaling is reasonable).

Background Wallpaper and Icons

Choose a standard looking background photo. I prefer to use one from http://unsplash.com or the defaults that come with Windows 10 or your Mac. Avoid complex backgrounds as they don't compress well during encoding. Avoid using pictures of your kids or family unless it feeds your spirit and you don't mind mixing the professional and personal. Again - be intentional. I am neither for nor against - just be conscious and decide. Don't just accept the defaults.

Hide your desktop icons. Right click your desktop and hit View | Show Desktop Items. Also consider whether we need to see your desktop at all. If it doesn’t add value, don’t show it on the screencast.

Fonts

Try to use standard fonts and themes. While your preferred font and colors/themes offer personality, they can be distracting. Consider the message you want to present.

If you're using Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code, remember that your audience likely hasn't changed their defaults, and if you show them something fancy, they'll be thinking about how they get that fancy widget rather than your content. In Visual Studio proper, go to Tools | Options | Environment | Fonts and Colors and click "Use Defaults."

In all your text editors, consider change your fonts to Consolas Size 15. It may seem counter-intuitive to have such large fonts but in fact this will make your code viewable even on an iPhone or Tablet.

Remember, most video sites, including YouTube, restrict the embedded video player size to a maximum of around 560p height, unless you go full-screen or use a pop-out. Use the font size recommended here, and use Camtasia’s zoom and highlight features during editing to call out key bits of code.

Don’t highlight code in the editor by selecting it with the mouse UNLESS you've deliberately change the selection background color. Defaults are typically hard to read editor selections in video. Instead, zoom and highlight in post production, or use ZoomIt and practice zooming and emphasizing on screen elements.

Browser Setup

Unless your screencast is about using different browsers, pick a browser and stick to it. Hide your toolbars, clear your cache, history, and your autocomplete history. You'd be surprised how many inappropriate sites and autocomplete suggestions are published on the web forever and not noticed until it's too late. Don't view pr0n on your screencast machine. Be aware.

Toolbars

Your browser shouldn't show any, and this is a good time to uninstall or hide whatever coupon-offering nonsense or McAffee pixel waster that you've stopped being able to see after all these years. Remember, default is the word of the day. Disable any Browser Extensions that aren't adding value.

If you are using Visual Studio or an IDE (Eclipse, Photoshop, etc) be aware of your toolbars. If you have made extensive customizations to your toolbars and you use them in the screencast, you are doing a great disservice to your audience. Put things to the default. If you use hotkeys, tell the audience, and use them for a reason.

Toast

You've got mail! Yay. Yes, but not during your screencast. Turn off Outlook Gmail, GChat, Twitter, Messenger, Skype, and anything else that can "pop toast" during your screencast.

Clock and Notifications

Go to Start on Windows 10, and search for System Icons and turn off the Clock temporarily. Why? You can't easily edit a screencast if there's a convenient time code in the corner that jumps around during your edits. Also, no one needs to know you're doing your work at 3am.

Clean out your taskbar and notification area. Anything that visually distracts, or just hide the taskbar.

Audio and Voice

Use a decent microphone. I use a Samson C01U. You can also use a USB headset-style microphone but be aware that breathing and "cotton mouth" really shows up on these. Test it! Listen to yourself! Try moving the microphone above your nose so you aren't exhaling onto it directly. Use a pop filter to help eliminate 'plosives (p's and t's). You can get them cheap at a music store.

Be aware of your keyboard clicks. Some folks feel strongly about whether or not your keyboard can be heard during a screencast. Ultimately it's your choice, but you have to be aware of it first, then make a conscious decision. Don't just let whatever happens happen. Think about your keyboard sound, your typing style and your microphone, and listen to it a few times and see if you like how it comes together.

Avoid prolonged silence. There should be ebb and flow of "I'm saying this, I'm doing that" but not 10 seconds of "watch my mouse." Speak in an upbeat but authentic tone. Be real.

Also be calm and quiet. Remember you are a foot from them and you're their ear. It's a conversation with a friend, not a presentation to thousands (even if it is).

Don’t apologize or make excuses for mistakes – either work them in as something to learn from, or remove them completely.

If you are editing the presentation - If you make a mistake when speaking or demonstrating, clap your hands or cough loudly into the mic and wait a second before starting that portion over. When editing, the mistakes will show up as loud audio spikes, making it easy to find them.

Camtasia has decent automatic noise reduction. Use it. You’ll be surprised how much background noise your room has that you, but not your audience, will easily tune out.

