Almost done with episode 3 of our offroad cheap car challenge!

"Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo" (akioohtori)
11/08/2018 at 12:20 • Filed to: tq overland, tq offroad

Last night I finally got the first complete draft export of the episode three of our road trip video out. Yes, this is a full year after episode two was released. It has been a busy year! >_>

Looks like EP3 is shaping up to be a “double length” episode, coming in right at 20 minutes. This concerns me, as it is only covering three days’ worth of content. The episode starts with us entering Death Valley and covers Death Valley Road, Beatty, Titus Canyon, Artists Drive, Badwater Basin, Zabriski Point, Hole in the Wall, Dead Man’s Pass, and into Vegas.

Ok… that kinda seems like a lot…

Though I am making these videos for us but still want them to be entertaining to the people we force to watch them, I try and straddle the line between “a perfect record of things that happened” and “entertaining”. I also tend to fall into the trap of putting all the footage I have into the video… even if it is sort of boring or doesn’t fit into the narrative.

For EP3 a friend has volunteered to do the sound mixing for me… which I am nervous about. Rightly so, he wants to do it outside of my workflow, which will make it really hard to go back and edit the episodes after the fact. Also while I cannot deny the audio quality coming out of his trial run is much better, there are a lot of spots that I dislike too. It is a tough thing. Sidenote: this is the same friend that did the custom composition for the video of our first road trip (which absolutely doesn’t exist).

Anyway, I am happy to share the next chapter of this story with everyone, even if it is WAY later than I’d expected to. My new goal is to have the video finished before we start the next trip in May of 2019. That is… surprisingly ambitious as that means at least two more episodes.

Here is the breakdown for anyone who is interested:

Episode 1 – Good Luck – Covering car buying

Episode 2 – Have Fun – Sacramento to Death Valley, covering Tahoe, Bodie, and Mono Lake

Episode 3 – Don’t Die – Death Valley, ending in Vegas

Episode 4 – Kick Ass(?) – Vegas, Valley of Fire, Grand Canyon

Episode 5 – Good Game – Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Wrap Up

Episode 6 – Game Over – SLC car selling and retrospective? (Probably not going to do this one)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

DISCUSSION (9)

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
11/08/2018 at 14:00

Gotta leave some links to the first two videos! Looking forward to the whole series. It is is entertaining for sure. Definitely a nice addition to your posts with the photo collections. I always love reading/watching road trip adventures. I had thought about videoing my whole road trip across the country but didnt want to deal with the hassle you are now lol.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
11/08/2018 at 14:29

Thanks! Yeah it is a giant pain in the butt but totally worth it. I think the major problems are (1) I’m not very good at video editing (2) too much or too little footage makes telling a story complicated and (3) I am a perfectionist but also see (1)

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
11/08/2018 at 16:27

Your videos are definitely on par with other low (or no) budget youtube channels out there. Certainly watchable at least lol. I generally find that just letting the video content speak for itself does wonders. Crappy voiceovers/music are probably worse than none at all.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
11/08/2018 at 16:38

Hmmm interesting. Do you feel like our commentary falls into the “crappy” bucket? (Honestly asking) I ask because it is a pain in the butt to produce, so of I can eliminate or reduce it while also improving the watchability, that’s a win win.

We don’t really get any (honest) feedback on the videos from our friends.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
11/08/2018 at 17:24

Oh no, I was saying yours does fine. Although its been a while since I had watched those videos lol. Hence why I had suggested putting a video link in the post! Usually its just sound levels and lack of direct microphones for voice stuff that can have an effect on quality. I can definitely think of many youtube car review channels for instance that I just cant watch the whole thing because of it being boring/annoying. I definitely recall being entertained enough to finish your whole video.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
11/08/2018 at 17:31

Haha fair enough, thanks! Yeah we defiantly have sound quality issues on the not-post-recorded stuff. The audio was so bad on the first road trip video w e even did some voice-overs . Annoyingly we had dedicated mics for the 3 car shakedown bit, but we had crap mic positioning and a lot of wind noise. Oh and I think one of them didn’t record or something stupid like that.

Sidenote: We’re planning on skipping that whole segment for TQ3. I was really a hold-over from when we were pretending to be Top Gear and aside from the Disco reveal I don’t think it added anything to the video.

Pistol Whipped Cream > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
11/08/2018 at 19:10

I added to my watch later! good work!

HammerheadFistpunch > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
11/11/2018 at 21:31

I always end up putting way more effort into my trip videos than the volume of views demand. It’s tough. I know many of the struggles you’ve outlined.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > HammerheadFistpunch
11/11/2018 at 23:11

We get a lot of mileage out of watching them ourselves but yeah.... So much time and effort.