FAQ
What is your political affiliation?
As far as my videos are concerned, I’m much more interested in how politicians are using YouTube, not in promoting a political agenda. I therefore try to be as non-partisan as I can in my videos. Plus, I work for Politico, which is a non-partisan news source.
How did you get interviews with politicians? How did you get Ron Paul to come to your dorm room?
I asked all the Presidential candidates on YouTube to visit my dorm room for an interview. One of those candidates, Congressman Ron Paul, was kind enough to say yes and set a date. I know someone kind of close to the campaign, so that may have helped.
After the Paul interview, it was a lot easier to convince other campaigns to do interviews with me. The lesson here: keep on hustlin’.
How did you get started?
In late January 2007, I got a webcam for video chatting,and decided to post videos on YouTube because it seemed like everyone else was doing it.
I decided to talk about politics because it’s my favorite subject, and I noticed that some of the Presidential candidates had YouTube videos posted.
One of them, Senator Chris Dodd, had a video that encouraged viewers to upload a video response. I decided to take him up on that, and the rest is history.
What kind of equipment do you use to make your videos? How do you get that split screen effect?
For interior videos in my office, I use the iSight camera built into my MacBook. For exterior shots and time when I’m walking around, like the Iowa Straw Poll, I use a Canon ZR800, which was one of the cheapest cameras available at Best Buy.
I always edit using iMovie.
The split screen effect is an iMovie plugin from Stupendous Software.
What is EmergencyCheese?
The answers can be found in this video.
If you don’t feel like watching that, I’ll just tell you:
In 11th grade, we were brainstorming small business ideas for a class project. I came up with the idea for “EmergencyCheese”, a thermos-like container filled with different flavors of cheese that you could carry around with you all day.
In stressful situations, you would shout “EmergencyCheese!”, open up your container, and enjoy immediate and stress-reducing sustenance.
Needless to say, I have no idea how to produce thermoses or cheese. I also realized that the name “EmergencyCheese” was the coolest thing about my imaginary product. So, I’ve used the name in a number of different ways ever since, including my YouTube screen name.
At once point, I had a website that sold EmergencyCheese merchandise (t-shirts, not cheese), and had little cheese characters (All-American American, Party-Time Provolone) on it.