If you must overdub a portion of the audio, sit in the same position you did while recording the original, and have the mic in the same spot. You want your voice to blend in seamlessly.

Preferred Video Output for Prerecords

Your screen capture tool should be produced at the highest reasonable quality as it will be compressed later when it's uploaded. Think of it like producing JPEGs. You can make a 5 megabyte JPG, but often a 500k one will do. You can make a 10 gig screen capture if you use uncompressed AVI encoding, but often a high bit rate MP4 will do.

The trick is to remember that your compressed screencast will be recompressed (copies of copies) when it is run through the encoding process.

Edit your screencast, if you do, in its recorded native resolution which hopefully is what you'll publish to as well. That means, record at 1080p, edit at 1080p, and publish at 1080p. Let YouTube or your final destination do the squishing to smaller resolutions.

Personally, I like to know what's going on in my production process so I always select things like "Custom production settings" in Camtasia rather than presets. Ultimately you'll need to try and find what works for you. Use an H.264 encoder with a high bitrate for the video and 44.1kHz/441000Hz 16 bit mono for the audio. Basically make a decently sized MP4 and it should work everywhere.

Do you have enough bandwidth?

In my opinion, if you are doing a live call with Video and Screensharing and you want it to be high definition, you'll need 4 Mbps upstream from your connection. You can check this at http://speedtest.net. If you have 5-6 Mbps you've got a little more headroom. However, if someone in the house decides to get on Netflix, you could have an issue. Know your bandwidth limitations ahead of time. If it's an important stream, can you dedicate your bandwidth to just your one machine? Check out QoS (quality of service) on your router, or better yet, take your kids' iPads away! ;)

Conclusion

Take some time. I put about an hour of work into a 15 min screencast. Your mileage may vary. Watch your video! Listen to it, and have your friends listen to it. Does it look smooth? Sound smooth? Is it viewable on a small device AND a big screen? Does it FEEL good?

Sponsor: Have you tried yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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philipholt · 5 years ago

Text

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings

I've had a lot of people ask me to write up a guide to creating great technical screencasts. This is an update to my 2011 post on the same topic.

What are you doing? STOP and reassert your assumptions

Hang on. You're doing a screencast or sharing your screen in some way for a meeting, presentation, or YouTube. What does that mean and why did I suggest you stop.

Initial setup and tools

When you're using Skype/Zoom/Teams to record live, you're already set as those tools will share for you as well as record.

Windows Look at Feel

Resolution and Aspect

On Windows, consider your scale factor. At 1080p, 125% DPI is reasonable. At 720p (or 1366x768, using 100% scaling is reasonable).

Background Wallpaper and Icons

Fonts

Try to use standard fonts and themes. While your preferred font and colors/themes offer personality, they can be distracting. Consider the message you want to present.

Browser Setup

Toolbars

Toast

You've got mail! Yay. Yes, but not during your screencast. Turn off Outlook Gmail, GChat, Twitter, Messenger, Skype, and anything else that can "pop toast" during your screencast.

Clock and Notifications

Clean out your taskbar and notification area. Anything that visually distracts, or just hide the taskbar.

Audio and Voice

Avoid prolonged silence. There should be ebb and flow of "I'm saying this, I'm doing that" but not 10 seconds of "watch my mouse." Speak in an upbeat but authentic tone. Be real.

Also be calm and quiet. Remember you are a foot from them and you're their ear. It's a conversation with a friend, not a presentation to thousands (even if it is).

Don’t apologize or make excuses for mistakes – either work them in as something to learn from, or remove them completely.

Camtasia has decent automatic noise reduction. Use it. You’ll be surprised how much background noise your room has that you, but not your audience, will easily tune out.

If you must overdub a portion of the audio, sit in the same position you did while recording the original, and have the mic in the same spot. You want your voice to blend in seamlessly.

Preferred Video Output for Prerecords

The trick is to remember that your compressed screencast will be recompressed (copies of copies) when it is run through the encoding process.

Do you have enough bandwidth?

Conclusion

Sponsor: Have you tried yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings published first on http://7elementswd.tumblr.com/

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skylerssoliloquies · 5 years ago

Text

𝘒𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦

It’d come as a surprise to no one if I said I struggled with my mental health. Depression, anxiety, cringing at myself every time I walk past a mirror. It’s something I’ve been dealing with since middle school, and I know it’s not going anywhere any time soon.

