For some reason I’ve left my phone on the roof of my car lately. One time I drove 15 miles on the highway and when I got out of my car, my phone was there on the roof.
The other night, though, I realized I didn’t have my phone, a few miles from the location above in the video. I drove back, and thankfully a kind gentleman had found it intact, in complete working order. It did call 911, however, to report an accident. He was able to talk to the 911 operator, and assured them there was no car wreck at this location. Technology, huh?
Making the video above was a fun one. I didn’t know that the sun would peek out like that, but thankfully it did.
Bringing my camera equipment on my running adventures is fun because when I have a “meh” kind of run (like I did tonight), I can still take a stroll along the lake and try and capture the sounds of nature.
This is my set up; a Nikon Z30 and a Zoom H6. Both are just pretty much at their default settings, as I’m still figuring out how best to do any of his.
I’m sure at some point I’ll get into the finer points of manual controls with video. Maybe a shotgun mic at some point? At least a wind cover. I’m okay with the audio edits I’m able to make in Davinci Resolve, at least.
For now this is another thing that keeps me in the woods longer, and I’m quite okay with that.
I love being in the woods. Usually I just take a bunch of photos with my iPhone and send them to a friends afterwards, but now I’m enjoying making some chill-vibes videos like this.
I’m hauling a real camera (Nikon Z30), a tripod, and a Zoom H6 audio recorder with me to capture these moments. I mean, to be able to capture the sounds of the birds? The movement of the creek? Oh my, I love it so much.
I’ve made a few so far and got more to learn, of course, but I’m enjoying the process.
The video above was in response to this wonderful quote I found via Substack notes from Elissa Altman:
If you’re not gonna talk publicly about your work, plenty of other folks will. People can’t fall in love with your work if they don’t know about it.
Tell people about your work in only the way that you can, because if an unpaid intern (or an AI prompt) could write your self-promo copy, you’re toast.
🚫 Hey, new song! [LINK] 🚫 I just posted some new art. [LINK] 🚫 New items added to the store. [LINK] 🚫 New interview – we talked about art stuff! [LINK]
Those can work if you’re Radiohead or Beyonce or Rolling Stone or Best Buy.
Which you are not.
Let’s learn from Austin Kleon, who says to learn to steal like an artist (buy that book right now, dammit).
“It’s Super Bowl Sunday, that’s what I’m told. I have tallied the results of all your requests, and opted to do an acoustic version of “King of You” from the album Star Wars. Which was an unlikely favorite. Or at least it got two votes. It’s from an album that’s meant to be full of nonsense, because I think nonsense is good for us.”
No way an AI bot or record label intern could write that. And a lot more interesting than “new song, click here.”
✅ If you interviewed someone, get out of the way and put them front and center, the way Sari Botton of Oldster Magazine does here:
In this instance above, Todd Boss is the focus, the center of attention. Get the heck out of the way and let their words champion the piece.
✅ Artist Marie Enger opens her recent newsletter like this:
“Friends, this week? It fucking sucked.
But my buddy Ray Nadine (who you might know from the 2024 GLAAD nominated comic LIGHT CARRIES ON, Raise Hell (with our good friend and yours too, Jordan Alsaqa), and SOMETHING HAS CHANGED) reminded me yesterday as I was spinning out–
“I don’t know what it is about my brain, but as long as I can find the right image to put at the top of the newsletter, the rest just flows out. (I started this letter last week but didn’t finish it — remembering Kate’s image helped everything snap into place)”
Not one of these asks for a click, a signup, or a “buy now.”
They all attempt to draw you in with story, delight, oddities, weirdness – you know, art. Magic!
The newsletter or the song is the vehicle, but the creative spirit behind the work must provide the energy to move it forward.
We need to get away from thinking of our offerings as commodities.
We are not promoting just a new song, a new thing to read, or another piece of content.
You’ve already done the hard part; you’re an artist, photographer, teacher, musician – you know how hard it is to play the piano?! IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, I TRIED, OKAY?
But promoting your work? That’s much easier than trying to sight-read sheet music, which is another impossibility – how does anyone do it?!
