A Brief History of Horror Hosting with Mausolena: Video

Hello All!

Today I present you with a video I made explaining the history of horror hosting in under 5 minutes. I made this video for a few reasons, the most basic being to test cameras against each other. I filmed the video twice with the same setup but different cameras (Lumix GH5 vs Canon T7i) to decide what would work best for me. I found that the T7i was better in its audio recording capabilities, being able to monitor sound while you film is definitely a plus. It also has 4k quality, multiple lenses, and a lot of fancy settings. Those fancy settings are probably useful if you know a lot about cameras. But I don't, so it just made setting things up a lot more confusing. The T7i is much more familiar to me as I've used it in multiple projects in the past. It's pretty user friendly, but it doesn't have live sound monitoring, only films in HD, and is less customizable. 

I have heard a lot of good things about the GH5's color, but in my results, for some reason everything ended up quite washed out/low contrast. I think it had something to do with preset I chose and not adjusting as I went. It's hard to tell how things look just on the tiny display so viewing test clips on another monitor is best practice for me. I was also a bit disappointed with the autofocus capability on it. Since I was filming myself I was testing autofocus on both cameras, with the screen pointed towards myself for adjustments. Even so, my footage came out blurry. Again, this could've been user error, but considering how much time I spent trying to set things up, I would've hoped for better results.

The T7i was quite easy to me and setup went smoothly. I had never used the autofocus on the T7i and I was really impressed with how quiet and responsive it was. The color and contrast looked a lot better and the sound worked well with the lavaliers I used. I think that I'll end up using this as my primary camera to save myself the headache of unfamiliar equipment, but I still want to experiment and get to know the GH5 to see how things look.

The second reason I made the video was to start developing my horror hosting character, Mausolena. As far as my character's story, personality, and mannerisms I haven't gotten very far. But I did start to develop an appearance that I think works well. It was cool to put on the makeup and clothes (not super different from what I'd wear on a night out as a goth anyways) and step into the character. 

The final reason for this video was to continue my attempts to build credibility and connections in the horror hosting world. Through my documentary I am trying to gain access to a community that has been around for a lot longer than I have been alive. Although I don't think horror hosts and fans are particularly big gatekeepers, I still think that it is important to prove to people that I care about the topic and deserve their time. I think that sharing things that clearly took time and effort, and demonstrating my skills, will help me to gain people's trust and make connections.

Overall, I have a long way to go in developing my character. I still feel behind on production and definitely need to get going with scheduling interviews (scary). But I'm happy with this video and I'm glad I'm getting some practice and making progress.

Til next time

Unpleasant Dreams

Celina (Mausolena)