Vanessa The Vivacious: Good morning, afternoon or evening wherever this episode finds you. is Vanessa the vivacious on Vanessa the vivacious show, vivacious files. Today's date is April 21st, 2026. I believe we were out yesterday. So there was not an episode recorded. I can't remember. I'm literally recording every single day just to make sure I keep it fresh and keep you informed about all the wonderful ongoings every day. But also we have a challenge versus Riverside. So it's Vanessa the vivacious versus Riverside. I've been challenging them for a little while now and I've not really received a response, but I have seen things get fixed, which is super cool. So I really hope that they're watching and listening cause ⁓ boy, do I have words for them. Let's head on over to Vanessa, the vivacious versus Riverside and check out that rant. I mean that tutorial. mean, not even tutorial. It's more so like a commentary. Let's check out that commentary and we will be right back. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to good morning, afternoon or evening wherever this episode finds you. This is Vanessa, the Vibasious Versus Riverside, and I am excited that you are here. So my notes today are not here. Something Riverside can do. My notes are I'm kind of upset at Riverside because I had another episode incident where I was supposed to publish yesterday, but I could not because something happened in the export. So here is an episode I have for Humanity 2.0 where I was working with Elizabeth Kush. And everything was fine. I was able to add in captions. I was able to add an intro, add an outro. Everything was looking good. And then I exported it. And it turns out that at a portion, maybe like toward the end, it ended up being a black screen. So there's captions, but it's a black screen. And it's really annoying because the entire episode was a video podcast. So by the time I get to the end, total nightmare. And then also something that I noticed is that When you're working in Riverside, if you choose a layout and if you don't select, you know, to send it to the rest of the video, if you have sections of timeline that are cut, it's not going to change them all the time. It might sometimes, but it does not do that all the time. And what do mean by that? So this is your timeline here. And let's say that you insert a split because you wanted to reduce the amount of ⁓ quietness or maybe you cut out a certain section and you had to put stitch them together. Well, you then have multiple pieces on a timeline, right? And if you click one and say, hey, you let me change the layout and then you select change it for the rest of the the timeline. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. As you can see right now, I'm having issues with Riverside loading, so that's annoying. But if you move the timeline over here. Do it is a black screen. Can you name the websites and the where we need to go? Yeah, so that in itself is annoying and then I end up going to the end of the episode it's available. Well, maybe not. But she knows me. And it's actually not that particular project version. I had to re-upload this and download it many times. ⁓ this one. Let me just show you the output. So this happened because the layout background did not work. It appears at the end. This is how it's supposed to look. And somehow, Riverside did not apply the background to the entire video file, to the entire timeline. So that caused me to have to kind of make adjustments, which looks very bad. So then I decided, OK, I'm just going to bite the bullet and make this an audio one. ⁓ so I went ahead and re re edited the file and I was like, okay, I was going to make this kind of like little video thing anyway, like this instead of doing what I normally do. So was like, let me just make this kind of stats screen with the video behind it. And then, ⁓ I was going to change that, which I did change it. This is V3. Let me show you before. And I think so I always do like a sound bite in the beginning something that's really powerful. And so I did that. And then instead of, you know, going to us talking because Riverside ruined it, I went ahead and had to do just, you know, static images with like a video in the background. So I basically kept the same thing from the beginning and I just added myself there. I didn't have time to do a circle mask. I'm just I'm just over it right now. So sorry, Elizabeth. But yeah, so this is before right now. This is the one that's going out. This one has my actual outro attached I attached it in a whole other platform because I was so upset at how I'm over here trying to you know build what seems like I'm trying to you know build the Pyramids here, but it's not even that hard. So I'm so kind of pissed at Riverside Sorry Riverside, but I'm kind of pissed at you because you ruined my episode I brought in my assets, I lined everything up and then, you know, just because I didn't hit a button or I don't even know if I did. Maybe I did not hit the button that says, hey, change that layout to the entire thing. That would be awesome. Thanks. Like, why? Why do I have to do it on every single one? That's annoying. I shouldn't have to do that. I should not have to go through every single one. And then. you know, with Riverside, you cannot remove the green screen in the editor. So I'm to have to take it out. I'm going to have to export this into Premiere, take out the green screen, bring it back, add my captions. And then, you know, I don't even if I plug, if I publish from Riverside, then I can publish it, but I don't. So I'm going to have to take it out only to put it back in. Or actually, I think this one's already edited and see the layouts not even there. So what the heck? I'm super annoyed right now, as you can tell. And yeah. Hmmmm Okay. So where do the wise, if you are editing in Riverside, be sure to go through every clip. Like I was mentioning earlier, sometimes when you separate clips to make it a little bit more cohesive, uh, then you have multiple clips. So if the layout doesn't apply like this to similar scenes, if it doesn't do it, you better go back and check every single one to make sure that they're all the same, because otherwise you'll end up with an export like the one that I had, which had nothing but you know, us hanging out. And then at the end had this very beautiful background. So my typical next step would be to add the captions. So while I'm here, I'll just go ahead and do that. This is my V1. So I hope that I didn't change it that much. I don't think I did. So I'm just going to go ahead and put them in there. I really like the variation of choices between captions. I really do. I'm just super mad that the layout didn't work out. And then like I said, I have to take this into Premiere to go and fix it. So, fix the green screen. mean, until they figure out a way to let you fix your green screen, that will be awesome. But typically I think what the answer is for Riverside is that when you film, you want to update your background then when you're filming. then of course your green screen is going to help stabilize the background so you're not flickering. You don't have part of your head missing. So that is generally what would happen. But this was filmed with the green screen outside of Riverside. Or no, it