Want to get better at making videos? Watch your old ones, even the awful ones. In March 2019 I dug up my one and only stop-motion short, made in a single night back in my uni days.
One night, a cigar and a stop-motion
Sometimes you sit down, watch what you made years ago, and realise how much you've grown: how your techniques have improved and how much time and effort you spent back then without the right knowledge. So I wanted to show you one of my first videos, and the only stop-motion short I ever attempted. It was on an earlier YouTube channel that I closed a couple of years before starting seriously. Over five or six years it got two or three thousand views. Nothing special.
I made it in the mid-2000s, while I was at uni. One night I was home alone, all my friends were out, and I didn't feel like going out. I had a cigar and a little whisky, and I started creating. I'm pretty sure I shot, edited and posted it all in the same evening. When I finished, I was the happiest person in the world.
What old videos teach you
So, what do you think? Pretty bad, right? Part of me actually likes it, and part of me hates it, because there's so much I'd do differently today. But it's still a memory. I think, as creators, we should watch our old videos regularly. Not to cringe, but to spot what's wrong, avoid making the same mistakes over and over, and study where the gaps are. It's also lovely to see how much your skills have improved. Every now and then, stop and look back so you can plan your future.