I uploaded my first YouTube Short
I absolutely love making videos, it's become quite the passion of mine over the last few years. If you haven't uploaded a tutorial to YouTube I don't think you can appreciate just how much time goes into making a single video. In this weeks newsletter I thought I would share with you my video creation process for a normal video and how that compares to a YouTube short.
Each video starts with an idea and I keep a collection of these ideas on a Kanban board in Notion. Once I have decided I want to make a video on a particular topic it's time to start planning out the video. I have a template that breaks down my planning into the following sections:
- Research
- Metadata (title, description, tags, resources)
- Scripts (hook, bumper, intro, screencast, conclusion)
- Shot List (a-roll, b-roll, screencast)
It's not just enough to have an idea, is this idea something that your audience will be interested in.
Once I have made that decision on a topic it's time to record it. The first challenge in my household is trying to find some time to actually record the video. I have 2 young kids and if one of them doesn't keep me up half the night, the other one does. I work my full time job from 8-5 and after work I spend some time with the family, have dinner, give baths and get the kids to bed. I can't record after everyone goes to be because my office is in the basement right below everyone's bedrooms in a split level house. So as you can see finding the time to record is challenging to say the least.
If there are talking head components to the video I need to make sure I look presentable which means finding something nice to wear and doing my hair. My talking head videos are usually just an intro to the tutorial but I feel like they give it a personal touch and connection to the audience.
The screencast portion of the video is usually what people have clicked on the video for. This starts with some thought and planning by putting together a demo and determining what the audience wants to get out of it. After I have the demo code it's time to record the screencast and upload that code to Github.
After all of the recording has been completed it's time to edit. I use Adobe Premiere Pro and this is where I bring in all of my recordings and begin to trim them down. You see each recording is full of mistakes and different takes and I need to trim them down to tell the story I want told. After that I need to add in any music, fix the audio so it's not too loud or soft, perform any color corrections and add in any graphical elements. I then export the media file to disk and prepare to upload the video.
It's finally time to upload the video to YouTube and add fill in all the details. I start with a title, description, custom thumbnail and tags. There are other items that need to be created like cards and end screens. When it's done rendering and ready to publish I change the visibility to Public and hit save.
You might think that is the end of a video lifecycle but it isn't. I need to promote this on my different social media platforms. This usually just involves coming up with a good post and adding it to Twitter and LinkedIn. Depending on the content I might post it on my Spring Boot Developers Facebook group and If I think it's really good I might try and submit it on Reddit.
I realize that was a lot and if you made it this far, congratulations. The point I wanted to make is that for a simple 10 minute tutorial I usually spend anywhere from 8-10 hours from start to end.
YouTube Shorts
Shorts is the spot to shoot, share, and binge short videos (think 60 seconds or less) on YouTube. I have been intrigued by shorts because YouTube really seems to be pushing them and they seem like a great way to build an audience. I know that subscribers to my channel like my in depth tutorials and this isn't going to replace that. This is a chance for me to create short videos and or tutorials to help grow my audience.
This week I decided to create my first YouTube short around the new Oracle Licensing for Java 17. The video isn't ground breaking by any means but for me the process was. Because this video had to be 60 seconds or less I was able to research, film, edit and upload this video on my lunch break inside of an hour. In 5 days the video has received 550 views, 47 likes, 1 dislike and 2 comments. You can find a link to the video below and as I make more shorts I will gladly share my process with you if you're interested. What are your thoughts on consuming or creating shorts? I would love to hear from you.
Java is now FREE for everyone #shorts
Around the Web
These are things I found cool around the web this week.
🎬 Videos
🎙 Podcasts
💻 Projects
📚 Books
✍️ Quote of the week
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Until Next Week
Thanks for sitting down and sharing a cup of coffee with me my friend. I hope you enjoyed this installment of Coffee & Code and I will see you next Sunday morning. If you have any links you would like me to include please contact me and I might add them to a future newsletter. I hope you have a great week and as always friends...
Happy Coding
Dan Vega
danvega@gmail.com
https://www.danvega.dev