was filmed in Riverside, but I had an older computer, so I wasn't able to pull up those really beautiful backgrounds. But I will at some point right now we're traveling, so it's not really conducive. So I put in my captions, right, and make them small just because I don't feel like they should be the center of attention. What would be really cool, I think, for Riverside is that if in addition to captions, they also had a lower thirds library, because then that would make it a lot easier to put those lower thirds in there for your guest names. I think that would be amazing. Riverside, if you're listening, highly recommend it. And then go to your brand, add your logo. Should already be there, but it's not. There you go. And so in theory, if I had added the intro correctly and everything worked like it's supposed to, then that would be great. But I'm going to have to take this out so I can take out the green screen and then add the intro and make it all work together and then re-upload it. And hopefully it doesn't give me an error because I've been getting errors re-uploading files to Riverside, which is why I'm on a V4. So I'm just having all kinds of fun today and I'm late. I'm a day late on this episode. So thanks, Riverside. This is second time that I've been late on an episode, but you know what? There are some great things too. And I look forward to it getting better. Cause that's the only way we learn is we get better. Thank you for joining my Ted Talk rant on Riverside. Riverside, hopefully it didn't hurt your feelings too much, but fix stuff, please. Let's go back to Vanessa Vivacious Files and enjoy the rest of that show. And welcome back everyone. I hope you enjoyed that rant. that we had there for Riverside. I apologize, Riverside. mean, sometimes hearing the truth doesn't feel great, but at the same time, I could care less. I mean, I'm so upset the fact that I missed a whole another episode because of Riverside. Moving on, I digress. So today, I would love to tell you about some significant thoughts that I had the other day. Significant to me, maybe, but to you, they might be a little interesting. So yesterday was April 20th. If you celebrate 420 congrats, if you don't, good for you. If something else gets you high in life, that's great. If you've been to a cannabis store, tell me, I'm not wrong, but you know, growing up when people used to, you know, meet up behind a store or somewhere random and sell one another some greenery, it was... It was casual. It was normal. But then now you look at cannabis stores, you look at like these Macy Tiffany looking storefronts. I went to one at the border of Nevada and Utah with a friend of mine and you were just like scared to breathe or even put your hands on the counter. And it's like there's no guns, but there's just heavy surveillance. And I guess that's the same in the sense that you feel like weird about it. But it was just the strangest thing to see, like all kinds of cannabis in various cases and lit well and it was like spoken about like the finest wines like ⁓ my god it was crazy but really interesting if you've not been to a dispensary that is like kind of like like upper scale you have to it's so funny so life was rained out yesterday because it's been raining here in texas for a few days it's gonna rain through thursday i got here on saturday and that just sucks so much but i took the day to visit a spa called float sa It is a cool spa where you can get massage services, you can get floating services, you can get infrared ⁓ and some other things as well. Sauna services. And so my favorite thing is the floating because they have these sensory deprivation pods that are filled with like 1200 pounds of Epsom salt or whatever salt and you feel buoyant, you're floating and it's super calming, the music plays and then it goes away and you're just alone with your thoughts. And so my thoughts were very interesting to say the least. My final thought when I was in the tanks was that I'm living between two worlds right now and while one of them offers a life that I could only imagine, the other one would be just as fine as well. And in both worlds, I'm chasing my dreams like my hair is on fire and I win. I win because I declare it. I claim it. I manifest it. I worked and clawed my way out of adversity, poverty, victimhood, and now working through cancer and potentially double cancer. I've experienced more than one occurrence of nearly dying and I've survived that too. So there's nothing that I'm afraid of. There's nothing I can't beat. So I win. Remember when we were young and we had that game called I win? Well, I win. Writing books and ⁓ So I want to do more speaking engagements. I want to speak. I want to encourage people. I also want to write books. So I'm working on a book because I assume that in order for you to get to speaking, you got to write the book and then you speak. I assume that's the way that goes. Tell me if I'm wrong, because I would love to find out. But I'm writing a book and I've decided to do it in a fragmented memory type of way because it make it less stressful. So here's one story from this book. TV was my babysitter. I remember being small and just captivated by Madonna releasing Like a Prayer for the first time on MTV. My mother quickly found that TV was my babysitter and I would never move if the TV was on. I never considered this abandonment because even though she would leave and come back hours later, by the way, in the ⁓ 80s, CPS was not on speed dial. I loved that time. I credit this unadulterated access to television with part of my passion for film and TV. I'm in love with storytelling and plots and themes and twist and character developments, camera angles, sets, all of it. In college, I got to develop a TV pilot and direct it Start to Finish. That was such a ⁓ Counting down to the fade in and directing a live TV show, what a ⁓ I'll never forget when VIP guests walked in the control room and I was firing calls like a 10 year directing vet. It was amazing. It was a ⁓ I may not know what comes tomorrow, but I know that I'll work hard and I'll keep chasing my dreams. considering recent or past experiences, considering current experiences and just being in this like position of not knowing, not knowing what's coming tomorrow, not knowing what's coming next month, it doesn't scare me. It thrills me. It makes me want to work hard every day. And if I don't work hard, then I'm just like, what are you doing? What are you doing with your life? So I'm very hard on myself, but I'm also trying to create balance and to give myself good memories too. So I'm working on it. I'm working on it, but I'm also having to live through things. So life is balanced, but life is also life and we have to enjoy it. We have to make memories and we have to remember that it's precious. People and our lives are precious, so be good to one another. Always be good to other humans, always. Thank you guys for joining me on another episode of Vanessa the Vivacious Show. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode in addition to my previous rant and the little mini story that'll be in my book. ⁓ Follow me on Vanessa the Vivacious on all the social platforms and be sure to stay tuned every day for a brand new episode of Vanessa the Vivacious Show, Vivacious Files.