Inside the Making of My First EDITED YouTube Video

Last week I made a movie that runs just under three minutes. I'm calling it a "movie" to distinguish it from a "talking head" video, which is the only type of video I've done before that relates to my business. This one has a soundtrack, captions, still images, and footage of me talking. I made it over the course of two late nights, and frankly it probably could have been done in one if I hadn't been simultaneously learning to use the editing program on my computer.

Making my edited video was fun! For over a year I have been stalling in regards to videos. How silly my procrastination seems in hindsight. There's certainly a lesson in that. Especially now that my small production has been shared with a public audience and I've received positive feedback for it, I am thoroughly psyched to do more of them. Video is a powerful medium, one that I now highly encourage you to explore as a means of spreading your message. Fortunately writers are storytellers, so this won't be that big a stretch for you once you get started.

My equipment was a Flip Camera and the Windows Movie Maker software that came on my PC with the Windows Office software package.

Let me share my creative process, with the caveat that, of course, you must develop your own way of working. My example is only useful in the sense that I am a novice in this area--and if I can do it, so can you. Seriously! . . . And I mean SERIOUSLY.

First, a request was made of me to share a short description of my business and to offer a testimonial about what I had learned in the business mastermind in which I've participated in 2011. So my purpose was clear, which as a rule of thumb is a good place to start: Set a goal.

Next, I started brainstorming. I am in the "word business," so I asked: What are fun, expressive ways to film actual words? I pulled out my Scrabble set and began forming word combinations on my living room carpet, things like my name, the name of my business, short phrases. Then I remembered how much fun I'd had as a kid spelling words in my alphabet soup. The picture came to mind of a soup spoon that read, "I love words." It made me chuckle.

On a break, I went to the grocery store and bought alphabet pasta. I pulled out enough letters to write a whole bunch of short sentences, boiled some water, dumped the pasta pieces in it to expand the letters, and then wrestled with those little suckers on a plate. Finally I decided just to use two short sentences on two silver tablespoons. They looked a little bland in their natural state, so I found my paint kit and painted the letters in bright colors. To complete this segment in a playful way I pretended the words were edible and filmed my hand picking up the spoon with a voice-over of me going, "Yum yum yum." The purpose was to express my emotions.

Then, I decided to pull copies of books I've written and edited off my shelves and film a big pile of them. In practice that concept looked rather strange, so instead I made four displays of three books each and shot them with voice-overs. Because these would be static images, I wanted to show each quickly. The purpose of that segment was to demonstrate my credentials.

Keeping in mind that my ideal client is someone who has an idea for a book, I added an intro about having ideas that lead people to need my services. In running through my photo album, I found pictures of a lightning bolt over a mountain, a hand holding the sun, a patch of purple irises, and a full moon. I used royalty-free sound effects to give each photo its own soundtrack: rolling thunder, a cadence, and a jazz riff on a drum. Each had a matching caption that I wrote to evoke the sensation of an inspired idea. I used my headshot to complete this segment.

As you can see, I was not developing my segments in order of their final appearance. I was creating from a stream of consciousness. When I was assembling the pieces it was clear where there needed to be segues between the segments. My rhetorical arc was working itself out as I was already in the process of production. I didn't really "storyboard" this video, though filmmakers normally do, and I believe it is a best practice. Mine by contrast was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants video production. I used what I already had! Only a few of the key elements were newfound or newly made.

I wanted to show how long I've been at the book business, and so I showed a "book" I wrote on paper and bound with staples as a kid. My dad had saved it in a box somewhere and gave it back to me recently. But I didn't want to be maudlin, so I filmed it in a funny way--as a "reveal"--by unpacking it from a beloved object in my home: My Wonder Woman lunch box. Again, this was amusing for me. Perhaps the "purpose," though it was not conscious, was to inject my personality into the video here, by being authentic about my inner landscape and history. I have to point out, if I were worried about being perfect and coming across to you as some sort of guru on a mountain I would NOT have shown you this. It may feel risky to be seen, but it's much more fun to be transparent.

Now, I knew a whole bunch of things I wanted to say about my discoveries this year, and I really wanted to share the latest and perhaps greatest of these, which is to act right when you have an inspired idea, not later after the moment has passed. I had a perfect series of photo stills of me on a trapeze that I knew I could create a slide show from, to physically demonstrate my point about making the leap and hitting those perfect "weightless" moments in business/creation. These also went with what I had to say in my testimonial about my coach. So I created the ending, and then I filmed the middle, which was my talking head. In editing, I set this series of pictures to tango music-tahh, dum, dum, dum, dummmm, tah dah dah dumm, dumm, dumm dummm. And I played with how many seconds each stayed on the screen. I finished it with a surprise ending that you have to watch the video to see.



To shoot my testimonial segment (about 1:28 in length) took me eighteen tries. About ten were discarded as verbal flubs on my part. Three ran too long. A couple were poorly framed (oops--I wanted my head in). One had a handprint smeared on the lens (oops--I fumbled). The final one was "good enough."

The hardest part for me was technical. Windows Movie Maker documents cannot be uploaded to YouTube. After a bit of consternation (read: short temper tantrum) I discovered that by simply storing the file to my computer it was translated into a .WMV file that uploaded fine. I already have a TV channel set up on YouTube (it takes only a few minutes to create an account there) so in about 20 minutes it was up and viewable.

Think what you like after you watch it; for myself, I feel darn proud of my maiden effort in video editing. I did not know my coach would show it at her conference, but she did--right on the first morning--and people laughed in the places I hoped they would, applauded at the end, and came up to me in person telling me wonderful inspirations they took from it. More than I anticipated. It gave me a way to connect to unfamiliar people on a genuine level, and that was a sweet, sweet experience.

While words are the medium of a writer, storytelling is one of the skills of a writer that translates well on-screen. Make a video to spread your inspiration around your book's concept and don't be afraid to share it. The power of your imagination is always unleashed by sharing what's inside you. Pictures evoke emotion. And people actually think in pictures. So it could be a great way for you to create a circle of connection or deeper connection with your audience.