Full Transcript
Juan:
-just don’t see if that if you’re disabled or you’re visually impaired, whatever you’re trying to do is going to completely limit you, maybe there’s a way of doing something in a different way.
Jeff:
Please welcome Juan Alcazar.
Juan:
By the time it started going south for me, I was still in that denial phase where I’m like I don’t need a cane, I don’t need training, etc., because, well, I’m not blind enough.
Jeff:
Filmmaker and YouTuber from a low vision, blindness perspective.
Juan:
I try not to be too hard on myself, as well, because I can get a lot of, I don’t want to say, well, I hate to say the word inspiration, but I get a lot of thoughts and ideas of things that I might want to do later on. Granted, they’re not gonna be the same as how they did it, but I can do them in my way.
Jeff:
Sharing his creativity with videos and filmmaking.
Juan:
Remember why you’re doing something, because it’s easy to say what you’re doing, but when you start wondering why, it really just starts kind of like peeling back the layers, and that’s when you realize that even if you’re in a rut, if you know what your why, if you know what it is, you’re gonna be able to get through any sort of rut that you have.
Jeff:
And his lifelong journey with vision loss.
Juan:
I’ve been trying to study braille as much as I can, but for some reason those grade two contractions kind of freak me out.
Jeff:
Now please welcome, from JC5 productions on YouTube, Juan Alcazar. We hope you enjoy.
Juan:
Okay, maybe you do need O and M training, maybe you do need assistive technology training. You know what, as much as I resisted it, it ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Jeff, sped up:
All right, everyone in positions, in positions, cameramen, get ready to roll, ready? All right. Quiet on the set!
Jeff, slowed down:
Juan Alcazar, on Blind Abilities. Take one.
Jeff, sped up:
And action!
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. In the studio today, we have Juan Alcazar, and he’s a YouTuber, filmmaker, and he’s out there in California and I’m in Minnesota, so I’m kind of jealous a little bit right there, probably enjoying the warm weather. How’re you doing, Juan?
Juan:
Hey Jeff. Doing pretty good actually, and yes, I am enjoying the weather, it’s pretty comfortable and sunny over here.
Jeff:
Yeah. I can’t complain because I have choices. I could join you, but here I am. It’s all right here, it’s actually 40 degrees today.
Juan:
That’s not bad. I mean then again, that’s cold for us in California, so I mean, who am I kidding?
Jeff:
Yeah, so Juan, you are a filmmaker and a YouTuber, what’s the difference between the two?
Juan:
Well, a filmmaker is, I mean it’s pretty self-explanatory, it’s someone who creates films, usually you know, they can be independent, they can be working for Hollywood, it’s just someone who creates the stuff that you watch on Netflix and the movie theaters, etc. They can make stuff online as well, but YouTubers, that’s more of a – you know, you’re more of an independent creator, you’re not restricted, but your platform is YouTube itself, so you do have the freedom to create whatever content you want, like short films, sit-down videos, things like that, so I guess in a nutshell that’s what I would say is the difference between the two.
Jeff:
So it’s like a playground, an affordable playground where you can be creative and put your stuff out there.
Juan:
Yeah, pretty much.
Jeff:
When you’re making these, are you, you know, you’ve gotta have a passion for what you do, I mean, what I do, I have a passion for, and I’m sure you have a passion, that’s why you’re doing it. But do you do it from the approach that you want people to enjoy it, or are you doing it because you’re curious and you want to see if you can capture this and put it down, and you know, high-five yourself?
Juan:
Well, I do it more for just the, to kind of experiment to see what I can and can’t do. It used to be when I started off the first time it was just me trying to see well, let me make some short films on here, let’s see what happens, or then I went to doing comedy sketches, doing other things, but the more time passed, the more I got focused on just what I wanted to do, and yeah, I mean for the most part right now it’s just to see if I can reach out to an audience that’s not just blind and visually impaired, but also a sighted audience, to see if I can somehow mix in this whole thing of the blind and visually impaired topic as well as the filmmaking and storytelling aspect of it.
Jeff:
So like when we’re watching movies, usually audio description is something that’s done as an afterthought or a compliance type of deal, where you are probably blending both at the same time, from creation.
Juan:
Yeah, and the funny thing is I wasn’t introduced to audio descriptions until just a few years ago, but the thing is it really made me think about just the whole filmmaking process in general, because here I am, someone who went to film school, who was taught a visual form of storytelling, it’s the whole thing of a picture’s worth a thousand words, but the thing is what happens when not only you’re the one that’s visually impaired but also a lot of your audience is too. How do you not alienate them so that’s when I started thinking okay, maybe I can try to incorporate maybe, not audio descriptions because YouTube doesn’t let you do audio descriptions yet, but the thing is what can I do to help incorporate something that doesn’t feel alienating to the visually impaired audience, so I had to get creative, and one of those was a couple of short films that I made where the narrative was done via screen reader.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. “Reconnecting.”
Juan:
Yeah, “Reconnecting.” It started off a couple of years ago, as just a story about a guy and a girl who are just friends and they’re just having a chat-
Screen reader:
Hey, it was fun. I had a good time and the company was awesome, ha-ha. Send message. Messages now. Kelly: Would be nice to go out again and have a meal. Don’t get me wrong, ordering food is great, but I miss going to a restaurant. Hey. I’m sorry and hate to cut this short, but I have to get going. Gotta start getting ready for bed in a few. Send message. Messages now. Kelly: Okay, but I just want to say, please don’t hesitate in talking to me if something is bothering you. I’d rather hear from you rather than not hearing from you at all. True. Here’s hoping we meet in person whenever this is over. Send message. Messages now. Kelly: Would be nice. I know you’re not much of a hugger, but you’ll be getting one whenever I go over there. Wouldn’t mind one to be honest. Smiley face. Send message. Messages now. Kelly: Miss you.
