My first YouTube video!
It's the first video of a series of videos I am intending to make on the topic of sabbaticals. In this one, I share a bit about who I am, why I went on sabbatical, what kind of sabbatical I ended up on, and why I am making videos on the topic.
Here it is. I am very excited for this new video-making experiment!
Making and publishing videos is (yet another) thing that I had always thought was something that others did and not something that I would ever do. Just like building an audience and making friends on social media. Like writing essays and publishing them online. Like being a guest on a podcast. Or like designing my own website on Figma and creating it with Webflow. Yet I have now done all of those things. Many times, for some of them.
Of course, making this video was not a smooth ride... It probably took me 15-20 hours because I tried many things before finding a process that felt right to me.
To start with, I needed to record footage. Given that I've always felt slightly uncomfortable in front of cameras, I needed to find a set-up that would help me feel comfortable enough to share my thoughts openly and confidently.
Some people ad-lib. They talk to the camera in one single take and without notes. Ad-libbers (I think I just made up that word) tend to give out a very open and natural vibe because they're clearly speaking directly from their minds rather than following a script. I tried ad-libbing and failed miserably. Despite having set a rough outline for the video, I just didn't feel comfortable. I tripped on words and paused for too long while figuring out what I wanted to say next.
So I scripted it all. And then I set up my script on my laptop such that it would act like a teleprompter, one centimetre below the camera lens. That also failed. You really need to look directly into the camera lens (or beyond it) when you are talking or the viewer won't feel you're looking at them. It will be obvious if you divert your attention away from the camera lens, even if you're just looking one centimetre above or below. There's no way around it.
In the end, I ended up following a makeshift process that combined ad-libbing and scripting. I outlined the whole video in 5 or 6 sections with a few bullet points under each section. I would then script the first section, and ad-lib it immediately while it was still fresh in mind before moving on to the next section.
Once you have footage, it's time to edit it into a video. That's the part I love most because you get to use a bunch of creative tools to turn your content into an even more engaging experience for the viewer.
As is true of any kind of learning process, learning to use a video editing tool (I used Final Cut Pro) was slow, iterative, sometimes frustrating and mostly loads of fun.
Screenshot of my Final Cut Pro work station
Here's what the learning (creating) process looked like:
- Watch the footage in Final Cut Pro
- Cringe many times at the mistakes, pauses and grimaces
- Cut out the bit I want to start my video with
- Am stuck. No idea how to do this multiple times on a footage
- Spend an hour watching excellent tutorials by Ali Abdaal
- Finally cut out all the bits of footage I want on Final Cut Pro
- Start fiddling with transitions
- Watch more tutorials
- Spend an hour properly smoothing out the transitions
- Create illustrations on Figma, my design tool, and add them in
- Realise there's a 22$ plugin that has better looking graphics
- Watch a tutorial on how to add plugins to Final Cut Pro
- Replace all the Figma images with the new graphics
- Watch tutorials again to add sound effects and music
- Spend 30 mins to figure out how to add chapters in YouTube
- Give up on the chapters and decide to upload as is
It took me such a long time to edit this first video to the point where I thought it was good enough to upload on YouTube... probably 12-15 hours in total. And I thoroughly enjoyed every single bit of it, I'm such a design nerd.
I hope you enjoy it. Let me know of topics you'd like me to cover!
