You Ask, I Answer | Q&A

i am setting something up for you the head is just cut off i'm doing a q a you're gonna do such a good job you're funny and you're fun and you're awesome and you're the best i just want to make map videos all right let's do it i've got lots of just images look at all these images one of my big favorite things to do in my whole life is to just surround myself with visual cues and markers that like remind me of good things usually memories i am a little obsessed with documenting and then like forcing myself to like be inundated with all those things like this cool picture of a boat i took this on a film camera and it is a boat going around a lake in italy me and izzy when we were first getting started in our studio my child out of focus one of my favorite villages in the world in switzerland switzerland switzerland and then this big boy this is a beach in portugal and henry right there just good moment the other thing i do is maps wait this guy likes maps i found this old national geographic switzerland austria italy i mean does it get any better one thing i like to do with these old maps is look at the stroke of the lines here and like how the style of them you'll see on this that they have a thick line and then they have sort of like a feathered off thinner line at all the borders and it gives it this glowy effect that's like really elegant it's just beautiful here's a map of africa in 1860 looks very different maybe i should make a video called how europe stole africa anyway i'm just hanging photos and thinking about the studio and how it's changing and we've been here about a year and a half now it's been great all right hi everyone i'm not making map videos today while i am over there but i'm taking a moment out to answer some of your questions because i get a lot of questions and i feel like every once in a while it's a good idea to come here and just like answer all of those questions let's do it what is your current favorite breakfast man breakfast i have a whole new breakfast life now and it is wonderful i have started to eat yogurt and granola uh is made granola look she made this granola and i've never really been into granola but then she made this and it's like excellent so i've been eating that i've been eating a lot of salmon and rice though i find that i can't do that every single day i have to sort of pace it out a little bit you just can't have salmon every single day i mean some people can but i've also been getting like instant soup cups and putting boiling water in and then cracking an egg and then cutting up some avocado and eating that for breakfast i guess like the theme here is i just like savory things for breakfast what is your favorite border region in the world that's a tough question man i don't know about favorite but at least like the most engaging or like the place i think about the most is the border of china and nepal it is just up there in the high mountains and it is one of the wildest weirdest places i've ever been on up on the tibetan plateau so it's very flat but you're really really high up um it just has a special culture to it it's very remote it takes forever to get up there it's a pretty magical place you should explore this on a map it's really interesting to look at this landscape on a map if you look up a place called lomantan in northern nepal you will see a wonderful place um are there any cultures your children have naturally gravitated towards yes actually yes so for those who don't know we used to travel a lot with our children obviously we don't travel right now with our children because no one travels but we've taken them all over the place i think they've been to like 10 countries and for context i hadn't left the united states until like i was a full-fledged adult like i didn't start traveling so like my children at the age of like three had been to more countries than i had by the time i was like 25. our youngest oliver who's four years old loves japan he loves japan he loves the robots he loves the noodles he loves udon noodles like big long squishy noodles he loves the trains and we went to like a like a kids like theme park roller coaster thing in tokyo and he just like fell in love he just loves japan oh and his favorite food is teriyaki chicken which he he calls it teriyaki chicken i want teddy yucky chicken it's so cute melt my heart my other son henry who is seven loves trains trains trains trains he's obsessed with trains he knows all about trains and he therefore is really into switzerland switzerland yes so now there are two of us in the family who love switzerland so japan and switzerland two places i'm very happy my boys love oliver also by the way uses chopsticks like he like i got him some like chopsticks they're both left-handed so we got into like left-handed chopsticks and he is just so cute with those i love it keep going here more questions more questions do you ever feel like what you're doing is not enough if so how do you cope with that whoa yeah 100 i definitely feel like what i'm doing is not enough always and i think i'm not unique in that i'm pretty sure human beings are programmed to constantly feel like they need to be doing more i think it's probably a survival thing built into our software uh where we feel like unless we are maximizing everything to like earn or do all the things we're not like protecting our uh tribe i don't know i don't know how it works like evolutionarily