With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, or, as my friends and I oh so affectionally call it, Miss ‘Rona, I’ve had to move back home from school where I was finally beginning to adjust to my newfound freedom. The last thing I wanted was to go back to living sharing a one-bedroom living space with my entire immediate family, but I know these things happen for a reason. As much as it sucks, I’m home.

The thing is, I can’t leave my home. Both my mom and grandmom are considered essential workers in the medical field, with my mom being an EMT and my grandmom a laboratory technician. Both of them are at risk for contact with the virus, so my little brother and I are basically on lockdown by association.

Being trapped inside can be a mental roadblock for anyone on the path of recovery. You might now have to live with a toxic family member. You could be stuck in an unhealthy environment, potentially leading to some kind of relapse. No matter what the situation, it’s easy to fall back into bad habits and a bad mental state in times like these.

From someone who’s been there, done that, and gotten the hospital bracelet to prove it, here’s a few tips that I’ve come up with to help keep myself and (hopefully) others safe, sane, and taking care of themselves.

𝙏𝘼𝙆𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙎 - I know remembering to take a little pill every day can be difficult, but try setting an alarm, or putting it into your routine! In college, I kept my meds on my desk so that when I sat down in the morning to do my makeup, I’d remember to take them. Another fun thing to do would be to put your meds into one of those colorful medicine sorters... that way, you won’t be able to miss them! Your doctors prescribed you medicine for a reason, so you should take them. If you have questions about them, or want to stop taking them, call your doctors and ask!

𝙂𝙊 𝙊𝙐𝙏𝙎𝙄𝘿𝙀 - ... but make sure you’re staying away from others! It’s spring time, and the weather is fantastic, at least where I live. It’s really upsetting that we can’t go to the beach or anything, but there’s still ways to get some fresh air! You can go on a walk or a jog down the street (as long as you pay attention to your surroundings!) Try doing outdoor yoga if the ground isn’t too wet. Go and walk your dog, too - our animals are just as stuck inside as us!

𝙆𝙀𝙀𝙋 𝙄𝙉 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝘼𝘾𝙏 (𝘿𝙄𝙂𝙄𝙏𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙔) - ZOOM doesn’t just have to be for boring online lectures! Utilize the facecams to see your friends and their beautiful faces no matter how far apart you may be. You can have a game night using the screensharing ability if one of your friends has access to Jackbox Games. Another way to spend the night with your friends without actually doing it in person is Netflix Party, which allows you and your friends to stream the same show or movie on Netflix and chat while you do it! (You need Google Chrome to use Netflix Party!) 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮...

𝘼𝙎𝙆 𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙃𝙀𝙇𝙋 𝙄𝙁 𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝙉𝙀𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙏 - There’s no shame in needing help. This is a really hard time for everyone, no matter the level of impact. There’s always someone to reach out to.

𝙃𝙊𝙏𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙀𝙎:

Suicide Prevention Hotline (USA): +1 (800) 237-TALK

Trevor Project Lifeline (LGBTQ+ Youth and Young Adults): +1 (866) 488-7386

National Eating Disorder Awareness Helpline (USA): (800) 931-2237

National Domestic Violence Hotline (USA): +1 (800) 799-SAFE

#quarantine #mental health awareness #positivity #covid-19 #coronavirus #tips #advice #mental health #zoom #gen z #skyler's soliloquies #text post #original post #hotlines #awareness

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365-money-diary · 7 years ago

Text

DAYS 335 - 341

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE

8:30 AM - I get to work on time and make a piece of toast and make some coffee.

12:00 PM - I really don’t know what to do foodwise, so for some godforsaken reason I go to Subway. I get a foot-long veggie and a bag of chips. $6.18

4:30 PM - I spend 2 hours cleaning up my mom’s computer for her via screenshare.

7:00 PM - I meet up with Q and buy him dinner at Shady Park. We both get ramen and cocktails. $53

9:00 PM - We walk to Taste and grab glasses of wine. I pay again. $13

10:00 PM - Q walks me home and it’s nice to be back. Boyfriend turns on a basketball game and I fall asleep.

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE TOTAL: $72.18

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX

9:00 AM - I arrive at work to find that my colleague has already made us coffee. I toast some bread to go with it.

11:30 AM - I run over to Sprouts and buy a container of tomato soup, some b-12 spray that i desperately need, bagel chips, hummus, and an 8 pack of La Croix. $29.17

4:00 PM - I send a letter to my brother via Sandboxx. $3

4:30 PM - I eat the rest of my hummus and the bagel chips. I should never buy hummus for lunch. I end up eating the entire container throughout the day. Hello caloric overload.

