Coffee-Spilled Mornings and Cinematic Dreams

August 30 2025 - Saturday
Entry #11

Oh boy what a morning. I walk into the kitchen to grab my coffee, which I have set to auto brew at 5:45 am, only to glance at the sink and see the coffee pot in the dish drainer. I turn and see coffee all over the plywood countertop.

We’re using 3/4 plywood because I’ve been trying to find some cheap cabinets to make a proper kitchen. Currently, we have about 2 feet worth of counter space, which is being used for a dish drainer and toaster oven. I was able to gain an additional 1 foot worth on either side of the stove by relocating 2 cabinets under the toaster oven to fit a dishwasher. That’s why they’re topped with plywood for now…. well now one is coffee-infused plywood.

I had to pull the cabinet off the wall and take the drawers out to clean all the spilt coffee. I think it’s so stupid that this coffee machine can even brew with it not in. It’s not like your typical pot, rather a reservoir that has a tab you push to dispense coffee, similar to a pop machine.

I will say, I’m proud of myself for not getting upset. Even though it was 6:05 am and only 5 mins into my morning, I was able to laugh it off. Before, like 2 years ago, I would have thrown a fit. Instead, I cleaned it up, thinking about what Zoe’s reaction will be once she wakes up, and I drove to McDonald’s for my morning coffee.

Yesterday, I decided to take the day to do some of the action items from the chapter in “The YouTube Formula” (Affiliate Link). Mainly these were research tasks and creating my avatar. The reason I didn’t work on my project was that technically the epoxy hadn’t had the full 3 days to cure yet, but also I was constipated lol.

Today I plan to start, but first I have some items to buy from Facebook Marketplace. One of the items is two softbox lights. I’m super excited for these because lighting has been an issue for me with videos and photos.

I did, however, start editing the video yesterday. I have this issue where I find it hard to edit when the full video hasn’t been filmed. I’m worried that if I start cutting up the shots, I’ll overcut and not leave enough room for the voiceovers, but then also don’t want to record the voiceovers until the video’s fully shot in case something changes in the final product which would require me to re-record them.

The fear with that is the audio sounding different, resulting in an obvious change, or the wasted time. I feel like I need to have a process in place. Maybe it’ll come with time, or maybe I need to be better with planning.

During my research yesterday, I kind of came to the conclusion that I may want my videos to rely on the more cinematic style with deep storytelling. Not only does this style of video interest me, but after reviewing other channels’ comments, it could help me reach the broader audience I wanted.

When I started editing my video yesterday, I felt like I was almost there; I just needed more shots. I had some shots that supported a more cinematic experience, but it felt like not enough. I need to film more, more depth, more scene-setting shots.

I almost feel like, for the first few videos, I need to shoot a scene and then edit that scene before the next. It doesn’t need the full edit, but rather so I can get a feel for what shots are required to get the results I want.

It sucks that I didn’t think of this prior to starting this epoxy project, considering it’s a bit too late to reshoot some scenes. But I can get in the same clothes and get some shots to at least help. Hopefully, I can get enough to not make such an obvious change in the video.

As for the storytelling voiceover aspect, I’m not sure how it’ll go. I really wish I had better storytelling skills. Maybe I can review my notes from “Storyworthy” (Affiliate Link) and write a good story arc to go with the video.

I think for now it might be best to focus on the filming and focus on the story once it’s all filmed. I just need to practice patience when filming. I easily get impatient with setting up the camera for shots. Sometimes I’ll sacrifice a better angle to save time, but if I want to make really good video, maybe I should put more time into the filming rather than the project.

I watched a video yesterday on cinematic filming, and he said he got 40 seconds of footage from 4 hours of filming. I mean, the only difference between me and him is my resistance to commit that time to getting the shot. I guess it’s only up to me to make better videos.

I think the thing that holds me back is the fear of committing so much time, but not getting the results. Deep down, I know if I don’t ever commit the time, I’ll never know the results, but if they’re not what I hoped, then more practice will eventually get rewarded.

For my new video which went live yesterday, I had something interesting happen. While I was editing, I had emailed Jonathan Katz-Moses to get permission to use his content in my video. I mentioned the crediting I was including and everything.

Now fast forward to yesterday, 3 pm, and the video goes live, and not even 5 mins after, I remembered, “I emailed him and never checked for a reply.” Thankfully, he did reply 4 days ago, allowing me to use it and thanking me.

One interesting part though was the sentence: “If you’d like, we’d also love to share your video with our community once it’s live.” Wow, this could be huge.

I sent the link in a reply. Hopefully this helps with my growth. I now wish I was more satisfied with how the video turned out. I have this gut feeling he’ll watch it first and feel it’s not up to his standards to be “shareworthy.”

I guess this just reinforces my need to spend more time on the video filming process. I hope this isn’t a missed opportunity, even though part of me hopes it is. I feel like I could have done better, and people would think the same.