Juan:
It was inspired a lot by, I used to see a lot of ads where there were just text message conversations, and that’s all they were, so I was like okay, what if there could be like a screen reader or voiceover equivalent to this text message conversation, so I thought let me try it out, let’s see if it works, let’s see if it doesn’t work, and it got some, it got some praise, not praise, it just got some good feedback, and I got some requests to make a sequel, so I decided to make a sequel, but this time I kind of did it in light of the pandemic, so the pandemic was a part of the storyline, and that’s basically why the couple can’t see each other in the sequel.
Jeff:
Great, and you did another storytelling that I saw, a cane’s perspective.
Juan:
Yeah, that one was, I wasn’t sure whether to do that one or not. On paper it sounds like a silly idea, like have the cane narrate a story, and I’m like okay, yeah, that sounds a little weird, and have a bunch of- a visually impaired YouTuber, and visually impaired friends send in clips and pictures of their canes, so I was like, no one’s gonna want to do this, but then I thought, you know, you’re not gonna know if you don’t try, so I did that. There’s a few folks who some of the listeners might know, Dr. Emmy Cavanaugh was one of them, there’s a few YouTubers like HowCaseySeesIt was another one, there’s a few other ones who slip my mind at the moment. I also got Roy Samuelson to do the narration for the cane, and it turned out pretty good actually, I was really proud of it.
Cane:
At first glance, you may not think much of me. A tall, thin, white stick that sometimes folds up and has a golf club-like handle. Okay, so a few folks like to customize me, so I can be a different color, but I digress. At the bottom I may look a little funny, with a tip that looks like a marshmallow, or a cue ball, or even a small metallic disc that could be mistaken for a coin. Like I said, not impressive at first glance. But for some, I’m an important part of their lives. I’m that set of eyes leading the way for those who view the world in less detail, making sure the path is clear, detecting hazards ahead and telling them what texture the surface is like. I do my best to guide my owner in this visual world.
Juan:
For some reason, I’m more proud of the stuff that I make with other people than the ones that I do on my own.
Jeff:
Every time I think about a cane talking I think of Roy, now. That’s the voice of Roy, that’s the voice of a cane, I’ve heard that voice before! That’s really cool, to be inclusive to the community, to bring it into the community, and to think that just a few years before that you really weren’t part of the blindness community, I heard.
Juan:
Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the whole denial phase, because so I have retinitis pigmentosa, and the thing is with a lot of us who have RP, the vision tends to slowly go, and the problem with that is yes, I was born with bad vision, but the thing is it could always be corrected with glasses, and when I was in film school, it was also corrected with contact lenses, and then I switched to glasses afterward, but still, I was able to see pretty well. Now the thing is, by the time it started going south for me, I was still in that denial phase where I’m like I don’t need like a cane, I don’t need training, etc., because, well, I’m not quote-unquote blind enough, and I think we’ve all had that phase, well, not all of us, but a lot of us have had that phase where, like, we don’t need a cane or we’re not blind enough to use one, but I finally decided, you know what, I actually do need a cane, because I’m having trouble seeing things, so I just decided to go for it, but that wasn’t the only factor that got me to embrace the whole visual impairment aspect of just my journey. After seeing folks on YouTube who were visually impaired or blind themselves posting content, I was like you know what? Maybe I, maybe there’s a platform for me after all, because at first I really didn’t want to talk about my visual impairment because I thought that was just going to detract from my filmmaking. I didn’t want to be known as “the blind filmmaker” on YouTube, because like I said, I thought that was just gonna take away the attention, but then the more I thought about it, I was like wait a second, you do realize that maybe you can use this to your advantage. Maybe you can tell your story from this perspective.
Jeff:
And who knows your story any better?
Juan:
Exactly, so I just went for it, and I haven’t looked back since, no pun intended. I’m pretty happy where I am right now, and I actually do enjoy making a lot of the videos because I like doing a little bit of education, but also just being able to still be creative and tell stories at the same time.
Jeff:
You know, telling stories, you know, goes way back. Cavemen, probably, wagon trains. You always see those stories of someone telling stories, but when you’re capturing a story or thinking of a story to tell, how do you grab it from just that thought bubble and bring it down into, not just into reality, but into a form, a figure, a shape in your mind that you can achieve, rather than being a pipe dream, you have to bring it all the way down to achievable goals, how do you do that?
Juan:
Well, that’s usually a case of just starting off with a big idea and then kind of just bringing it down and down and being realistic, because I mean, I would love to make a big-time Hollywood movie with a bunch of helicopter shots and stuff like that, but in reality it’s like you don’t have the budget for that, so let’s scale it down, let’s actually tell a simpler story, because really I don’t think a lot of people realize that simple stories can go a long way, and they can be just as effective as a more complex story, so I just think that I see what my limitations are, and I just try to work best within those limitations and I just try to make the best of it, like with the “Reconnecting” film, I was stuck indoors, and I was like okay, let’s try to make something that kind of reflects that a little bit. Let’s take that disadvantage and try to turn it into something that you can tell a story with.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. And use the tools you’ve got.
Juan:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I do wish there was an accessible DSLR, or a more accessible DSLR camera.
Jeff:
Now, when you’re talking about that, you’re talking about a high-end camera, DSLR, right?
