This is where I figure out a simpler way to make my videos, and it seems really obvious when I explain it. Which generally means it’s a good way to work.
So when making videos I’ve gone through a bit of an evolution from loosely edited ramblings to scripted content where I carefully choose my words and think about the best way to present the information I want to get across.
What it lacked though was a streamlined editing process. It could take hours at best, and days at worse to actually get a video complete. This isn’t very efficient, especially since my challenge is two videos a month to begin with.
While recording my current video I noticed the system I had just wasn’t really working. The quality of the end video was getting a bit basic and mostly consisted of me talking at a camera and then overlaying graphics and screen captures. And the slow part was finding the graphics, it’s easy to say something but then hard to find relevant video to illustrate the point.
Also if I was explaining a process, I’d then have to re-record me doing that, to fit the narration.
So then I came to the pretty obvious idea of recording me doing things, as I was doing them, and doing the talking while also doing the things. I know right, ground breaking technique for video production!
I originally didn’t do this because it involves a lot of fussing about, moving the camera, tidying things, dealing with the mass of wires and ensuring I remember to hit record and not just talk at a non recording camera.
However, having just spent a few hours re-recording a video, it does take more effort but the editing effort should be minimal. I have a bunch of video files all in date order and the majority of editing should be limited to trimming the mistakes, a minor edit to remove off-topic waffling and that should be it.
When copying the final video files it did seem easier to cope with. Instead of one giant 40-odd minute long video file I had to deal with, I now have a cluster of dated files, one for each scene.
