Armory of contents:
Stealing Like An Artist. A piece of content that inspired us to create this week
Our Response, Unfiltered. Responding to a controversial comment.
Mind-Blown. Something that provoked our thoughts.
Early to the Party. A small creator on their way to stardom.
Zoom Out. Thinking big picture for our brand
Roasted. A light dig at each other’s content.
Internet Pioneers!
Welcome to week 2 of the Out West rebrand. If you didn’t see Week 1, basically we’ve made 6 BITES. These Bites are listed above in our “Armory of Contents” and are meant to be easy-read sections to inspire and provoke your thoughts as a creative.
At the bottom, we have our 8-Week Consistency Challenge tracker! Today is the start of Week 2. You can see our goals and if we fail… the horrifying punishments are listed at the bottom.
One final thing! We switched back to Substack which allows for COMMENTS AGAIN! We missed hearing what you all think of OW so please, leave us a comment below of what you think about this format.
Giddy up!
One of the more recent times I stole like an artist was inspired by our very own Daniel McMahon! He posted this video, a jubilant tutorial on some hand-drawn animations, but with a dark twist. Immediately falling in love with that concept, I threw together this video, a productivity-centric version, with an existential kicker. It’s not stealing if you add your own flavor.
Posted on my What’s in the Pulp Fiction briefcase video, where I conclude by saying it’s whatever you want it to be. Alright, this sarcastic comment made me laugh. I did have to Google “limey” however. There’s a universe of knowledge out there, and Joseph has every inch of it. How dare I share information that he already knows? I’ll raise my hands here, it’s insulting. It doesn’t matter if you already know it, Joseph. Plenty don’t.
This week, I was blown away by Jordan Studdard and his unique storytelling skills on TikTok. His use of drawing, animation and real life is incredible. I feel like most of my content has always been a level of a-roll footage (just me talking to the camera) and some sequences of b-roll. Nothing wrong with it, but always great to find other dimensions of storytelling that can be added to the visual. Dodford does this really well.
Artificial Intelligence is no longer reserved for the hyper-rich and ultra-scientific. In fact, even you and I have access to it - and that’s terrifying. Outlined in well-organized video essays, Dan Knows Nothing on TikTok explains the level to which AI has advanced, and why we should be more concerned about it. He mixes short-form storytelling with very real sci-fi elements - a recipe for success if you ask me.
Something I've been experimenting with recently is disregarding every TikTok technique to “hack your views.” Slow cuts, no voiceover, no subtitles, no trendy relevancy. Just making a movie, the way I’d like to make it. It turns out, serving the story in the approach the story asks for - it leaves more of an impact than some algorithm’s wet dream. I love creating, but only because I do it for the people who care!
Mwhaha I get to roast Seany boy this week. Sean, the biggest problem I see with your brand is that I only have one relationship with you online - you’re that meditation guy. The videos you do make about your story have missing elements of “why should I care?”. For example, in this video you made about love, I thought the beginning didn’t evoke enough emotion to motivate me to watch more. It wasn’t curious enough. Something along the lines of “This bowl of ramen represents our love” makes me more curious as a viewer striving for a healthy relationship (or any relationship for that matter right now haha… ladies dm me).
We talked about this for a moment in our meeting if you’d like to see our full conversation on roasting Sean (~5 min).
Tejas’ W1 Update: This past week I tried a couple daily vlogs by setting an alarm on my watch to go off every hour to signify that I should record whatever I’m doing. I packaged it all under a large narrative. It worked great in terms of getting content out, however, I’m not sure if that’s the best strategy for my brand at the moment. Tossing and turning on this.
Sean’s W1 Update: This past week, I almost hit scramble mode in terms of coming up with content. I ended up tossing together a guided meditation video, to little avail in response online. Then, I made a short about trying to fall asleep but overthinking (personified) preventing you from doing so. I liked it, and want to incorporate more skits into my stories.
Daniel’s W1 Update: Danny doesn’t have an update this week :) He is off doing some London wedding shenanigans and we forgot to tell him to write one. His video this week was absolutely beautiful if you didn’t see it. - Tejas