Juan:
Yeah, digital single-lens reflex camera. Those are the ones that are like still-picture cameras that you can swap lenses with. Yeah, it’s those cameras. I really wish that there were more accessible cameras like that, but the thing is I just don’t think the manufacturers really think that a blind person would be taking pictures, let alone filming videos, but put some accessibility features in there, you never know. I mean, like maybe add a screen reader. A lot of these cameras are touchscreen-based already, so maybe add something that is screen-reader-like, voiceover or talkback as well? I don’t know, just add something, because as much as I would like for there to be just a camera for blind and visually impaired folks, it’s going to be a very expensive camera for a very niche audience, and yeah, I’m just hoping that the manufacturers start adding more accessible features to their cameras, because, yeah, there’s some blind folks who want to shoot video.
Jeff:
I always see these little articles like some person shoots entire film using iPhone. Okay, they do that, and Apple kind of promotes it a little bit, but you must know the difference between a professional camera and the iPhone.
Juan:
Well, with the optics of the latest iPhones, they’re getting pretty close actually. Well, then again, I mean, you’re probably asking the wrong person, because it’s like, I can’t just be putting something side-by-side and be like okay, well the way this looks, this looks like, yeah, I mean, good luck with my vision, but I really wouldn’t hesitate if the iPhone and the app Filmic Pro was fully accessible. I mean, it’s getting there, it’s accessible right now with voiceover, but the thing is there’s still a few features missing here and there, but they’re pretty close to being accessible to the point where I might actually swap my DSLR for the iPhone sooner than later, because I mean, to be honest, the iPhone’s just because that much of an accessible camera for me.
Jeff:
Yeah, accessibility seems to be everything. I mean, that’s how I do what I do and people wonder why I haven’t changed up and moved onto different things because it works. When you’re setting up, I mean, there’s so many factors in camera lenses, lighting, everything like that, you know, I’ve seen some videos when I could see much better, the lighting’s wrong, there’s glare, do they call the lights diffusers, or I don’t even know where to begin with it, but what does your studio look like to you?
Juan:
Well, the gear that I have, it’s pretty simple. I just have four soft-box lights, I have a Canon camera, I have a zoom H4N audio recorder, I plug in a Sennheiser ME66 microphone so I can get pretty good audio, because I tend to be pretty snobbish about audio, actually.
Jeff:
There you go.
Juan:
Well, I get pretty snobbish about video too, but obviously my filmmaker side’s coming out a little bit every time I hear your podcast, because I’m hearing your podcast and I’m like how’s he getting that audio, what mic is he using?
Jeff:
Isn’t that fun, though? Isn’t that fun listening and watching other people’s stuff, whatever you’re doing? I sometimes miss the show or miss what’s going on because I’m listening for the details, the little things, the transitions, all the parts that make up the whole.
Juan:
Yeah, yeah, especially when I get bored, if I get bored watching a movie or a TV show, I sometimes get distracted, I start getting self-conscious of huh, why does the lighting look like that, or why does it look blue here, or why is the sound design, you know, why is the audio like this, or why did they put the music at this point in time, you know, it’s nice to be able to realize all those components, but like they told us in my first day of film class, they told me, your film viewing experience is never going to be the same after taking this class, because it’s like learning the magician’s tricks and knowing how they’re done.
Jeff:
And now with the pandemic and everything, like, “Reconnecting,” that one is a pandemic story, you’re just drawn into it. It’s kind of a loneliness thing, kind of the fatigue of the pandemic, everything, so I recommend anybody to go to JC5 productions on YouTube, there’s a bunch of them. I’ve seen one that was eight years old now.
Juan:
Which one was that which one- I’m curious now.
Jeff:
Something like 31,000 downloads, or- I was on my phone and I was just going down, I was looking to see how far back it went, and I saw that that was eight years ago, and I thought well, he’s probably done a little bit of improvement, let’s go up to something that’s a week old or something, and you did the end of the year thing, I thought that was really cool how you transitioned throughout the year of things that happened.
Juan:
Yeah, I tend to do those videos at the end of the year, sometimes I’m like do I really want to make those, or maybe not, because they have a short shelf life, and this year, well, this past year I told myself no, you are not making an end of the year video because it’s not worth it, you didn’t do a lot, and then I saw a few of my friends doing end of year videos so of course I went. I had major FOMO and I was like nope, you’re putting this last minute thing together, I don’t care if you pull an all-nighter the night before, you’re putting a video up now.
Juan (video):
Hey, what’s going on? So, I wasn’t gonna do a video for the year-end of 2020, because, well, it all started well, and the world just stopped. But you know what, there were still a lot of positives from this year to, well, talk about.
Jeff:
It’s kind of neat, because you weave throughout the year, and you already have that content, and now it’s just up to you to just throw this in and that and blend this in or whatever you do, but also the music, the sound, everything. I think it’s pretty cool.
Juan:
Yeah, I mean, and for this one I wanted to kind of give it a flow so that’s why I kind of tried tying them all together. I don’t normally do that, but with this one I wanted to do that. Just flow better, because, you know, I like doing things like that, I don’t like it to be just, you know, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. Yeah, tightening it up, because you don’t have two seconds of just dead space, you keep on trailing right through it, all the way to the end, and you go oh, I want to see another one. I like that.
Juan:
Thanks.
Jeff:
When you’re looking at- some people say if you want to be an editor in podcasting, it’s like a one-to-four ratio, for every hour it’s four hours. What’s it like in the video world?
Juan:
It’s something similar to that, actually. That’s one thing that I try not to do, I don’t try to overshoot because I know, sometimes I want to get like the quote-unquote “perfect take,” but then again I know it’s going to kick my butt in the editing room, because I’m just like why did I film this, and there’s been a few times where I’ve tried filming something, and I’ve tried like, filming like four, five, six times, and I don’t end up using it. And the funny thing is I sometimes end up substituting it with a much simpler shot that’s less complex, and that one ends up making the final cut, instead of the one I was more ambitious about.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve tried to be on interviews, not this one, but I’ve tried to be on interviews where you’re trying to get the information out of someone, and everything, and you go for an hour and a half, and you get done and you really don’t have much, because you didn’t know, so I guess I’m not hard on myself. It seems like you’re at these with your skills.
