October 2, 2024 • 14 mins
Sorry for the late episode but here I am! I've been thinking a lot about long-form video (think YouTube) the last six months or so. Mostly why I think it could be important for creatives in this age of AI, IP theft and the need to double down on showing the human behind the work. I know... I just heard you all groan collectively. But take a listen, and hear me out!Â
NOTE: I accidentally said that Instagram was shutting down shops part way through the episode. I meant Etsy (I hadn't had my caffeine yet when I recorded!).
You can connect with the podcast on:
- Instagram at @andshelookedup
- YouTube
- Tik Tok at @AndSheLookedUp
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the September Premium
Subscribers episode, which isactually in October.
So that brings me to the firstthing, which is apologies for
not getting this episode outsooner.
September just completelyslipped away from me and I've
been in this state of thinking.
(00:21):
It's September 28th sinceSaturday and it is October 3rd
today.
So so I'm I'm.
I think I was just hopefullywait, hoping that time would
stand still for a few days so Icould catch up, but alas, that
has not happened, and so I ambehind.
Many apologies to you all.
(00:42):
It does mean that you get twoepisodes this month instead of
one, so that, I guess, is a.
It's not really a bonus, you'rejust getting what you paid for,
but maybe something to lookforward to.
I don't know.
Either way, I am sorry.
The other thing I of coursewant to say is thank you all so
much for your ongoing support.
It really does mean a lot to me, and it is what helps keep this
(01:07):
podcast going.
One of the things that has hadme late with this episode is
that I have been recording a tonof guest episodes over the last
.
Well, yesterday recorded awhole bunch, have a bunch more
booked for next Thursday.
It's a lot of talking to do inone day, but the lovely thing
(01:32):
about it is that there will beso many episodes in the bank.
Now the hard part is editingthem, which takes a lot longer
than the actual interview, butit feels very satisfying to have
a few under my belt and to havea few more on the way, so
that's a good thing.
Today, what I wanted to talk toyou about is something that
I've been noodling in my brainfor several months now and I
(01:56):
decided to take the plunge abouttwo weeks ago, and that is long
form video.
And that is long form video.
I've been thinking about thisfor quite a while and my
thoughts really started to turnwhen I started doing video
episodes of the podcast Um, andit made me realize that it
(02:18):
wasn't, as I don't want to say,as hard as I thought it would be
, because it is hard and it istime consuming.
But I think maybe the word I ashard as I thought it would be,
because it is hard and it istime consuming, but I think
maybe the word I'm looking foris that it wasn't as scary as I
thought it would be.
I have done long form videos.
I've done a couple of studiovlogs for my Fine Lime Designs
(02:41):
YouTube channel and then it justgot neglected.
I really enjoyed doing them,but it was a lot of work.
It was a lot of footage thatneeded to be edited together, it
was a lot of time it wasremembering to turn a camera on
when I was doing anything that Ithought would work for a studio
vlog.
And it was just a lot of workand it made it very hard for me
(03:03):
to get into a state of creativeflow which I think we can all
appreciate.
But about a month ago I posted alittle video on my Instagram
about how I had purchased aknockoff Apple Pencil to fill
the void while I was waiting formy new Apple Pencil to arrive.
(03:23):
I had a bit of a mishap with it, so I had to order a new one
and to get me through I ordereda $25 one off of Amazon and
several people asked me if Iwould do a review and talk about
the differences between the twopencils, because there is an
enormous price difference and Itried to film a couple for
Instagram and I just couldn'tget the information into the
(03:45):
time frame that I was allowed touse on Instagram or TikTok.
So I thought, you know, maybe Icould just record a long form
video and put it on my YouTubechannel.
I have a YouTube channel, sowhy don't I just do that?
I can record it the same waythat I record the podcast
episodes, just as a zoomrecording a zoom meeting except
(04:06):
I'm the only one in the meetingand that's exactly how I record
the solo podcast episodes for uh, for the show.
So I did it and I put ittogether and then I just put a
link to it in my Instagramstories for anyone who was
interested, and it got a handfulof views and a couple of
comments and I thought you knowthat wasn't hard.
(04:29):
I can do these videos where Isit in front of the camera and
just talk to the camera.
It's easy to edit.
It doesn't take a lot of mytime.
I don't have to create all thisseparate footage and stitch it
together.
I could record some B-roll andinsert it over top of my voice
(04:49):
at strategic points if I wantedto, but I don't have to do it
that way, and so that was kindof ticking around in the back of
my head.
But what really got me thinkingabout it is so many of the
conversations around AI lately,but also intellectual property
theft.
