serious topics, but I’m also goofy.
So I couldn’t sit down and make a
video where I’m just like, ‘Ok, here,
are the serious things.’”
“I’m talking about this because
— they’re real,” Mac continues.
“They’re not just serious topics,
they’re real topics, I like to tell
people. So when you talk about
them, just talk about them in the
real-est way you can.”

CHOOSING A TOPIC
Mac doesn’t have a calendar listing
out weeks worth of videos — “Oh no,
I do not plan that far ahead. Oh god.
It’s very on the whim sometimes.”
He does, however, keep a running
list of ideas for inspiration: “I’ll be
scrolling through the internet, or
watching TV, or talking to friends
and suddenly an idea will pop up
in a conversation, and I’ll just write
it down. But that’s about as far as
my planning goes. A lot of times I’ll
think of a video topic like the week
of the video, most of the time.”
Once he decides on a topic,
Mac’s filming process is relatively

straightforward. “I think of a topic, then I’ll think of

a day to film and a day to upload... And then I’ll film

that day, and I’ll spend about two to three days edit-

ing the video, and then upload it at least three days

after filming.”

THE PRODUCTION PROCESS

While the filming process is pretty casual — he records

much of his content in his living room — Mac doesn’t

always get it right the first time: “I tend to talk fast

sometimes, and then my theatre kid slaps me in the face

and says like, wait, you gotta enunciate that better.”

He admits, the filming process can make him self-

conscious at times, saying, “I sound like a broken

record. I lived in an apartment with a roommate and

I tended to not let them be in the apartment while

I was filming because I don’t want them to hear me

repeating myself.”

Sometimes, he has to stop altogether and come

back to the camera later. “There’s been a few times

when I make a video,” Mac says, “and I feel like I’m

not in the best mood, and I can tell when I’m talking.

I’ll go on too many tangents, or I’ll get angrier for

some reason. And then I’m just like, ‘Ok, this is — this

is not the mood right now,’ and I’ll just turn off the

camera and start over the next day.”

EDITING A MACDOESIT VIDEO

A lot of the comedy you see on MacDoesIt comes

from his editing style, which at times verges on

chaotic. He also uses camera tricks, like the cloning

effect, to bring his videos to life. He says that editing

has gotten easier over the years, but it still takes up a

large portion of his production schedule.

“Because I’ve been making longer videos, and my

editing is very fast, a video that’s like 20 minutes

long is about two hours of footage ... I feel like a

lot of people don’t know that. I film for a couple

hours at least ... but it doesn’t look like it by the end

product.”

Thankfully, editing doesn’t take as long as it used

to. “There was a period of time when it would take me

a week to edit an entire video,” Mac recalls, “because I

just didn’t understand editing software that well.”

THEY’RE NOT

JUST SERI-

OUS TOPICS,

THEY’RE REAL

TOPICS...JUST

TALK ABOUT

THEM IN THE

REAL-EST WAY

YOU CAN.

“

MACDOESIT
HOW MACDOESIT USES COMEDY TO BREAK OPEN REAL CONVERSATIONS ON YOUTUBE