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Tools I use for making videos and my workflow

I made my first youtube video for educational purpose in 2011, that was 8 years ago. I had a windows machine back then and I made quite lot of videos, mostly on Drupal. Those videos were really bad (when I look at them now), when I say bad I mean as compared to my current videos which are not great either. My audio was bad, I was not talking properly, the delivery was not great either although the content was useful. I stopped making videos for a long while because youtube was not a big thing yet in India at least 8 years ago. It was a good platform but nothing like right now. I had other priorities in life so I didn't bother much. Around 2 years ago I though I should restart creating videos. My objective was simple - I wanted to learn new things and I know from my experience that when you learn something with the intention to teach someone, it gives you even more reasons to learn something new.

Advantages
Creating a video tutorial has several advantages, apart from learning new things you learn how to speak properly, how to present, how to talk to a camera, how to organise your thoughts, how to convey your message with clarity and most important it gives a sense of satisfaction when you create something. Bonus advantage is that as a professional it is a good addition to your profile. If you want to tell the world you know something then creating videos is a great way.

So when I restarted creating videos I realised that doing something additional in your already busy life is not easy. So the videos I make now are made within limited time. I don't spend more than 1 hour (sometimes 30 mins) on my videos from thinking about the topic, recording and editing to finally uploading it. Today I thought I will probably share my workflow and the tools that I use. It might help someone and wanted to write a blog on some topic :)

Schedule
Before anything else you need to make sure you follow a schedule. Don't worry about creating a bad video. Just create something on a regular basis. I try to achieve 1 video per day. I use whatever resource I have available. If I don't have access to a computer I try to record something from a mobile but I try not to miss my schedule. It feel good and get you into a good habit.

Preparation
I don't really prepare much, I force myself to just decide a topic within few minutes and that is it really. I think it is good to push yourself and it works really well for me. Not all of my videos are on super informative topics but you never know a small thing, a simple video can be useful for thousands of people so I think don't worry too much about the preparation. Broadly I make videos on Atlassian tools, Drupal, Computer Science Engineering Topics and few miscellaneous tech stuff. I always have something to share on these topics or something to learn around them. If I have something to learn, something new then that is even better because I make a videos while learning it.

How I shoot?
For screen recording I use OBS, it is by far the best free tool. You should use it as well.
I use mostly my mobile or DSLR for video only content where I just talk showing my beautiful face and sexy voice.
I use professional mic which is very important more important than the video.

Editing software
I use HitFilm Express. It has a free version and works great. It has a learning curve but hey it is free and powerful. I considered spending money on Adobe tools but then I thought may be not, I will probably use that money for Beer. I don't do great editing, mostly I add an intro and end and my videos are one take. I keep it simple. I don't have time to add animations or making a video perfect. I keep it natural.

For mobile only videos I use Vlogit. It is free as well.

Publishing
I use Google slides for making thumnails. Works really well for me even for mobile.
I keep my video description in OneNote.

That is it really, quite simple workflow. My focus is to have informative get content out regularly. I hope these tips will help in case you are also looking to do the same thing. Don't hesitate reaching out to me. Here is a link to my Youtube channel: https://youtube.com/ravisagar1

Have fun.

Webmentions

Mention by Ravi Sagar on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 17:49

I have made literally hundreds of videos in 2019. I wrote a blog about the tools I use to make these videos and also shared my workflow. The quality of my videos is questionable though and definitely not great but that was my intention from the beginning that I wanted to make as many videos as I can without worrying about the quality. For close to 7-8 months I think I made a video everyday, which is quite good achievement I think :) Honestly it was not difficult, just share whatever you know already but making a video requires some effort.
First you have to figure out how to record yourself, the audio, screen and then you have to edit everything together. I have shared details in my other blog about all the tools but one thing which I figured out is the importance of a thumbnail, especially when you are starting from zero. Honestly I don't care about subscribers and views but it always feels good when many people watch your videos and give you feedback. It is also a skill which I never had and I have learned quite a lot. So I decided quite early to make at least a decent thumbnail in my videos. Of course I wouldn't mind million subscribers. Being an ex-designer (well you never retire from designing do you?) I was tempted to open my GIMP or CorelDraw and make a perfect thumbnail but I am a bit of a perfectionist which is horrible thing because then I would never be able to make something then. So intentionally I decided to do the whole process of video making from recording to uploading within 30 minutes (roughly)
Making thumbnail can consume lot of time and I decided to use few templates that I created in Google Slides. If you look at my templates I have some consistency which I think is important and having Google slides is a great option because you can paste your video's screenshot and then write text on top of it. I have few templates which I reuse for all the videos.
So this was my small recommendation. In case you want to make thumbnails quickly and easily then Google Slides could be a great option and it is free.

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