but the fact of the matter is even when i'm having success even when i am uh being super effective and fruitful in my work i still feel this sense of i need to be doing more i'm constantly not doing enough and i think our economy has optimized for that like we're constantly pushing humans to like the maximum we can get from them in a five-day workweek and it sucks it sucks because i know that like i know it in my mind but yeah i still can't counteract that and say like it's enough things are good i'm working on that i'm working on sort of rewriting that that software in my brain to think differently about what i need to be doing okay what else do you have plans to travel to the philippines yes philippines philippines like i want to go there so bad on bright trip we're talking about a course in manila with a creator who's there and it's just getting me like really excited uh about the notion of traveling to the philippines someday where do you learn to edit like you i learned to edit over many many years just practicing that being said on bright trip i think we're probably gonna eventually do a course that's like professional post-production fundamentals and it'll be me teaching everything i know about basic animation and editing and storytelling in a post-production standpoint so we have camera fundamentals now and i i think we're probably going to push a more in-depth shooting fundamentals and then post-production fundamentals it's part of this broader goal i have to sort of teach everything i know about this craft including journalism and storytelling and research and writing all of that um on bright trip not gonna be doing that tomorrow but that is in the works and you can always sign up for the bright trip newsletter if you want to sort of be informed on that you also get 20 off your first course purchase if you sign up for that newsletter so probably an important thing to think about okay tell us about your education okay i'll make this quick i have a bachelor's degree in international relations i have a master's degree in international peace and conflict resolution from american university here in washington dc both of those were decisions i made to invest in my what i call soft skills my thinking skills my data skills my research skills my sort of argumentative and writing skills i don't think it was completely necessary meaning i don't think i still think i could do interesting work without having gone to college but college gave me some useful academic skills that i use in all the videos i make what would you say to somebody who wants to start creating video but doesn't know where to start or what to share this is a tough question to ask because i only have my experience to go off of like i started making video really young and just never stopped and so i don't have super clear perspective on your specific situation that being said i know a few key things that i think apply to everyone which is number one the only way to improve is to just start making things and to make a lot of things you have to get a large volume of work under your belt before you start to really see the results you want i mean that's not a novel idea but i think it's important to just say you have to start somewhere you have to start where to start um so here's a quick start guide on where to begin with video find a video that you like what is a video that you like that is really interesting to you and you're like i want to make something like that and then emulate it copy it copy it but copy just some of the elements of it the format maybe the music don't try to copy it exactly but try to use it as inspiration and to dissect it and say why is this video good why do i like it and start to emulate that word is really important you have to emulate if you're going to create your own stuff i emulated a lot of people sort of like taking inspiration from how people did things and that's how i found my own voice pick a topic that you like and then pick a video that you like the format of and then emulate it and start to make something and it's not going to be good at first it's just not it's going to take a while before your videos start to look good that's the journey we all went through all right here is a question i get a lot i'm excited to talk about it which is how do i find and research topics for my videos the answer is i choose the topic of videos based on what i'm genuinely interested in genuinely curious about these videos take a really long time they take a lot of effort and if i'm not like passionately into it then i'm gonna lose steam pretty quickly so i will often be reading books that are sort of topics i'm interested in like international affairs or middle eastern politics or um i don't know like the history of the india partition and i will find bits within that where i'm like wow that is fascinating to me and as soon as i have that i will then start to dive in on reading wikipedia articles wikipedia is like my best friend because wikipedia gives me the building blocks i need to construct the videos i make often books and things like that have like the key details that are like really really interesting but wikipedia gives me the context and the broader story of what it is i'm researching and i'm really grateful for wikipedia anyone who bad mouse wikipedia i'm in a bad mouth you yep all right what is the brand of the leather boots that i'm wearing all the time these leather boots so here's a