Instagram lately has been veryharsh and has been shutting down
(05:11):
a lot of shops after doingreverse image searches which I'm
assuming they're using AI to doon the internet and finding a
lot of their shop owners imageson sites like Timu and Shine and
platforms like that, aliexpressand this is part of Etsy's plan
(05:34):
to remove a lot of the dropshipitems on their platform because
customers have started tocomplain that it's a lot of
cheap junk that isn't handmade.
So kudos for them to try andaddress this.
But at the same time, whatthey've done is they've put
genuine Etsy shop holders in aposition where they have to
prove that the item is theirsand that the photos are theirs.
(05:58):
It's sort of like we take itdown and the thing that we have
created and that we're sellingon Etsy or on our own platforms
or anywhere really is actuallyours.
That we made it, that wedesigned it, that we illustrated
it, that we painted it, that wecrocheted it.
(06:20):
Whatever the case may be and Istart to think, you know, this
is where long form video couldreally be helpful.
I think the same for AI.
I think more and more people areassuming that, particularly in
the land of illustration where Iam, and graphic design that is
AI generated and it's not.
(06:40):
It's my work, it's myillustration.
How can I show people this?
And it was a conversation wehad a few of the vendors and I
had at a pop-up market I did onthe weekend, where we were
talking about how many peoplewere coming through our booths.
At the most recent marketswe've done and we're genuinely
shocked that we were the artistsbehind the work.
(07:01):
A lot of them thought we hadbought our designs and slapped
them on cards or stickers orwhatever the case may be.
And so it's become this wholeconversation of how do we show
the world that we're the artist,and I think we've talked before
on here about how we need toshow that we're human, to show
(07:24):
to lean into our humanity as acreator, which I think is
extremely important, and I thinkthat long form video is a way
that we can do that.
So I think it serves a coupleof purposes.
One, it helps us lean into ourcreativity.
Two, it can help with theprovenance of our work in
(07:45):
showing us go through thecreative process to create
something, keeping in mind youdon't need to publish your video
until after your item is out inthe world.
It doesn't have to be done inthe moment, but I think it also
offers us another opportunity tobuild a community around our
(08:05):
work.
One of the things I've alwaysreally liked about YouTube, as a
consumer of YouTube content, ishow so many artists and
creatives have built very largecommunities of very invested
fans in their work, and so I'vebeen thinking about this a lot
lately, and yesterday Ipublished a second video to my
(08:25):
YouTube channel where I talkedabout some of the hits and
misses from the pop-up.
I did recently, and I was alittle concerned about posting
it because the sound was notgood.
I forgot to plug my mic in Veryrookie mistake, and I left a
note in my mastermind groupasking them do you think I
should still post this?
And as I talked myself throughit in the posting, I realized
(08:46):
you know what.
I should just post it.
I'll.
I talked myself through it inthe posting, I realized you know
what.
I should just post it.
I'll just post it.
See what happens.
I'll put a disclaimer on itsaying that the sound isn't
great.
And I posted it and forgotabout it until one of the ladies
in my mastermind groupcommented and said I think you
should post it and I said, oh, Ialready did.
(09:07):
And then I went and checked onit and it already had views and
it also I had gained two newsubscribers since that video had
gone up.
I have a very, very tinyYouTube channel.
It's had like 19 subscribers.
Now I have 21.
But I do think it's somethingthat I'm going to lean into a
(09:27):
little bit more.
I've found a way that I can dothis that works for me right now
, with the time that I have.
I am much more comfortable withediting video because of the
podcast, and I think eventuallyI will start to experiment with
the types and formats of videothat I can do.
But yeah, I think this is goingto be part of my strategy to
(09:51):
show myself as the artist, toalso build a community around me
and to use it as a form ofproof that I am the IP holder
for the work that I show undermy name.
So I think this is somethingreally worth thinking about if
(10:13):
you are a maker or an artist orcreative.
I don't know that long formvideo would work so well for a
writer, but I do want to justmention long form video would
work so well for a writer, but Ido want to just mention if you
are a writer, check out a guestwe had last season, demi Winters
.
She has a fantastic TikTokaccount where she does show the
behind the scenes of her writingwithout really giving anything
(10:35):
away, but you learn very quicklythat she is the author.
She is the imagination behindthe books that she's writing and
she does the imagination behindthe books that she's writing
and she does a really great jobof showing that on TikTok while
building a community around her.
I think it would be harder todo long form, but for writing, I
think somewhere like TikTokwould be great.
The other thing with long formlike YouTube, is that I was
(10:58):
thinking about this.
