Over a decade ago I purchased my first pair of "softboxes," light bulb receptacles with each a flimsy tent-like pyramidal reflector structure and a translucent sheet of cloth over the big end.  It kicked off the second phase of my quest for an ideal backdrop & lighting setup for YouTube video reviews of radio controlled model cars & trucks.Today, I disassembled that very piece of equipment, its base yellowed from hundreds of hours of being cooked by storebought household CFLs and LEDs.  I had collected and employed other softboxes over the years, but it's fitting that one of my first to enter service would be the last to be exit.  This strange geeky detail has meaning to me because so much of my work, literally thousands of videos across three main channels and several spin-offs, has been defined by that ever-whiter background and steadily diminishing shadows.My goal was always to maximize...

(I was the first in the theater for this Thursday matinee premiere)"Absolutely Awesome." "Everything Is Awesome-ish." "Everything Is Not Awesome."  Early professional evaluations of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part have run the gamut from sounding like paid endorsements to utterly trashing the film as a time-wasting bore.  This deep contrast truly puzzles me because while extremism is the ruling force of our generation and histrionics generate clicks & ad revenue, TLM2 itself is a very even-keeled, level-running, inoffensive piece of work.Read more »Original linkOriginal author: theJANG

I suffer from a debilitating compulsion and I cannot escape it.  No matter what I do, I cannot keep myself from continually attempting improve the quality of my videos and the efficiency of producing them.  With my main white void studio I used to do changes once or twice per season, but these days I've found myself with less room to "improve" (a subjective term, I know).  Each update has moved the bar less, up to & including the last minor light rebalancing just a few weeks ago.  I'd assume many viewers don't even notice the before & after differences anymore as I'm well into the realm of diminishing returns. With Studio B for my builds channel, on the other hand, everything is completely fresh and there's no well-defined end point for visual success.Read more »Original linkOriginal author: theJANG

So on YouTube there is this guy.  This guy has this face.  This face is in every thumbnail.  It's always the same.  He has an alias, and when you put it into Google Translate it comes out "Hero of the Stones."  Stones?  I get the feeling it's one of those transliteration vs. translation situations, and what's really intended is "Hero of the Bricks," for aside from specializing in miniatur-gesichtsbilder, he does a whole lot of LEGO stuff. At least, that is, he did a lot of LEGO stuff.  Apparently this brick/stone guy is going to start doing just a bit less after the LEGO legal team sent him a love letter (warning: strange language, use closed captions & auto-translate) that was much too early for Valentine's Day.  (Then again, the Winter Village sets always release in what, early September?)  Apparently the real-world Danish Agents of Shield analogue known as Dem Murstenbeskyttere is concerned that good...

My short-form LEGO video channel finally earned its custom URL between seasons and is now accessible via http://youtube.com/c/QUiCKBRiCKS. I've just uploaded my first 2019 quick review and will be adding more over the coming months.  This channel is intended for folks who don't have time for or aren't interested in my standard long narrative reviews, and it has also been expanded out to cover previews of large groups of upcoming products plus some additional succinct content types yet to be demoed.On a barely related note, I also picked up a shortcut for my build channel, so you can get to it on a computer at http://youtube.com/c/JangBuilds.Original linkOriginal author: theJANG