Let your creative wisdom inform how you talk about and share your work. Literally spend more than 12 seconds on it, instead of banging out “hey click here” and expecting anyone to give a fuck about it.
✅ BONUS: You can also go in the opposite direction.
Think about how you’d start a comedy show. What’s the expectation?
Even if you’re not a comedian, we’re all so familiar with the process that if we had to, we could at least do the introduction part, right?
“Hey everyone, I’m Seth. So great to be here!”
But it takes an artist to spend the first three minutes wrestling with the mic stand, dropping the microphone, and yelling at the production crew to turn the music off.
But note when the music stops, and Tim Heidecker abruptly says, “Thank you, okay, all right.”
That took some work. That was magic.
Those first three moments are rough. I got a little bit of anxiety from watching it, but it was like a car wreck; I couldn’t look away.
Like – why go through all that?
Because it sets the stage for what’s to come.
Why did I pack up my camera gear and use a wired microphone and go into the woods to make a video about hyping your work?
Because this is my art, my project, my work.
Some people will get that video. Some people will be like, “That guy is weird, and I’m not subscribing.”
Great. This is what I do, this is how I work. thank u, next.
Make people feel something. Stress, tension, release. The hero’s journey.
These are all things you can learn and study and steal ideas from (and a much better use of your time, instead of spending 2+ hours a day scrolling social media).
This is a response to a comment left by Craig Lewis on what of my Substack Notes:
how do you practically make that move to talking to those closer to you/simply putting out quality content if no-one is seeing/interacting with it?
If you never post on socials etc, no-one ever sees what you do. If you have an audience already, it’s cool to get stuff out to them and they will hopefully do you a good turn and shout about it for you.
But if you’re still building an audience… back to shouting into the void?
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately with the “blogging thing.” Did you notice the new domain name? I’ve had sethw.com on and off since, like, 1999 or so because it went with my weird one-man-band act I did. But lately, as I’m now easing into my later 40s, I wanted something that reflected my new vibes, and sethwxyz really worked. Like, the alphabet goes wxyz, right? Seth W… xyz. Oh my god, I love it.
Anyway, since I’ve been writing or blogging so much, I’ve definitely felt different things pulling themselves together.
Like, I’m not spending multiple hours a day writing, but I do a lot of thinking and walking and taking voice notes on occasion, which I rarely revisit, but just doing them helps my brain put things together.
“Companionship content is long-form content that can be consumed passively — allowing the consumer to be incompletely attentive, and providing a sense of relaxation, comfort, and community.”
After reading that whole piece, it was like, oh my god, no wonder I love those Noah Kalina videos, right? And he even mentioned in today’s video, near the end, how you could just have his video on in the background, you don’t even need to really watch it.
There were a few days where I’d find myself in haze after laying around and just scrolling through Instagram Reel after Instagram Reel. It was like when we were kids, and they used to say we watched 10 hours of TV a week or something, but now it’s like we consume 10 hours of video a day, but in 15 to 30-second increments, and it’s draining, as Anu says here:
“Consuming content requires attention, and everyone has an attention ceiling. This is the basis of my belief that short-form video has an upper limit. It’s not that short-form isn’t as good or as entertaining as long-form, it’s that it’s distracting and ultimately draining.
The mental energy consumed per minute of content consumed must be higher for short-form video than many types of content. I think of this as the “drain ratio” (as in energy drain) for a given piece of content or even a whole genre. (I doubt if anyone’s scientifically measured this, but I’d willingly commission a study on it).”
Maybe that’s why I like watching Craig Reynolds of Stray From The Path when he does his drum streams.
I don’t have to pay full attention, but it’s just fun to be “in the room” when he offers a sarcastic comment or self-deprecating humor.
Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe it’s the after-effects of living through a pandemic, and things are just off, man. I’m not sure, but I just need the slow chill vibes these days.
HINDZ is another great example. A little softer than watching Craig on drums, but still… I guess it’s all about the person. I know what I’m getting from these folks, and there’s a peacefulness to that.
This is also similar to “body doubling,” or virtual co-working sessions that I’ve seen around. I haven’t really dabbled in those quite so much, but I know some people really like those.
