GoPro Walk Tour: Sadiq's Shawarma, Alfonso, Cavite Food Bazaar

It was said that our mind is like a wifi sending signals and connecting to the right frequencies. Our thoughts are powerful. Our reality bends according to what we think. Why did I bring this up? Since I started my walk tour and saw the food bazaar in Alfonso, Cavite, days have passed and probably there are more food stalls available now. I’m actually looking for a food stall to vlog. I wore my GoPro Chesty and went into town with my Aunt. We went to the food bazaar and looked for snacks. We stopped at Sadiq's Shawarma.

The cook saw my GoPro on my Chesty and asked if I could vlog. I offered my free vlog and the owner approached me. On-the-spot, I made a simple script on how the owner will introduce the menu. There are buy 1 take 1 shawarmas, nachos and sisig with rice. We also bought fruit juices from the stall beside it.

For a video without a plan or script, I didn’t expect that the video would turn out just fine. Probably, over the years of vlogging, it has become automatic.

While editing the videos in Adobe Premiere Pro, I made a storyboard. This includes:

• The owner introduced the menu.

• Location

• Close up shots of foods.

• Close up shots of ingredients.

• Panning shots of the menu.

• Adlib from the fruit juice stall which is also not scripted.

Based on my experience as a video editor, creating a storyboard after the event is normal. Like all the photos and videos are dumped to me and I am the one to categorize or create storyboards for the videos and photos.

After editing, I published it on my Youtube, Facebook and Tiktok channels. As of the time of this writing, the number of view are:

• Youtube - 16

• Tiktok - 133

• Facebook - 965

My Facebook account is the youngest of my channels which was just 2 weeks old when I posted the video. But it has gained a lot of views. I also found out that the shawarma owner shared it with a food group. We can conclude that if the Facebook algorithm saw that your videos are shared by other users, it may push it further to a wider audience. I guess that’s the power of Facebook - it’s sharing capabilities because it was originally designed as a social media channel and not a video site like Youtube and Tiktok. Before I was hesitant to use Facebook because my activities may be exposed to friends and families but I think the Facebook algorithm is doing a great job to make your content too visible to others.

Going back to my introduction about the power of the mind, you see I didn’t exert too much effort to find a food stall to vlog. Just by the time they saw the GoPro on my Chesty, they inquired. It’s like GoPro is a strong magnet for vendors who are looking for vloggers.

Based on this experience, we can conclude that we just need to have an honest goal, right tools, practice and courage to execute our vision. We must follow that inner voice that is screaming our desire inside ourselves. By the time I was working on this video, I was in the process of moving on towards videography and dissolving my frustration about my contract. There’s a lot of self-doubt and financial constraints that I need to conquer. But when I easily found something to vlog and it was shawarma, I was convinced that videography is for me because it came to me effortlessly. Of course I need to persevere studying videography but it's fine because I was able to find my self-direction. I even pitched out that:

Opportunities are like shawarmas, you can find them anywhere.