My Journey Started From This Youtube Video That I Made

Today, I would like to share with you an important milestone in my life. It is a milestone that I am somewhat embarrassed to talk about, especially knowing its origins. But it signifies the start of an important journey to discover my passion towards video making. I have learned so much ever since then. I am proud to say that I have grown so much, professionally and personally.

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of my first ever video made.

Title of the first video created.

2011 was an interesting year for me when I was in secondary 2. I was an outspoken individual and loved to express myself as much as I could. I was in Drama Club (later known as English Language Drama and Debate Society) as my regular co-curricular activity in school. It was especially fun as I had the opportunity to do stage acting and as well as being part of the production crew. Outside of school, I spent my time mostly online by watching my favourite YouTubers and read a lot of my friends' blogs.

As I have a serious and burning desire to try out producing a video, my father gave me a compact camera to play with. So, during the March holidays, I used it to film my quick family trip to Malaysia. After I returned from Malaysia, I was excited to edit it on my desktop computer and rushed the video cut overnight.

I made the huge mistake of putting up so much high hope of getting a positive reception for the video. It was heartbreaking and hurting to receive negative criticism especially knowing that I have put in so much effort into this. What it was just a fun project for me to work on instantly became a laughing stock among my peers in school. It didn't help the fact that I was ignorant towards the comments made and this made me infamous gradually.

Despite all these, I truly enjoy the video-making process. It was a complete joy to see the end product after putting long hours into planning, filming, and editing. The process was fascinating and intriguing. It was definitely much more interesting than what I studied at school. That was when I realised that this could be something that I would like to pursue.

Looking back, I find that I could have done a better job for my first video on Youtube. I might be embarrassed to look at it again after so long but the edits seemed so vivid in my mind. The pacing of the video was horrendous, edits were badly cut, sound design was awkward, my narration was cringy and the video itself wasn't well thought through.

If anything, this video shouldn't have existed in the first place. But, I did it anyway.

Now, it was the journey that I chose to take 9 years ago. Since then, I have developed this strict discipline that with each video that I produce, there must be an improvement made, no matter how big or small it is. That was how I motivate myself, especially when I receive negative criticism.

As a person who struggled to listen to criticism previously, it was a challenge for me to absorb the comments and think of it as constructive feedback. Slowly but surely, I became open-minded and listened to feedback. I keep telling myself to persevere and never give up.

Till this day, I am extremely grateful that I did not give up. I pressed on 9 years later and I am proud to produce noteworthy works over the years.

At my graduation showcase, Fusion 2017.