There’s a lot more that I learnt by creating the second episode of this series (the one about Business Process Mapping) – and a lot more that I feel I need to rant about. So please, seat back, and enjoy my rantings – or feel free to join if you wish.
Let’s start with two questions…
Quiz of the day – what does this image represent?
Here are some potential answers:
- An algorithm trying to create rectangles of different shapes so that not one rectangle is as big as the other
- A model of a factory of lego bricks
- Thousands of tiny files lined up one after the other
- The timeline of a single video file with countless of cuts that can slow down even a quantum computer
- An artist representation of a blockchain
Fear not, if you picked no. 4, you’re right!
Second question. Here is an audio waveform. What word/sound is it describing?
And some possible answers:
- And so…
- Whatever
- Hollaback girl!
- Errr….
- Uhm….
- Arrr…
- Uhrrrr…
- Bwejirnruhb
*drums rolling*
It’s no. 5! (though to be fair no. 4 and 6 would look very similar)
Meet my new partner – the video editing software!
After listening to the first episode and collecting feedback however I could, there were a few things that I wanted to correct. One above all was my humming.
I heard this is a pretty common – and annoying! – practice when recording without a counterpart to talk to. (Note to self: I need to buy a rubber duck to present to).
Yet only once I started editing I realised how badly I was affected. I had to cut out about 11 minutes (!!!) of humming from the whole video. To be fair, I became increasingly annoyed at it, so while at the beginning I was forgiving some here and there, as I progressed through the video I grew intolerant of my humming – to the point that sometimes I even jeopardise the natural sound of speech to remove hums in between words. Oh well. NO REGRETS.
If anything, this taught me a bit of self awareness – and a handful of keyboard shortcuts, so that I “only” spent a couple of hours to review the whole video for humming (proud-not-proud).
Upping the game
One other thing I felt was missing was a proper introduction. The Business Process video was recorded sometime towards beginning of the year, however I didn’t record any introduction with it either.
So one day I set up my lighting, propped the camera (ehm, my mobile phone), and went ahead recording.
The idea:
- 25 seconds introduction: greet & welcome, introduce myself, name the project’s why-and-how, wave goodbye
- Make it casual: I always sit, so let’s stand, jeans and shirt (no tie)
- My 80-20 rule: 6 minutes recording and will take the best attempt, whatever comes out, comes out
Simple rules, right?
The result:
- 25 seconds introduction: done ✅
- Make it casual: done ✅
- 80-20 rule: failed ❌
Wait, how? The 80-20 rule was there to ensure that there would be a result, however amateur.
Well, I spent 6 minutes in front of the camera, saved the video, changed into comfy clothes, loaded my editor just to find this:
Needless to say, I closed my laptop and decided to re-attempt the recording at a later stage. The intro that you see turned out to be a lot better also because of an unusual sunny day with beautiful natural light shining through the window.
Wrapping up
It’s fair to say I’m still a few videos away to pride myself of the title “I know what I’m doing” (let alone being called an amateur), but I’m a lot happier with this second video already.
I’m very thankful to friends, colleagues and family who encouraged me and – even more importantly! – provided critical feedback so that I could adjust a few things already even if the second episode was already filmed.
You can see the final result here. Feedback is always welcome! 🙂