story i destroy shoes i'm a person who destroys shoes not for fun not because i want to but because i walk in this really intense way that destroys all footwear anything in front of my feet just gets destroyed so i kind of started to get into boots and realized that after about 11 months my boots would start to like just fall apart the sole would start to fall off the threading would start to sort of disintegrate and i got tired of it a couple years ago and i said like there has to be a boot in this world that can like withstand my intense walk and sure enough i went into a boot store in portland oregon of all places the perfect place for this and i asked them and they're like we have the boot for you and they introduced me to a genre of boot that was invented by several companies back in like the 40s at the behest of the united states government who had like jail inmates that needed a pair of boots that the government didn't want to replace every few years they wanted a boot that would last them like 30 years for these inmates have gotten into this boot by wolverine called 5 000 mile boot okay i'm done talking about boots i've been talking about boots way too long that was a deeper rabbit hole than i expected to get into what is your blood type what is the best technique for becoming fluent in spanish man same advice that i would give to someone wanting to learn video you have to immerse yourself in doing it like there's no way especially with a language other than uh immersion here's my analogy ready a classroom spanish or classroom language learning is like learning knife skills if you want to cook you're like okay i can learn how to chop a carrot and you're chopping carrots all day you're like i'm getting really good at chopping carrots and then you're like oh but i don't know how to cook and they're like yeah because you need to actually go into the kitchen and put the carrots in a pot of olive oil and then you need to put celery in and blah blah and you're like no no i'm just gonna be here and chop and like chop all day and i'm gonna get really good at it it's like no you're just learning how to chop you're not learning how to cook like go cook going to a country and feeling the discomfort of immersion and not being able to communicate is like cooking it's not just like learning how to chop i'm kind of proud of that little metaphor i'm gonna like file that away and use that more and more do you have any plans about making videos about india's partition come on really i spent half of my 2019 making videos about india and one specifically about the partition just type in vox borders india and you will see it can you make a video about puerto rico yes totally on the list totally come in man what a wild history what a wild situation puerto rico i got you favorite color green i don't know it just depends on the context but green is there going to be a bright trip app in the future yes definitely i have an interest in maps and about countries like you do but i have no idea what to do with that interest the answer is to just dig in we have the internet for heaven's sake like we have every bit of information we could ever want and it just requires a little bit of searching if you're interested in maps go to the library of congress map room on the internet and look at the beautiful high-res maps that they have go to the david rumsey collection and look at their old maps you need to cultivate that curiosity and luckily you have the world at your fingertips via the internet what's a good starter camera for travel man we just made a course on how to document your travels and i did it all on my iphone more and more it's becoming obsolete what camera you have it comes down to how you stabilize it and what kinds of shots you get like this thing it's got three lenses on it a wide angle let's get everything i need i use this more and more i used to hate when people would say that when i was first getting into this like they'd be like yeah it doesn't matter the gear i'm like yeah it does better camera i'm getting more and more into that uh that gear isn't the most important thing but i hate it when people say that to me so i'm not gonna say it to you even though i just did sorry i'm getting a lot of questions about vox and borders and i will tell you this i will have a very clear update on all of that in the next two to three weeks that is a promise i will give you all the information that i know you will know in two to three weeks any book recommendations oh man i just finished this book educated it was incredible just a really incredible story how are you handling staying in one place for so long this has been really interesting i'll put it that way it's been really good in some ways and really difficult in other ways first off we have it pretty darn good we have our studio and office space here in all of the covid situations we have a pretty darn good setup and i'm grateful for that that being said this is a pandemic and our children aren't going to be in school this fall and we're trying to figure out homeschool and it's just stressful and of course we you know our business relies on travel and so we've had to pivot and there's been some complication to it but amongst all of us there has been a certain quiet and routine settled on our family that has been new for us and it's been healthy and and good and good perspective what it's doing actually is instilling a new appreciation for travel