5:45 PM - I arrive home from work and watch Vanderpump rules and puts around on the couch.

7:00 PM - I heat up leftover shepherd's pie. It’s still tasty but I start to get weary of food that’s been in the fridge for longer than two weeks. I’ll probably pitch it tomorrow or Thursday.

8:00 PM - I polish off two open wine bottles and boyfriend and I watch basketball. I book a flight to Omaha using my parents’ credit card for my sister’s bridal shower. The costs of this wedding are insane, and I’m really thankful that my parentals have offered a to pay for one of the four flights I have to buy.

10:00 PM - Boyfriend and I watch a few episodes of Eastbound and Down and eventually I fall asleep.

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX TOTAL: $32.17

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN

9:00 AM - I’m working from home today. I take a shower and head over to Cartel to grab a cold brew. I run into the friends we hung out with on Sunday and they give me a toddy for free. Since one is behind the register and the other is standing next to me, tipping is hopeless, so I don’t even try.

10:00 AM - I run back home and eat some crackers for breakfast and drink my toddy. Today’s a pretty light workday, so I book the final flights for my boyfriend and I to go to Chicago for my sister’s wedding. We have the same return flight, but I leave much earlier than he does so I can help out with MOH duties. $811.92

11:00 AM - I am fully convinced that I will have spent $5k on my sister’s wedding by the time it’s over. I love my sister, and I definitely make an okay living for myself, but compared to her friends, I’m 100% on the poverty line.

12:00 PM - One of the things that’s really helped my sanity over the past month or so has been lighting candles in our common spaces. My boyfriend had a ton of leftover Glade ones from when he moved out of his apartment and we’re reaching the end of them. I want to find a nice candle subscription company where we can get one really nice candle every month and then fill other spaces with shitty IKEA ones. I spend some time looking at candle box subscriptions and finally pick one. It’s $30/mo and includes shipping, tax, and two candles - one 8 ounce, and one 4 ounce. It’s not a good deal, but it’s not a bad deal for all-natural soy boys. $30

12:15 PM - My parents drove down this pinball machine for us a few weeks ago and I have a service call for it right now. The guy who comes rules. He’s probably 5-6 years older than me, has a pokemon hat on, and is just really knowledgeable and rad about the machine. He fixes it in an hour and a half. I pay up. $205

1:00 PM - I heat up leftover shepherd's pie for lunch.

3:40 PM - I’m finding it hard to focus so I play some pinball and pour myself a grapefruit juice.

5:30 PM - I watch some 60 Days In and this is hands down the most ridiculous season I’ve seen to date. I scroll through their subreddit and I see a thread that’s called “Who Are You Most Disappointed in?” and someone says “Myself for watching this.” And yes, that’s exactly how I feel.

7:30 PM - BFF arrives at my house and he swipes me and boyfriend to grab Hummus Xpress. I get a falafel bowl and boyfriend gets a falafel pita and we bring it back to the house and eat and play pinball. I pay. $18

9:00 PM - BFF leaves for a show and boyfriend and I head out to The Van Buren to watch Brock Hampton. They are not very good and the crowd is super rough. We leave after someone pukes on the ground 15 feet away from me.

11:00 PM - We hop in bed and I fall asleep pretty early.

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN TOTAL: $1064.92

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT

9:00 AM - I arrive at work and find that my assistant is already making us coffee. I toast a piece of bread.

9:45 AM - I really want to up my game for charcuterie boards. I think it would be a really fun hobby for me. I’ve been hearing amazing things about the Non-Dairy Evolution Cookbook so I decide to give it a shot. $14.55

10:45 PM - My client meeting goes well. I do some b-12 spray which I swear is a game changer for my motivation and fatigue-feeling. I must be really deficient. :(

11:30 PM - We all go to the food court for lunch. I get a half soup and sandwich from Panera. $9.61

3:00 PM - I crack open a La Croix to motivate me to do some work.

4:00 PM - I text back and forth with NY Friend about maybe me making dinner for us. I decide to make us BBQ Jackfruit sandwiches and asparagus.

5:00 PM - I stop at Sprouts and grab asparagus, a lemon, a bag of coleslaw, buns, bbq sauce, and a can of jackfruit. $14.15

6:30 PM - Dinner’s ready but my friend doesn’t get here until 9:00. I score a new personal best on pinball and we watch some of the Spurs / GSW game. GSW wins.

11:00 PM - We are in bed and my boyfriend decides to put on Forgetting Sarah Marshall which means I don’t sleep.

1:30 AM - Movie’s over. I can finally sleep.