Juan:
I wish I could say that, actually. I’m my biggest critic, to be honest. I tend to have quite a bit of imposter syndrome, because I have this bad habit of comparing myself to others, and I look at a lot of my influencer friends in the blind community who are posting their stuff up, whether they’re blogs or videos or just other stuff, and I’m just like wow, they’re doing some amazing stuff, and then I’m looking at what I’m doing and I’m like yeah, you could have done better with that, is that up to par with you know, what so-and-so is doing? But I try not to be too hard on myself, as well, because I can get a lot of, I don’t want to say- well, I hate to say the word inspiration, but I get a lot of thoughts and ideas of things that I might want to do later on. Granted, they’re not gonna be the same as how they did it, but I can do them in my way, like I can talk about how I’m learning braille as an adult, and that’s not going to be exactly the same as another video from someone else who made a braille video. So yeah, but still, I am my own worst critic and I sometimes tend to be pretty hard on myself.
Jeff:
I think it’s really neat when you start looking at other people, how they do it, to get ideas, to listen to things, it’s hard not to pay attention to other things when you’re doing the same stuff all the time anyways, and you take from it a little bit, give you ideas and stuff like that, it’s just the wild, wild west right now, with the pandemic, because it seems like a lot of people have time experiment and get some stuff out there, I see a lot more YouTubers out there, lot more podcasters out there. I think it’s great.
Juan:
Oh, yeah, no, it definitely is. And this is a bit off topic, but I do hope that because of the pandemic, because so many people are working at home, and just doing stuff remotely, I’m really hoping that the accessibility is something that is more in the self-consciousness of the general public now, because before it used to be that when someone had a request for, you know, working remotely or some sort of accessibility need, they would say no, we can’t do that, we can’t afford it in the budget, but now everyone’s doing it, so I’m hoping that accessibility is more at the forefront because of all this.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, right away everyone’s being able to use it, Zoom made theirs pretty accessible when you’re using that platform. I’m wondering how many employers went oh, we have no problem with Timmy. He’s already up and running, because we’ve been doing it this way for a long time.
Juan:
Yeah, and what I just hope doesn’t happen is once everything goes back to what we hope is normal, that accessibility doesn’t get pushed by the wayside again, and people are ignored.
Jeff:
Yeah. If someone’s out there, and they want to get into a little bit more of videoing, you know, someone with low vision has an interest, has that bug of capturing stuff, I know there’s a lot of people out there and they just love some of the phones that’ll them this is center, that, but some of them might have a little more vision and want to get into some editing, a little bit, and I never suggest anybody get into editing because I do it. There’s other things out there, folks. But if you have that passion, you can’t help it.
Juan:
What I would say is identify what you’re really passionate about, and just go for it. Not just go for it, but see what you can and can’t do, because we also have to be realistic. I mean, like I said, I want to make a five million dollar movie, but that’s not gonna happen right now, so I have to be more realistic. The thing is, I can still make a movie, but it’s not gonna be five million dollars. So just go about it that way, just don’t see that if you’re disabled or you’re visually impaired, whatever you’re trying to do is going to completely limit you. Maybe there’s a way of doing something in a different way. So I mean, there’s always going to be ways to do things in different ways, so just find what you’re passionate about and see what avenues are available in that field that you want to practice in.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. I say ask questions, get into the community a little bit, and like you’re always talking about, the other YouTubers out there sharing ideas, and it’s nice to have others doing the same thing.
Juan:
Yeah, and there you go, that’s the other thing, network, because like you said, Jeff, a lot of these folks who I started watching on YouTube and reading their blogs, I went from just being a fan of theirs to all of a sudden being friends with a good number of them, and I wasn’t expecting that when I started doing this, but now it’s like I have a good network of people and that could be the case for you as well.
Jeff:
Oh yeah, networking. All the people that I’ve interviewed or come in contact in the industry, in the blindness community, it’s always nice to have a rolodex, so you can tap into some of these skill sets that people have, and sometimes it takes a long time to get through something to figure something out, and someone else may have already done it and they’re willing to share a little bit with you, so it goes tit for tat, but networking is really cool, because it makes you realize that you’re not alone. Now, filmmaking by day, by night, whenever you’ve got the time to do it. What tools do you use outside of filmmaking for daily living?
Juan:
Well, I’m a big fan of Apple products, so for the most part when I’m just doing my non-filmmaking stuff, I’m on my iPhone, iPad, or I’m on my Mac. Yeah, I’ve invested in the orchard.
Jeff:
There you go. Welcome to the orchard.
Juan:
Yeah, so I’m a heavy voiceover user. I mean, while I do have some vision, I still think it’s useful for me to use voiceover, especially when I’m finishing a long day of filming, I can’t film as much as I could just because I get migraines, and I can’t be editing with the screen on half the time because I get migraines, so this is where voiceover comes to the rescue for me.
Jeff:
Yeah, and I have to admit, through my journey through losing eyesight, it changes. Two years from now or two years ago, it’s different, but voiceover really doesn’t change because if you build it in or find time to do- just like braille, if you start to incorporate it, or incorporate any type of alternative technique, you’ll get better at it, so, yeah.
