Seeing your own improvement

"If you don't look at code you wrote a year ago and think is garbage you aren't getting better"

I heard that from a software engineer and have spent a lot of time thinking about it. At it's core it's reminding us that our skills grow over time, and having something we've done in the past serves as a great baseline to compare our growth to.

I recently reviewed my Knowledge Base Fundamentals course over at Udemy and immediately thought of that quote. To be honest it's incredibly humbling (and a bit painful) to look at older work and compare it to what I'm capable of doing now, if only because I see all the areas I'm now able to do better.

This particular course was created over 2 years ago. I had a fairly good grasp on concepts like editing, lighting, scripting and more... but now that level feels so... basic (and I'd bet I'll say something similar in a year about where I'm at now!).

After taking a look at the course I determined that I could make it a much better experience for students in a number of ways. I realized that my own skills had grown substantially and would allow me to produce a much better course. This was an incredible experience in realizing I've changed in many ways:

Ways I improved #1 - Scripting

Originally the course was entirely "talking head" and scripted entirely in advance. This required a lot of time and energy to create and edit the script, but it did result in me knowing exactly what I'd be saying. Unfortunately this approach also resulted in me getting a bit “stuck” at times as I felt trapped by the script. This led to several, frustrating, instances of having to delete a lot of work and restart as I couldn’t figure out how to work in the newer ideas I had.

My general approach has since changed to instead using slides with bullet points. These guide my discussion, allowing me to explore more areas or go "off script". It also frees me from writers block / having to rewrite a script. I also find forcing myself to distill something into 3-4 bullet points a good exercise in determining what is really important. This helps focus my ideas and helps improve the final product.

Way I improved #2 - Filming

Shooting the scripted content was a pain. Not only was lighting a mess (see the fun shadows in the image below), but I had to juggle a camera and a teleprompter. Making a mistake required me to reset almost everything and rewind so I could re-record that section. The audio setup (a shotgun mic on the camera) also required a lot of work in post to cleanup as it captured a lot of background. It didn’t sound bad… but it didn’t sound good either.

Now I film at my desk with a boom mic (much less background) and a dedicated lighting rig that handles most of the lighting issues. The change in lighting alone makes me much happier - no more random shadows on me, and since I switched to smart bulbs I have much better control over the color temperature (which makes editing a bit easier.

Way I improved #3 - Editing

Editing a talking head can be a pain. Any cut is almost immediately obvious, and I didn't know how to cover those up the first time I shot the course. (Now I know to either zoom in or out slightly, or use b-roll to cover it up...). I also made editing harder on myself when I was shooting by not giving enough time/space between words or sections. This resulted in some very tight cuts that sometimes distorted the message.

Now when I record I know to back up and restart an entire slide, or leave space between them. This makes it a lot easier to edit together and hide any mistakes. I also switched to using Davinci - a free editing tool (that is insanely complex and I only barely scratch the surface of). Davinci gives me a lot more flexibility in what I want to include (no more limits to the number of video tracks!), and has allowed me to create better content in post.

Way I improved #4 On-screen content

When I first filmed the course I was using iMovie (which is great... to a point!). I found it incredibly challenging to add on-screen content, and quickly ran into limitations. I frequently went into Canva to make a single on-screen element, download it, then upload into iMovie. This took a LOT of time (and frustration!). This resulted in a final product that lacked on-screen information. iMovie is also limited in what it can display in terms of text and other images. This made it hard to create something that fit my needs.

Now I just build out a slide deck for a lecture which has all the onscreen content I need and record from that. This greatly reduces the amount of post production work... and saves me a lot of frustration. I can create exactly the image I want, and when I record I don’t have to worry about what I’ll need to add in post.