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT TOTAL: $38.31

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE

9:10 AM - I get to work a little late and find my assistant has already made us coffee.

11:00 AM - I finish my meeting and book it home to meet my boyfriend. He has already done the dishes which is helpful for me. I pack my stuff, kiss the dog, shove a sandwich down my throat and we jump in his new Civic and head out to LA.

2:00 PM - We stop to pee and grab road snacks. I get a can of Pringles, a Gatorade and my boyfriend gets a bag of peanuts, a Clif bar, and a bottle of water. I pay. $9.75

5:15 PM - We arrive at my boyfriend’s parents’ house in Anaheim and drop off our stuff. We say hello for a minute and then jump back in the car and head to the Palladium.

7:15 PM - We park in a garage and walk over to the venue. We realize once we’re inside that we arrived incredibly early and that Jawbreaker doesn’t play until 11 which is awful because neither of us have really eaten. Boyfriend buys me a bottle of water and we split a container of popcorn.

11:50 PM - I get really light headed and try to hang during the set as best as I could, but I can feel my blood sugar dropping. I run to the concession stand and buy a blue Powerade. $7

12:15 PM - I fight my way back through the crowd and find my boyfriend. I survive the last three songs and the encore and we book it and head back to Anaheim.

1:15 PM - We stop at Del Taco and boyfriend treats us to a luxurious dinner.

2:00 AM - Home // immediately asleep.

DAY THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE TOTAL: $16.75

DAY THREE HUNDRED FORTY

9:00 AM - We wake up and feel super rested. I take a shower and get ready for the day.

10:00 AM - Boyfriend and I run to Grow to grab coffee. I pay. $9.30

11:00 AM - Boyfriend and parents and I head out to grab breakfast. The place we planned on going to is PACKED so we decide to drive near the CA Science Center (or whatever it’s called!) to eat near there.

12:45 PM - All of us are super starving. We stop at this place called Rustiq Table and I get a veggie burg with fries on a definitely not vegan bun. At this point I don’t even ask. My fear of them saying “The only thing you can have a 200 calorie salad” is much greater than the harm I just did to 1 chicken egg. Boyfriend’s parents pay.

2:00 PM - We arrive a The Science Center (boyfriend’s parents pay for everything) and check out the Endeavor. It’s HUGE!

5:00 PM - We arrive back in Anaheim and watch basketball for a little bit.

7:00 PM - We grab dinner at this killer Italian joint. I get penne with marinara and garlic confirming that it’s dairy-free. We split a bottle of wine for the table and all is well. Boyfriend’s parents pay again. They’re so sweet!

9:30 PM - We all hang out on the couch for another hour or so and and then I fall asleep for a glorious 9.5 hours.

DAY THREE HUNDRED FORTY TOTAL: $9.30

DAY THREE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE

10:00 AM - Woah. How did I sleep this late? Answer: It’s Daylight Savings Time now.

11:00 AM - We grab coffee again at Grow. Boyfriend pays and we bring them back to the house. His parents have bagels in the freezer. We toast our choices and I slather mine with spicy hummus.

12:00 PM - Boyfriend can’t find his sunglasses which is a big problem because he’s pretty sensitive to light. Boyfriend, his mom, and me end up running over to Citadel to get him a new pair. While we’re there we check out the Nike and adidas outlets which are both kind of trash. Boyfriend finds a nice pair of kicks though.

3:00 PM - We run to Hollywood and grab lunch at Veggie Grill. I get the crab cake sandwich. Boyfriend’s mom pays. Again, so sweet.

4:00 PM - We head over to Amoeba and I’m kind of prepared to spend hours there but boyfriend seems more on a mission to get out of there because he already spent a bunch of money. I find the new Shopping record, so that’s cool! $22.13

6:00 PM - We make our way back to Anaheim. We spend the rest of the evening watching basketball. I drink some wine and have my leftover penne for dinner.

8:00 PM - Boyfriend, his mom, and I leave and head out to LAX. I am flying back to Phoenix but my boyfriend will be staying in LA for the whole week for a work conference.

9:00 PM - I arrive at the airport and eventually board my flight back to Phoenix.

12:00 AM - I land. I tired. I uber home. Driver’s really rad. I tip her $5. $16.80

12:15 AM - I pack an etsy order that needs to be mailed tomorrow. I have 4 more in the pipeline but I need to print more business cards at the office. I write a note on my hand to do so in the morning.

12:30 AM - So thankful to be in bed.

DAY THREE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE TOTAL: $38.93

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