Story of a a cooking enthusiast – behind the scenes
3:11 a.m., woke up at middle of the night on March 8th 2014. I have tried to sleep a bit more but my head won’t allow me to sleep any longer. I decided to wake up to finish the story of a cooking lover – Behind the scenes with all levels of emotions from happiness, sadness to nervous…
My first thought when I decided to make short films was to show my parents how my parents my images, show them my life, how do I live, if I have gained any weight… When I was still home, I am the second born, the first to get married, which was a surprise toward my family. Marrying a foreigner wasn’t what I had thought about, not to mention it was an American with different culture, way of life which worried my parents. That’s why I started making videos so my family can see how I was. I talked, smiled and laughed as though they were there with me.
The first video I posted was about how to make radish kimchi, cucumber kimchi and cabbage kimchi to send to friends and family. I received so many feedbacks from that video since everyone back home was so happy. They were happy to see me, my kitchen. That was the motivation for me to make next videos.
The second one was on how to make peanut butter smoothies. The inspiration from this one was from my husband who guided me and taught me how to make the delicious dessert. Not only him who liked it but I was addicted to that as well. I have told my friends and family to try it at home since it was very simple with banana, milk, peanut butter put into a mixer and voilà, a wonderful, healthy smoothies. That was another video of mine.
My two first videos were in Vietnamese so everyone in my family can understand, if it had been in English it shouldn’t get that much attention. After posting my video in Vietnamese, my mother-in-law asked: “ Why don’t you make another one in English? I couldn’t understand your videos. You are such a great cook, which I believe many people will love you. You should make videos in English”. Following her advice, I made videos in English. The first one I guided people how to make ginger tea. This had been made by me many times at my in-law’s whenever we have a party and everyone loves it. Not only should be drunk when hot but ginger tea can be used when cold, it always bring a comfortable feeling. I was not sure if people can get what I was trying to say since my pronunciation was not that good so I was so embarrassed and worried. My mother-in-law showed it to her friends and the feedbacks were so good, they said I was really natural on screen. To be they were great encouragement for my next videos.
After the “Ginger tea” video, I was always try to come up with more ideas to make it so real, how to speak well and fluently. I thought about it days and night, sometimes it costed me my sleeping. When I tell my husband about it he wondered what was wrong. I could only tell him that all I thought about was cooking and videos making. There were too many ideas and recipe I would like to learn and try. I have had so many wide awake nights from the ideas for the videos. From that day, my life has changed a lot, I am busier, more passionate and know how to make me more appealing.
To make videos alike, I have prepared my own costumes, make ups, every video is another transformation. My sense of fashion is not that good so my style sometimes is a bit messy, my make-up is still simple, but some day is a bit too much. Some days I had too many ideas so I ended up making 3-4 videos that day.
It was not that easy to change into 3 – 4 outfits per day, not to mention it should fit with the videos’ concept, not repetitive, matched with the jewelry, different hairstyles… Luckily, my filming excludes lower body, otherwise shoes and footwear would drive me crazy. It’s not easy for me to be beautiful onscreen as well.
After the appearance, another issue is scripts. English is not the language I can comfortably use so this is a headache. I have to be comprehending and topic-related. For example in Lemon Mousse episode, I have driven people into a logic scene of which I am in a hot weather and my Lemon Mousse has helped me to cool down and makes me happier and more comfortable. I even made a joke about this at this end by asking my husband if he likes “Lemon mouse” which make people laugh for my mistake. To come up with script, I had spent the whole night before to think it through and the feedbacks were wonderful.
The filming was also something worth mentioning. Filming videos alike requires more than just me alone. Everyone thinks my husband does this for me but actually it wasn’t him. I used camera from my Macbook with a supporting software of iMovie, which I can use to film alone. At first, I didn’t know how to use it, and my husband wasn’t a tech savvy either so I have to self-learn a lot. It was frustrating sometimes since I was not good with all the technical things. I filmed the first ones in our apartment in Virginia. We hired a small flat, it was close to subway so it was convenient but the price is not cheap as well
There is a bar between my living room and my kitchen and that’s where I put my Macbook for filming. I put my laptop on an shelf and locate them on the bar, facing my direction to take the whole scene into my recording. To film one video alike I had to move my Mac so many times for to see my face clearly while I am cooking or preparing my ingredients. After all of this setting, I had to think about script. It’s rarely a one-take, I had to repeat myself many times. There were times the intro took 5-7 minutes but still not OK, this is the hardest part in my video making. There has been times when I just need to try out outfits and speak but I was so nervous, and I was talking about filming at home, not elsewhere. My husband had to say “Cut” which makes me laugh a bit out of my nervousness.
There were times my filming was not that great, I had to ask my husband to leave the room since I don’t feel confident when he was there. While filming my cooking, there are always time when I have to wait my food to be fully cooked, I usually turned it off and wait till it almost done to resume my filming. But there were times I forgot to turn the camera on so the whole process was failed. There were times I feel disturbed or unease so the filming was canceled as well.
I feel like the intro and outro of the videos are the hardest part in filming. At the end of a video, I had to find a way to attract audiences, making them want to taste my food and want to see another video of mine. My life has turned upside down as well. My husband always sees me in good shape with makeup and lights on all the time with diversity of appealing food.
Editing is the most time consuming. There are videos I made in more than one hour but I need to cut it down to 4 or 5 minutes since viewers just want it to be short and simple, just like me when it comes to watching. I watch each videos for thousands of times for cutting and when it comes to something I would like to add or remove, I had to come to the Internet to search for it. Sometimes just for this editing, me and my husband fought since he couldn’t help me with that and I felt that he didn’t care about what I love, but it wasn’t the point. He himself doesn’t know much about this editing or whatsoever. It was me who has been in front of computer for so long that got tempered and put it on him.
This editing takes hours every day before appearing on Internet, sometimes I had to stay awake till midnight to finish it. The busy life of a content creator has been like that for years now. Videos I have made come from my love to cooking, my enthusiasm toward sharing my cooking and passion to people, whose shoes I was in years back when I was trying to learn to look. I have learned so much from my failures, mistakes in filming so my viewers won’t get it when it comes to their cooking.
The 2 Vietnamese videos received so many positive feedbacks, the rate was quite good back to that date. The English ones didn’t do that well, maybe my English wasn’t that good or the amount of same contents were too much on Youtube. I realized that so I have made more in Vietnamese since I moved to Africa in July 2013. Many friends asked me why I moved back to Vietnamese videos. They said they need English as well since they had learned so much from me. I decided to make 2 channels, “American Housewife” for Vietnamese viewers and “Anna Pham Kitchen” for English speakers. Both now have been well-known on Youtube. Aside from that, I have a blog for recipe along with tips sharing from cooking lovers as I am and a small corner for my personal life. Also, my facebook page also updated with my daily cooking.
My God, it has been 4:41. I have been writing for 2 hours now. Where has the time flies? I now feel the backache, I think I can stop here. Before leaving it as done, I would like to thank my family, friends and my love ones for loving, supporting and being with me for the whole time. The cooking passion has always been flaring and I hope you all will still be with me and support me as you have always been. I would like to receive more feedbacks from you as well so I can boost myself furtherly in the future. I would like to send this to you. If you have dream and passion, don’t give up, don’t be afraid. Follow it and be the happiest life you can live in