Welcome to the AP Creative Community Newsletter!
Every other week, I share actionable tips, honest answers, and valuable insights to help you on your creative journey—no fluff, just real talk. This newsletter is here to support your journey, spark ideas, and build a community of creatives. 🗺 When I’m not sharing tips, I feature creatives from the community through the Creator Spotlight.
New issues hit your inbox every Sunday. Glad you’re here. 🤝
I posted for 13 years before any of this worked. Most of it got nothing. But I still never changed the way I felt about any one of those posts just because nobody watched them. That's the only reason I'm still here.
I don't think posting is what burns you out. Posting and then waiting for a number to tell you whether what you made was any good is what will burn you out.
And I've been there. You finish something, you're actually happy with it, you hit post. Then you check an hour later and your stomach drops a little because it doesnt hit the number you want. But nothing about the video changed. It's the exact same thing you were proud of before you posted it.
So I want to help you fix how you're measuring this. Let's separate what you made from how it did, and get you back to feeling good about your work before anybody else tells you it's worth watching.
Three things that actually helped me.
1. Give it a verdict before you post it.
Right before you hit post, ask yourself, are you proud of it? Just answer honestly. Proud, or not proud.
That's your verdict.
The point is that you made the call while you were the only person in the room. When the views come in low three hours later, you already have an answer on record, and it wasn't influenced by anybody. The numbesr can't overwrite a decision you already made.
2. Stop doing both reviews at the same time.
There are two completely different questions about every video you post. Did I make what I set out to make? And did this perform?
Those are not the same question and they don't even use the same part of your brain. But most of us ask them at the same moment, usually while staring at the view count, and the honest craft question gets swallowed by the emotional one.
So split them up. Answer the craft question on the day you make it. Wait at least 48 hours before you look at performance, and when you do, treat it like homework. What was the hook, where did people drop, what would I test next. No feelings in it. Just data.
3. Build a folder of your own favorites.
Not your top performers. Your favorites.
When you're spiraling after a post flops, open that folder instead of your analytics. It reminds you that your taste has been fine this whole time, and that the work you're most proud of and the work that traveled the furthest were never the same list.
And honestly, that folder gets a lot easier to fill when you actually trust your own intuition and creative vision.
That's most of what I teach inside Content College. Not chasing numbers, but building the skill and the taste that make you proud of your work whether or not anybody's watching yet.
The camera you have is good enough. Check it out HERE.
A video about the art of noticing. Capture more, film less. Watch it HERE
Have a question about cameras/editing/technical skills? Ask me anonymously HERE!
Question of the Week:
How do you maintain the quality of your reels/videos on instagram/social media? I spend ages getting the look I want when editing but when I upload it to instagram (in 4k) or similar it looks like garbage compared to the original - blurring, stuttering, large visible pixels. Is there anything I can do to help with this (already selected upload at highest quality). Thanks so much :)
Submitted by: Anna
From Adrian 💬
Great question, and this one drives everybody crazy.
Here's my export setup. ProRes 422, 1080p, and whatever frame rate the footage was shot at. 24, 30, doesn't matter, just keep it native. I'm not using H.264 or H.265. Those are already compressed codecs. So when you export in one of them and then upload, Instagram compresses your file a second time. That's where the blur and the blocky pixels come from. It's not the platform ruining your video, it's the platform ruining an already squeezed version of it.
ProRes is barely compressed, so Instagram is working with a clean source and a lot more information. What comes out the other side looks much closer to your timeline.
The files are huge. Like, uncomfortably huge. Fine with me. I care more about people seeing the work how I intended.
The rule is simple. The higher the quality going in, the better it looks coming out. You can't control what the platform does to your file. You can control what you hand them.
That's it for this one. Go make something you're proud of this week. Not something you think will perform. Something you'd be glad you made even if it sat there quietly. That's the version of you that's still doing this in ten years.
And next issue we're doing creator spotlights, so if you've been working on something, this is a good week to finish it. Can't wait to see what y'all make.
Happy creating.✌️