Juan:
Which reminds me, I have to brush up on my braille, because I’ve been trying to study braille as much as I can, but for some reason, those grade two contractions kind of freak me out, but I know I’ve got to get them memorized.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah. My teacher for braille had me read the last book that I read as a sighted person, and that way I kind of, I knew what the book was about, I was kind of pushing my finger along, because I knew this was a good part, but I had to take it word by word.
Juan:
Oh, man, that sounds pretty brutal.
Jeff:
But I’ve told this story so many times, the other thing is some girls wrote some notes on my locker and stuck them on there, so all the way home I’m on my Metro ride I was reading, getting out my translation card and figuring out what, anything that inspires you to read more, I would suggest that you get a pen pal or someone like that, it’s kind of fun. It’s kind of fun when you do it outside of having to do it.
Juan:
Yeah, because then it doesn’t feel like you’re actually studying, it feels like oh, okay, well I’m learning something.
Jeff:
You know, you mentioned a lot about passion before, like if someone works for a company to produce a video for this, they go in, they put in their nine to five, when you have a passion for what you’re doing, I think it’s really great, because you are driving your own ship.
Juan:
It’s true, it’s true that you’re doing that, because like for me, if I’m editing a video and for some reason I’m, you know, it’s almost 12 midnight, but I really want to get this thing done because I’m on a roll when I’m editing, it’s like I don’t care how late it is. I mean yeah, granted, I’m gonna want to fall asleep soon, but still, I want to get as much done of that video as possible.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, you’ve got all the parts moving at once, time to lock her down. That sounds like fun, it’s just like podcasting or anything else anyone else has out there, follow your passions and all that. So they can follow you on Twitter, and I got this right I think, JC12209?
Juan:
Uh, yes.
Jeff:
JC5? You love the- okay, you’re the man of numbers, aren’t you?
Juan:
A little story about that, actually, so my channel used to called 12-29 Productions, so 12209 Productions, but then somebody told me “Yeah, change that, because that’s just gonna be confusing,” so I’m like you know what, they’re right. JC5 is just my initials and my favorite number, there you go, how’s that sound? Much easier to memorize.
Jeff:
There you go, JC5 Productions, that’s on YouTube, JC12209 on Twitter.
Juan:
And if you want to follow me on Instagram, it’s the same thing, JC12209 as well.
Jeff:
That’s great. Juan, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your journey with RP, it started to happen and you are where you are today, but it must have been quite a road.
Juan:
It definitely was. It’s one of those things where when you’re younger and you have an eye condition you don’t really realize that you can’t see well until someone points something out. In my case it would be when someone would tell me oh, let’s go see the meteor shower, or whatever, and at one point I went, and I’m just like, I’m looking, looking, looking, yeah, where are the meteors? And they’re like oh, there’s one, there’s one, and I’m like where? Are you messing with me here? But then that’s when I started realizing, oh, yeah, you kind of can’t see well in low light or the dark, and yeah, that was one of the first cues where I realized okay, something is going on. And then I realized that oh, okay, you have a bunch of blind spots in your peripheral, you can’t see things very well unless you’re looking at them directly. If I have a glass of water, if I set one down in front of me and someone happens to move it a few inches and I’m not paying attention, I’m like wait, where did it go? Did I put it across the room? It’s like, no, it’s just a few inches away.
Jeff:
Oh, wow. So it kept changing on you.
Juan:
Yeah, so I’m my own magician, though, at least I can say that I can do my own magic tricks in front of me and just bewilder myself, I’m like oh! There it is! Okay.
Jeff:
Yeah, you’ve got RP, I’m totally different where I have no central.
Juan:
Oh, you want to trade for one day just so we can be envious of one another and then go back and be like ah, darn it.
Jeff:
For an example, for example like apartment buildings used to have those peepholes, like someone knocks at the door and you can go look through that little lens?
Juan:
Right, right.
Jeff:
Like, RP people can look through those.
Juan:
Right.
Jeff:
Where that’s like totally opposite. I can’t look through a paper towel roll. Hmm, the center’s gone, so I’m the totally opposite of that.
Juan:
Oh man.
Jeff:
It’s kind of-
Juan:
Yeah, that’s gotta be tough too, though. But then again, it’s always, you always think it’s tough when you think of something you don’t have, because you’ve kind of adapted to the way you’re seeing.
Jeff:
You said you were in that denial stage, and what did it feel like when finally you realized it may have taken a while for you to just accept it, accept your blindness?
Juan:
Well…
Jeff:
I’m gonna play violin music during this time, so…
[violin music starts]
Jeff:
I’m kidding. I’m setting the scene. You mentioned at a certain point you realized when you couldn’t see the meteors, then later on you realized you needed your contacts, your glasses, and all of a sudden it was like okay, I might need a cane, I might need to address this denial thing and see what’s on the other side.
Juan:
That happened to me when I was told they don’t make soft contact lenses that go up to your prescription anymore, and that was a little while back, but then when they told me yeah, your glasses – since I do wear glasses – yeah, they don’t go up any higher and they’re not really gonna correct your vision anymore, that was another sign. And the third sign was hey, you’re kind of losing vision in your right eye a little bit, so at this point, I can still see out of my right eye, my good eye is my left eye, so if I try reading anything with my right eye, it’s not gonna work, so my right eye’s kind of going along for the ride. But somewhere in between the eyeglasses and the right eye was when I realized okay, okay, maybe you do need O and M training, maybe you do need assistive technology training. You know what, as much as I resisted, it ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Jeff:
What was it like when you first went to get training?
Juan:
Well, to be honest I felt a little bit like a fraud, because I was still in that whole, like, I’m not blind enough phase, and I think a lot of us have gone through that I’m not blind enough phase, but then, the more I thought about it, I was like okay, you know what, you can’t really see well at night, you can’t really see well sometimes during the day, so, yeah, dude, you’re legally blind.