I can repurpose this for blogposts on my website.
I could also repurpose it forshort form content for YouTube
and Instagram, because I thinkthere's a place for short form
content as well.
I just think it has a longershelf life on YouTube and I
think there's more opportunitiesto search for it and be found
through search on YouTube.
(11:20):
So that's one of the reasonswhy I'm going to start
experimenting over there.
If this is something you thinkyou might like to do, first of
all, I would go and I wouldstart looking for other
creatives in your medium who areusing YouTube.
So if you're a crocheter, lookfor other crochet artists.
If you are an illustrator or apainter, look for other
(11:42):
illustrators or painters andwatch a whole bunch of different
videos, see what you connectwith and pay really close
attention to how the videos areshot.
Do you see the artist's face inthe video?
Because in a lot of them youdon't.
In the previous studio vlogsthat I did, I never showed my
face.
In the current videos I've made, I do show my face, but there
(12:05):
are ways you can do this withoutactually showing your face if
that makes you uncomfortable.
We are makers and artists.
We use our hands, so we can dovideos that focus on what our
hands are doing in the creationprocess.
Do they show snippets of behindthe scenes in in their work
(12:27):
world, in their studio?
Do they show what they do atmarkets?
Pay really close attention towhere the camera is, where they
are and figuring out is theresomebody behind the camera?
Is the camera sitting on atable or a shelf or something?
Is it somehow showing above,filming from above?
(12:49):
Think about that and thinkabout the different ways that
you could film yourself Because,as I said, you don't have to
show up on camera, you just haveto show up.
I think that's the key camera,you just have to show up.
I think that's the key.
Yeah, so that is something thatI'm going to be experimenting
(13:09):
with over the next few months.
I have some clips from thebuild up to the launch of my box
Christmas cards showing theprocess that I went through to
create those, because a lot ofpeople don't realize that my
cards are handmade.
I do the whole process in mystudio, so I'm going to be doing
that next.
I think, also, if I'd been alittle more organized, it would
(13:30):
have been a great marketing toolfor the actual launch of the
cards, but I think I canprobably still get some sales
from them doing it this way.
Yeah, so that's what I'm goingto be playing with, and I think
it's something really worththinking about how you can use
video to, as I said, um, combatAI, uh, copyright infringement,
(13:58):
show the provenance of your workand build that all-important
community that is full ofpotential customers and fans of
your work.
So that's it for September,even though it's October.
I will be back before the endof the month with another
episode for October and, asalways, thank you all so much
(14:20):
for your ongoing financialsupport for the show.
It really does mean a lot.
That's it for now.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the September Premium
Subscribers episode, which isactually in October.
So that brings me to the firstthing, which is apologies for
not getting this episode outsooner.
September just completelyslipped away from me and I've
been in this state of thinking.
(00:21):
It's September 28th sinceSaturday and it is October 3rd
today.
So so I'm I'm.
I think I was just hopefullywait, hoping that time would
stand still for a few days so Icould catch up, but alas, that
has not happened, and so I ambehind.
Many apologies to you all.
(00:42):
It does mean that you get twoepisodes this month instead of
one, so that, I guess, is a.
It's not really a bonus, you'rejust getting what you paid for,
but maybe something to lookforward to.
I don't know.
Either way, I am sorry.
The other thing I of coursewant to say is thank you all so
much for your ongoing support.
It really does mean a lot to me, and it is what helps keep this
(01:07):
podcast going.
One of the things that has hadme late with this episode is
that I have been recording a tonof guest episodes over the last
.
Well, yesterday recorded awhole bunch, have a bunch more
booked for next Thursday.
It's a lot of talking to do inone day, but the lovely thing
(01:32):
about it is that there will beso many episodes in the bank.
Now the hard part is editingthem, which takes a lot longer
than the actual interview, butit feels very satisfying to have
a few under my belt and to havea few more on the way, so
that's a good thing.
Today, what I wanted to talk toyou about is something that
I've been noodling in my brainfor several months now and I
(01:56):
decided to take the plunge abouttwo weeks ago, and that is long
form video.
And that is long form video.
I've been thinking about thisfor quite a while and my
thoughts really started to turnwhen I started doing video
episodes of the podcast Um, andit made me realize that it
(02:18):
wasn't, as I don't want to say,as hard as I thought it would be
, because it is hard and it istime consuming.
But I think maybe the word I ashard as I thought it would be,
because it is hard and it istime consuming, but I think
maybe the word I'm looking foris that it wasn't as scary as I
thought it would be.
I have done long form videos.