travel is such a resource intensive thing such a privilege and i feel like it was getting really normal and i feel like now i'm i'm re-cultivating that perspective that like oh wow flying on a plane across the entire world is a big deal i should appreciate that a little bit more so i think that's a really good outcome for those probably for a lot of people what are some things that are on your bucket list i don't actually have a real bucket list but i do have some things swirling around my brain that i would probably put on this which is i want to extensively hike in the mountains of switzerland just like go on hikes camp see beautiful peaks find some bunkers for those who don't know what i'm referring to go watch my switzerland video about bunkers in the middle of the swiss countryside it's like my heaven one thing that's really exciting for me is to go on a trip with my like teenage or adult children like once my kids are grown up like i'm really excited to go on even a quiet like fishing trip down the road just to have that experience i think will be really wonderful i want to learn another language in my lifetime um right now i speak spanish and i have a conversational understanding of french and study a little bit of farsi as well but i want to be very fluent in another language i love italian italian is a language that i would maybe want to bite off as like a fourth language to learn i've always wanted and this is kind of a far-flung dream but like a big dream of mine someday is to live in a small town in france and to solidify my french and work in a bakery i love bread it would just be a coming together of so many of my interests to do something like that obviously it's not the time of life like you know i i'm in this other mode of building a family building a life here in this washington dc area but maybe someday in the future what is your favorite episode of borders this changes all the time maybe the hong kong episode one and two together because they're kind of like one big episode split into two basically how the british took over hong kong and then how it was given back and now how china is trying to take over hong kong reporting that story was really impactful for me i learned a lot i met a lot of amazing people i went to some wild places i just really immersed myself in that story loved your astrophotography journey do you plan on continuing the hobby yes i plan to we shall see where i go in it i'm sort of taking a break because it takes a bit of a toll on like when we're out i sort of like obsessed with it and is sort of like dude can you like just be here speak of the devil oh can't buy something like this and just like not keep up with okay i mean i didn't make a video about it really just our entire studio anyway so this gives you an idea of where we're at with astrophotography how do you script your videos uh do you include direction on motion graphics yes in fact i share all the scripts to my videos on patreon so if you go to patreon.com johnny harris there is one tier where i share all of my scripts and you can see exactly how i script my videos the short answer is yes i script every word every bit of visual direction i have scripted on paper before i even delve in okay so those are my questions uh answered today thank you audible for sponsoring this video audible i mean speaking of reading books and doing journalism audible is the place where i listen to so many books i just love audible audible is basically just a giant repository of audiobooks that you can purchase and listen to i'm listening to this audiobook called why we're polarized by ezra klein who's the founder of box it's about polarization in american politics and it is so timely and important right now if you're following american politics what i love about audible is that it's a subscription so you pay a monthly price it's like less than 15 bucks a month and you get any audio book in their huge repository for that same price one a month you can get you can pick out an audio book no matter how expensive or cheap it is you pay the same price you also get access to audible's original content which is stuff that audible makes it's only on audible audio stuff that you can listen to and it's great so i love audible i love the interface i love the user experience i've been using audible well before they ever came to sponsor a video because i'm dyslexic so reading for me is hard and i'm busy and so audible has changed my world you can get a free book if you want to try this out if you go to my link in the description clicking that link helps support this video and more importantly it gives you a free book and access to these audible originals which are really great high quality productions thank you audible for supporting this channel thank you all for watching i have some really awesome videos lined up for the next couple of weeks so get ready for those youtube's fun i'm enjoying being here and sharing these videos and lots more to come thank you all for the questions that you asked have a great day see you later

Channel: Johnny Harris

Views: 329,255

Keywords: Johnny Harris, Johnny Harris Vox, Vox Borders, Johnny Harris Vox Borders, Vox, question and answer, q and a, vlog, johnny harris vlog, bucket list, my first q & a, get to know me, get to know me tag 2020, get to know me questions, get to know me tag, answering your questions

Id: iXLfXm0QTkE

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020