Jeff:
Was it kind of a relief, though, when all of a sudden you started accepting it, and adjusting, and kind of like normalizing it to yourself?
Juan:
Oh, definitely, because it just felt like I had nothing to hide from myself, because I really was just hiding it from myself, I was trying to convince myself that you’re not blind enough, that you can still see, but now that I’ve embraced it, I’m just like you know what? No, this is your life now. It’s not coming to an end, it’s just you have to do some things differently, and you’re gonna have to make some adjustments.
Jeff:
What’s it like when you see someone wearing the shoes you once wore as they’re coming along their journey with RP?
Juan:
Part of me wants to say something to them, but at the same time I think to myself, you know what, it took me, I had my moment of revelation, so it might take them a little while to come to theirs. So eventually it’s really up to them, but I mean, part of me does want to say something. I mean, I could give advice, but if someone’s still in the denial phase, the last thing they want to hear is someone like me saying like oh, it’s not really that bad, it’s not really that bad. They’re gonna be like yeah, go away.
Jeff:
Yeah, you’re talking about a 12 year journey of transitioning from little bit, little bit, little bit, and then finally accepting. Everyone has their own journey and it’s really hard to tell someone what to do, because everyone’s journey is so different.
Juan:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and the thing is, because no two blind people see the same, no one’s journey is exactly the same either, so that’s what makes it unique.
Jeff:
Juan, could you share with us a little bit of advice that you received during your journey that’s stuck with you?
Juan:
One of the things that I remember being told is, and it’s a very important piece of advice, is remember why you’re doing something, because it’s easy to say what you’re doing, but when you start wondering why, it really just starts kind of like peeling back the layers, and that’s when you realize that even if you’re in a rut, if you know what your why, if you know what it is, you’re gonna be able to get through any sort of rut that you have. Like for me, my why is I want to be able to put stuff out there that could help someone who might have a vision problem, or who’s creative and they don’t know what to do. That’s one thing I didn’t have a focus on a few years ago with my YouTube, I was just, you know, throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck, but very, very, ironic use of vocabulary, but coming out of the disability closet, things came into focus, so like I said, no pun intended with that one, but.
Jeff:
No, it’s true!
Juan:
I like how things came into focus when things went out of focus in reality.
Jeff:
Now you come across a lot of people that are learning new technologies, and you mentioned you like the Apple orchard. I think this year, it seems like voiceover’s gone on steroids lately, especially, you know, of course, for only Apple users, but it seems like there’s been a lot of attention lately making voiceover kind of like more unique to different types of users.
Juan:
Meaning just like to different blind users or just to users in general?
Jeff:
It just seems like now, where the iPhone is today, people can more personalize their phone to their disability.
Juan:
It’s true, it’s true, because now the fact that you have something like LiDAR, and you can change screen recognition, or if you want this image described in an app you can change that up too, and you can, you know, use BackTap to do all sorts of different commands that you want it to do, so I like the customization of voiceover. There’s a few things I don’t use, but there’s a few things that I do use, so although I do kind of hate it when I accidentally double tap the back of my phone and I don’t even realize it, and next thing you know my shortcuts come up, and it’s like no, I did not BackTap you!
Jeff:
Oh yeah, yeah, I kind of forget what the triple tap is because sometimes I drop it down, you know, set it down at an angle and something pops up and I go what’s going on? You know, and I have to grab my phone, oh, okay, okay, my calendar events just came up. It’s a nice problem to have, though, all this accessibility stuff, especially 14.3.
Juan:
Yeah, it’s pretty awesome, actually. There’s nothing better than when I know there’s an update because I really geek out, I’m like there’s an update! I must update everything all at once, but then I’m complaining, I’m like why is it taking so long to update? Yeah, ‘cause you’re updating everything all at once, dude.
Jeff:
Do you use smart invert?
Juan:
I do, but the thing is I’m using voiceover on my phone and iPad and my Mac 90% of the time, so I’m using it like that more than the low vision settings, but I do like zoom magnification, I do like smart invert, so those are great features.
Jeff:
Yeah, Janelle from Trinidad and Tobago sent us a message on time and she was saying that the smart invert was goofed up, I think it was in 13, but I think they got it all fixed up now, working good for them. It’s nice to have options.
Juan:
Yeah, there was a bug that I caught one time, I forget what it was, but it was doing something to my watch, I couldn’t do something on my watch, and I ended up calling Apple Support, and they told me that the bug was due to smart invert being turned on. I would have never thought of that being a problem.
Jeff:
Mm. That seems to be one of the best cures, though, is like going to people’s phones and turning things off for a little bit, seeing what- especially since 14 came out and if someone’s running a phone later than 10S or 10R, newer than that.
Juan:
Although I will say that if you are using voiceover, don’t have zoom turned on at the same time, because then you’re gonna find out that triple tap does something very different.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. You almost have to shut voiceover off to get back to voiceover.
Juan:
Yeah, exactly, so it’s a good way to prank someone, but at the same time, it’s also a good way to just confuse the heck out of yourself if you forget that you turned zoom on.
Jeff:
Well, what happened to me is when Apple came out with the LiDAR on the phone and they had people detection, well, the magnifier, you could put it into your shortcuts, to turn on voiceover, I used the three clicks on the side button, well, once magnifier was put in there, it was like okay, now I had a choice, so if I went one way or the other way, it was like okay, I don’t want that, I just want voiceover to come on. Yeah.
Juan:
Yeah. I try to make sure that I only have one way of turning a feature on and off, because if I do it multiple ways it’s just gonna be, it’s just gonna confuse me.