I've done a couple of studiovlogs for my Fine Lime Designs
(02:41):
YouTube channel and then it justgot neglected.
I really enjoyed doing them,but it was a lot of work.
It was a lot of footage thatneeded to be edited together, it
was a lot of time it wasremembering to turn a camera on
when I was doing anything that Ithought would work for a studio
vlog.
And it was just a lot of workand it made it very hard for me
(03:03):
to get into a state of creativeflow which I think we can all
appreciate.
But about a month ago I posted alittle video on my Instagram
about how I had purchased aknockoff Apple Pencil to fill
the void while I was waiting formy new Apple Pencil to arrive.
(03:23):
I had a bit of a mishap with it, so I had to order a new one
and to get me through I ordereda $25 one off of Amazon and
several people asked me if Iwould do a review and talk about
the differences between the twopencils, because there is an
enormous price difference and Itried to film a couple for
Instagram and I just couldn'tget the information into the
(03:45):
time frame that I was allowed touse on Instagram or TikTok.
So I thought, you know, maybe Icould just record a long form
video and put it on my YouTubechannel.
I have a YouTube channel, sowhy don't I just do that?
I can record it the same waythat I record the podcast
episodes, just as a zoomrecording a zoom meeting except
(04:06):
I'm the only one in the meetingand that's exactly how I record
the solo podcast episodes for uh, for the show.
So I did it and I put ittogether and then I just put a
link to it in my Instagramstories for anyone who was
interested, and it got a handfulof views and a couple of
comments and I thought you knowthat wasn't hard.
(04:29):
I can do these videos where Isit in front of the camera and
just talk to the camera.
It's easy to edit.
It doesn't take a lot of mytime.
I don't have to create all thisseparate footage and stitch it
together.
I could record some B-roll andinsert it over top of my voice
(04:49):
at strategic points if I wantedto, but I don't have to do it
that way, and so that was kindof ticking around in the back of
my head.
But what really got me thinkingabout it is so many of the
conversations around AI lately,but also intellectual property
theft.
Instagram lately has been veryharsh and has been shutting down
(05:11):
a lot of shops after doingreverse image searches which I'm
assuming they're using AI to doon the internet and finding a
lot of their shop owners imageson sites like Timu and Shine and
platforms like that, aliexpressand this is part of Etsy's plan
(05:34):
to remove a lot of the dropshipitems on their platform because
customers have started tocomplain that it's a lot of
cheap junk that isn't handmade.
So kudos for them to try andaddress this.
But at the same time, whatthey've done is they've put
genuine Etsy shop holders in aposition where they have to
prove that the item is theirsand that the photos are theirs.
(05:58):
It's sort of like we take itdown and the thing that we have
created and that we're sellingon Etsy or on our own platforms
or anywhere really is actuallyours.
That we made it, that wedesigned it, that we illustrated
it, that we painted it, that wecrocheted it.
(06:20):
Whatever the case may be and Istart to think, you know, this
is where long form video couldreally be helpful.
I think the same for AI.
I think more and more people areassuming that, particularly in
the land of illustration where Iam, and graphic design that is
AI generated and it's not.
(06:40):
It's my work, it's myillustration.
How can I show people this?
And it was a conversation wehad a few of the vendors and I
had at a pop-up market I did onthe weekend, where we were
talking about how many peoplewere coming through our booths.
At the most recent marketswe've done and we're genuinely
shocked that we were the artistsbehind the work.
(07:01):
A lot of them thought we hadbought our designs and slapped
them on cards or stickers orwhatever the case may be.
And so it's become this wholeconversation of how do we show
the world that we're the artist,and I think we've talked before
on here about how we need toshow that we're human, to show
(07:24):
to lean into our humanity as acreator, which I think is
extremely important, and I thinkthat long form video is a way
that we can do that.
So I think it serves a coupleof purposes.
One, it helps us lean into ourcreativity.
Two, it can help with theprovenance of our work in
(07:45):
showing us go through thecreative process to create
something, keeping in mind youdon't need to publish your video
until after your item is out inthe world.
It doesn't have to be done inthe moment, but I think it also
offers us another opportunity tobuild a community around our
(08:05):
work.
One of the things I've alwaysreally liked about YouTube, as a
consumer of YouTube content, ishow so many artists and
creatives have built very largecommunities of very invested
fans in their work, and so I'vebeen thinking about this a lot
lately, and yesterday Ipublished a second video to my
(08:25):
YouTube channel where I talkedabout some of the hits and
misses from the pop-up.
I did recently, and I was alittle concerned about posting
it because the sound was notgood.
