I have had some emails asking me how I made my latest Wi-Fi video. Making this video was definitely challenging and fun and much less work and stress than my last David Warren Black Box video.
I wanted to make it shorter and more interesting, with great cutaways and tell the Wi-Fi inventors story, in a more interesting way.
These were my main focuses:
Good planning: I had been thinking about this video for many months before I sat down and wrote the script. This planning helped reduce having to re-shoot anything and I had much less Adobe Premiere Pro editing work than last time.
A shorter video: I really wanted to make it more interesting and shorter than the David Warren Black Box video. My goal was 5 minutes. In the end it was 7 minutes, but it was really 5 minutes and 2 minutes of reflection. This 5 minute goal was because I noticed from the YouTube statistics on my 15 minute Black Box video that people dropped off half way through watching it.
The YouTube statistics told me that I lost most people after 5 minutes. So I think my David Warren video was too long.
My own cutaways: I want to make some of my own cutaways this time, I filmed 2 of them myself. In addition I downloaded 3 others.
3 downloads I used as cutaways, plus the iconic Australian music for the end credits.
A bold start: I wanted the video to start off with a bang. So I watched a lot of shutterstock videos until I found the perfect start. You can see all their great cutaways here at http://footage.shutterstock.com
The employee graph: I hit a problem when I broke my arm cycling in the last week of editing, before the due date. I could not re-record even if I wanted to! Showing an employee graph was very important because I really wanted to show how such big companies (such as Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Intel etc) all ganged up together to try to bully a smaller company (CSIRO).
I had planned to draw the graphs on paper, but I could not draw properly as my left fingers could not hold the paper in place. So I changed to use a whiteboard and I successfully hid from the camera the fact I had a broken arm.
I used a whiteboard instead of a piece of paper to hide the fact I had a broken arm.
This Aussie made invention, needed Aussie music: I listened to a lot of music and spent a lot of time testing different music. I really like using http://audiojungle.net/downloads
My mum suggested changing the last song to the Men at Work song called “Down Under” and I really liked that change.
This time I made a better plan and this really helped. I had much less fixing to do when producing this video. Raj Dhatt was my great camera man and I know he was grateful not to have to do any re-recordings.
I am really happy with the result, I hope you like it. If you have any suggestions to make it better next time, please tell me.
-Eve
PS: Thanks to the people who have emailed me short videos of themselves telling me why Wi-Fi has help their life. If you would like to email me a short video of yourself telling me how Wi-Fi has changed your life please do so. Don’t forget to say “Aussie Made” at the end :-)
Hi Eve,
Thanks for that interesting information on putting together your videos. I have learnt a lot! Maybe I’ll do one myself on my passion, which is Permaculture!
I look forward to your next one.
Best wishes,
Stephanie Robertson
Brilliant. The skills you have learned will carry you far in any industry you choose. I would snap you up in a minute if I were still running a business that needed talent, intelligence and gumption. I think it’s especially great that you didn’t use the issues you hand to tackle (including a broken arm) as an excuse for failure but simply as another obstacle to overcome. And you did.
As it is, I’m just a humble fiction writer. I created my own book video and I know how hard it was. I wish you luck.