Jeff:
Yeah, we’re at a point now where if you lose two seconds it’s too much, too much. I’ve got one other thing, I always tell people if you want to get people’s attention you’ve got seven seconds, you know, like on a podcast, and I notice when I’m listening to your videos you start out right away, pretty much. You hit ‘em right off the bat.
Juan:
Yeah, that’s a tip that I was given both in film school and in a workshop that I did for YouTube, so usually they tell us that when someone’s watching a TV show it’s like the director or the creator has about a minute or so to catch the attention of the viewer, otherwise they’re just going to, you know, change the channel, or just hit the back button and go to pick some other program. With YouTube, you have a much shorter timeframe, you have like maybe 10 seconds. If you don’t catch the attention in those first 10 seconds, someone can just easily click the back button and they’re like nope, nope, took too long. So that’s why I try to hit the ground running immediately and I try to do what I can to keep the pacing as quickly as I could, I don’t want to go too quickly either, but at the same time I try to keep the pacing steady so it doesn’t bore someone, because that’s what I’m afraid of the most, it’s like am I boring someone? Am I rambling too much?
Jeff:
Oh, all those thoughts. And you’re talking about eight seconds worth of video and you have 700 thoughts going in your mind to get it down. I do that too, I call it the cadence, there’s a cadence to things sometimes, and it just rolls, like if you have that music going. I notice on yours, especially on the “Reconnection,” you have a flow you mentioned earlier, but that flow, it draws you and it keeps you- you don’t want to interrupt that flow, and you’re doing a good job at it.
Juan:
Oh, thank you, that’s something I’m really critical of myself, actually, because you can’t really analyze this stuff when you’re doing it on your own, because you’re so into it that you don’t know if you’re doing a good or bad job, so it’s nice hearing that feedback, actually.
Jeff:
Well, I think it’s getting noticed because I see you’re out there on Twitter a lot, excited to reach out and get you while you’re still not making your five million dollar films, and yeah, I can say I knew him back when he was a ‘tuber, YouTuber!
Juan:
Actually I think the irony is that five million dollars isn’t that much in like Hollywood standards, but hey, that’s an independent film, I’d be happy to make a five million dollar independent film, so I’m a happy camper if that’s the case.
Jeff:
So Juan, what are you working on, what can people expect to see from your YouTube channel?
Juan:
So I’m working on a little review of the FilmicPro app from an accessibility point of view-
Juan (video):
The filmmaking app FilmicPro has gotten accessible with voiceover, so basically, anybody who’s visually impaired who’s an iPhone user and a screen reader user can now make movies with it.
[swipe noise]
Hey folks, what’s going on? So in case you don’t know, FilmicPro is a filmmaking app which shoots footage in 24 frames a second, aka cinematic quality. This is something that the iPhone native camera cannot do at the moment, so if you want to-
Juan:
So I’m going to be demoing it with voiceover, just to see what’s accessible, and what can be fixed or what needs to be worked on, so I just want to cover that, and I did hint at another video during the interview, subtly, I’m gonna make a video talking about what it’s like to be learning braille as an adult, and two more. I want to do a video where I show how I edit on Final Cut Pro, with voiceover. I don’t know if I want it to be a tutorial or if I just want to show in general, so I’m still debating on what to do there, because I think that would be really interesting for, you know, most people don’t even know that Final Cut Pro can be used with voiceover.
Jeff:
Oh, really?
Juan:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most of the time, now, I’m editing with voiceover with the screen off because I’m just like, you know what, I’m not even gonna- it’s a simple edit, I can just chop it up and if I need to add captions or if I need to add titles then I’ll turn the screen on, but for the most part, nope, it’s off.
Jeff:
Oh, really? That’s really cool, because every time- well, not every time, not that I do it a lot, but when I’m buying like a Mac, I just got this one, right at the bottom of the thing, Final Cut Pro.
Juan:
Right. Right.
Jeff:
199 dollars- no, it’s more than that. It’s 299, maybe.
Juan:
Yeah, it’s 299, yeah.
Jeff:
Yeah. Well, the other one is Logic-
Juan:
Logic, yeah. Logic Pro.
Jeff:
Logic Tech, Logic Pro. That one’s 199. So it’s always like, nope, I’ll save my money, but I always pause at Final Cut Pro, like huh, is it or isn’t it? But it’s nice to know that it is accessible.
Juan:
It is, but the thing is you had better set up hotspots on the interface, because you’re gonna be doing a lot of VO left, VO right.
Jeff:
Oh, really?
Juan:
Yeah, you’ve gotta set hotspots to- I mean, the thing is that it’s divided into different windows, so I just set up hotspots in different windows, because it’s like if I need to jump back to my library I just hit hotspot number one, if I need to go all the way down to the timeline it’s hotspot number four, so yeah, it takes a little bit of getting used to. Yeah, most of the commands are your general Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts, so it’s pretty nice, although I do wish they had a few commands that were voiceover compatible or that were more compatible with voiceover, so I guess the last video that I really want to put out, I’ve been working on this since June, but I’ve been terrified to put it out, is if I were to design an accessible camera, movie camera, what features would I put in it, like how would I design it?
Jeff:
Oh, wow.
Juan:
And at the time, since it was June, I was like oh, we’re gonna put LiDAR on this, and I’m explaining what LiDAR is, I’m like okay, I don’t need to explain what LiDAR is anymore, because everybody and their mom knows now, so things have changed, so I have to tweak it now with all the changes, so.
Jeff:
Yeah, by the time you get it developed they’ll have that camera on the shelf.
Juan:
And what I’m really hoping now is that if Apple ever puts out the Airtags, I’m really hoping that they’re able to work with the camera itself and that it’s able to tell you- and with the LiDAR, so it can tell you how far it is and you know, what the height of like the actual, where the tag is, so-
Jeff:
Oh, yeah.