I forgot to plug my mic in Veryrookie mistake, and I left a
note in my mastermind groupasking them do you think I
should still post this?
And as I talked myself throughit in the posting, I realized
(08:46):
you know what.
I should just post it.
I'll.
I talked myself through it inthe posting, I realized you know
what.
I should just post it.
I'll just post it.
See what happens.
I'll put a disclaimer on itsaying that the sound isn't
great.
And I posted it and forgotabout it until one of the ladies
in my mastermind groupcommented and said I think you
should post it and I said, oh, Ialready did.
(09:07):
And then I went and checked onit and it already had views and
it also I had gained two newsubscribers since that video had
gone up.
I have a very, very tinyYouTube channel.
It's had like 19 subscribers.
Now I have 21.
But I do think it's somethingthat I'm going to lean into a
(09:27):
little bit more.
I've found a way that I can dothis that works for me right now
, with the time that I have.
I am much more comfortable withediting video because of the
podcast, and I think eventuallyI will start to experiment with
the types and formats of videothat I can do.
But yeah, I think this is goingto be part of my strategy to
(09:51):
show myself as the artist, toalso build a community around me
and to use it as a form ofproof that I am the IP holder
for the work that I show undermy name.
So I think this is somethingreally worth thinking about if
(10:13):
you are a maker or an artist orcreative.
I don't know that long formvideo would work so well for a
writer, but I do want to justmention long form video would
work so well for a writer, but Ido want to just mention if you
are a writer, check out a guestwe had last season, demi Winters
.
She has a fantastic TikTokaccount where she does show the
behind the scenes of her writingwithout really giving anything
(10:35):
away, but you learn very quicklythat she is the author.
She is the imagination behindthe books that she's writing and
she does the imagination behindthe books that she's writing
and she does a really great jobof showing that on TikTok while
building a community around her.
I think it would be harder todo long form, but for writing, I
think somewhere like TikTokwould be great.
The other thing with long formlike YouTube, is that I was
(10:58):
thinking about this.
I can repurpose this for blogposts on my website.
I could also repurpose it forshort form content for YouTube
and Instagram, because I thinkthere's a place for short form
content as well.
I just think it has a longershelf life on YouTube and I
think there's more opportunitiesto search for it and be found
through search on YouTube.
(11:20):
So that's one of the reasonswhy I'm going to start
experimenting over there.
If this is something you thinkyou might like to do, first of
all, I would go and I wouldstart looking for other
creatives in your medium who areusing YouTube.
So if you're a crocheter, lookfor other crochet artists.
If you are an illustrator or apainter, look for other
(11:42):
illustrators or painters andwatch a whole bunch of different
videos, see what you connectwith and pay really close
attention to how the videos areshot.
Do you see the artist's face inthe video?
Because in a lot of them youdon't.
In the previous studio vlogsthat I did, I never showed my
face.
In the current videos I've made, I do show my face, but there
(12:05):
are ways you can do this withoutactually showing your face if
that makes you uncomfortable.
We are makers and artists.
We use our hands, so we can dovideos that focus on what our
hands are doing in the creationprocess.
Do they show snippets of behindthe scenes in in their work
(12:27):
world, in their studio?
Do they show what they do atmarkets?
Pay really close attention towhere the camera is, where they
are and figuring out is theresomebody behind the camera?
Is the camera sitting on atable or a shelf or something?
Is it somehow showing above,filming from above?
(12:49):
Think about that and thinkabout the different ways that
you could film yourself Because,as I said, you don't have to
show up on camera, you just haveto show up.
I think that's the key camera,you just have to show up.
I think that's the key.
Yeah, so that is something thatI'm going to be experimenting
(13:09):
with over the next few months.
I have some clips from thebuild up to the launch of my box
Christmas cards showing theprocess that I went through to
create those, because a lot ofpeople don't realize that my
cards are handmade.
I do the whole process in mystudio, so I'm going to be doing
that next.
I think, also, if I'd been alittle more organized, it would
(13:30):
have been a great marketing toolfor the actual launch of the
cards, but I think I canprobably still get some sales
from them doing it this way.
Yeah, so that's what I'm goingto be playing with, and I think
it's something really worththinking about how you can use
video to, as I said, um, combatAI, uh, copyright infringement,
(13:58):
show the provenance of your workand build that all-important
community that is full ofpotential customers and fans of
your work.
So that's it for September,even though it's October.
I will be back before the endof the month with another
episode for October and, asalways, thank you all so much
(14:20):
for your ongoing financialsupport for the show.
It really does mean a lot.
That's it for now.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!