Juan:
So the three factors- there’s a few factors that are keeping a blind person from filming a video on their own. Focus is one, but the iPhone does that. Leveling is another thing, but the iPhone does that too. But framing, the iPhone can do that but FilmicPro can’t, so it’s more like can we get some of these native iPhone camera settings into FilmicPro and vice versa? Because that would be great, so that’s all I’m waiting for, just so there can be kind of a hybrid, because I even said in a tweet that Apple and FilmicPro are basically like two or three features from making their camera fully accessible, at least for me.
Jeff:
You bring up an Airtag, you bring that up. That would be interesting, if a camera could actually find that and keep focus on that, like a point.
Juan:
Yeah, and also use the point as a way to tell you like, you know, where it is in the frame, like how it can detect faces? If it’s able to do that with the airtag, like if you’re trying to film something nearby, you can even use the airtag itself as a marker.
Jeff:
Or even in your mount, if your mount was a 360-type motorized mount, that it could self-keep the focus on a moving thing too, if it had the right tag.
Juan:
Exactly, exactly. I mean-
Jeff:
I’ll work on that tonight and send you the plans tomorrow.
Juan:
So now I know who to talk to as far as stuff goes on- okay, so Jeff is the one who has the real answers.
Jeff:
Yeah, but when tomorrow comes and goes, revisit that thought.
Juan:
I know, tomorrow you’ll be like I heard no such, I heard no such suggestion from you, Juan!
Jeff:
I had, is there something called a gimbal or something like that?
Juan:
Yes, mm-hm.
Jeff:
And that’s like a gyroscopic type of mount where it kind of turns and twists and it’ll focus on a person and follow them?
Juan:
Yeah, it’s basically kind of like a Steadicams, like you know, a much smaller Steadicams for the phone, so I mean, it’s pretty nice, but the thing is I’ve heard people say it’s very gimmicky, so like, give it a few years and no one’s going to be using gimbals anymore.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, so depends on if you want to spend one, two, three hundred dollars on something that’s disposable in a couple years.
Juan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Nice to see this technology moving in that direction though.
Juan:
Yeah, yeah, so- and I told Roy about this, that if Apple somehow pulls this off with the camera, it’s like as much as I’m a fan of Apple right now, do you realize how much of a much bigger fan I’m gonna be of Apple if they pull this off?
Jeff:
Oh yeah, buy the whole tree.
Juan:
It’s like I might as well have it right now, I mean, like I said, I have the Macbook Pro, I have like I said, the HomePod, the iPhone, iPad, my Apple TV’s over there, and I’ve got the airpods sitting somewhere.
Jeff:
You like the HomePod?
Juan:
Yeah, I mean, like I said, it does what it needed to do. I know what it can’t do, so knowing the limitation, yeah, knowing the limitations and just working within them, I’m pretty happy with it.
Jeff:
Oh, that’s good. I know the technology that’s built into- I know a few people who are audiophiles, and they say the technology that’s built into the big HomePod, they say it’s about a 3500 dollar stereo system. For them to build it and put it into room to do what it does, I’m not saying that sound is that-
Juan:
Right.
Jeff:
But they said that technology that’s built into that, that goes into that, is pretty high tech.
Juan:
Oh yeah, I mean, just the weight of it alone shows that this is a pretty expensive piece of equipment. Although I do have to mind in the- I can’t turn this up too loud, because I’m really surprised at how much that woofer works, I’m really surprised. Yeah, because I turn it up to like maybe 15%, maybe 20%, and it, yeah, if I’m playing something that’s very base-y, it’s almost like if I turn it up a little more this thing can probably slightly rattle walls.
Jeff:
Holy cow. I’m really into the Apple stuff, and I read all about it, it’s the one thing I can’t believe I didn’t pull the trigger, I see them all the time, 299 right now.
Juan:
Yeah, I didn’t pull the trigger before the mini was announced, because I heard a rumor of another HomePod, but I was like you know what, I’m just gonna get this one, and I don’t regret it.
Jeff:
That’s what matters, that’s what matters. Well, I like what you’re doing, I like how you started networking with everybody, it seems like you guys are having a good time doing what you’re doing, and anybody out there, check him out, JC5 Productions on the YouTube channel, good stuff. Juan, I want to thank you so much for coming onto Blind Abilities, and it’s been great having you, and I’m excited to catch some more videos from you.
Juan:
Thanks so much, Jeff, for having me on here, it was an honor to actually be on this podcast. And for those of you still here, here’s some quality bonus content, a terrible Rene Ritchie impression. Here we go.
Juan (impression):
Apple’s iPhone is the world’s most accessible phone, bar none! Filmic Pro is one of the world’s leading filmmaking apps. So I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be hella awesome if both of them worked together? Basically, porque no los dos? So I’m gonna share my thoughts with you in this video! And I’m gonna share them right now. Sponsored by nobody!
Juan:
Let’s see if that impression is good. Maybe.
Jeff:
Really enjoyed connecting up with Juan Alcazar, and you can too by checking out his channel on YouTube, JC5 Productions, really good stuff, go check it out. Be sure to check out the show notes for some other links on other ways to connect up with Juan Alcazar. And for more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the app store or Google Play store. Remember, that’s two words, Blind Abilities. And if you have any feedback you want to give us or just want to drop us a message, you can give us a call at 612-367-9063. We’d love to hear from you. A big shout-out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music, you can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @lcheechau. And from all of us here at Blind Abilities, to you, your family, and friends, through these challenging times, stay well, stay safe, and stay informed. I want to thank you for listening, and until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
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