Editing The Pen Addict 367/transcript (section)

== Video Creation Process ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, those are the best things to have that are super personal to you. So let's dig in a little bit to the video creation process. Can you give me an idea? Let's say you get a new product in tomorrow or you got one in a couple of weeks ago and you think you're going to shoot a video review for YouTube. What does that process look like for you in the kind of the big picture-wise?

'''David Parker:''' Well, in a typical week, I'm producing one review, which we'll post over the weekend, usually Saturday or evening or Sunday morning. You know, I try to – well, I have a bit of a queue, so I kind of schedule things out. I like to take, like, Monday and Tuesday off because, you know, this is a hobby. It's not how I earn a living, so I need to have some, like, time to not be working on the channel in order to not get burnt out over the long run. Usually on Wednesday, I'll start to outline a review, kind of bullet point things that I want to hit. I'll take all the pictures that I need to take and create the intro and the measurements, pieces of the review. I create those in Adobe After Effects and I use Premiere Pro for editing. And then usually Thursday, I write about 60% to 70% of a review and then finish it off on Friday. And then I'll either record Friday night or sometimes Saturday morning, you know. And, you know, for a 12-minute review, like setting up the equipment, recording, tearing down the equipment, you know, back down, you know, will take, you know, around an hour, hour and 15 minutes, depending whether or not my mouth wants to work that day. And, you know, then it takes a couple of hours in editing and post-production. You know, I'm a big film buff. And Alfred Hitchcock used to say that it's, you know, that the actual act of shooting a film was his least favorite part of the process. That he did so much planning and pre-production that after the script and all the storyboards were complete, kind of in his mind, the movie was done. It was completed. And that all he had to do was just get it onto film. And I kind of understand how he feels because there's times when you're actually, you know, shooting the review. That can be a bit of a chore and the post-production can be a bit of a chore. You know, I can get sick of listening to my own voice and looking at my own face during post-production. But overall, I enjoy the process.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you write out an entire script? So, like your videos are, I guess, between, what, 12, 15-minute range. Do you write an entire script for what you want to say? Or do you just kind of, like, bullet point it, if you will?

'''David Parker:''' You know what? I actually write everything out. If I just winged it off the top of my head, inevitably I would forget something or misstate a fact. Because, yeah, if I misstated a fact, no one on the internet is going to let you know that. We're going to talk about that. They just let it slide. Or, you know, miss an important point. You know, I like to include lots of facts and history and things that maybe aren't even associated with that pen, but that add to the entertainment value and to hopefully make the videos interesting. In the, you know, and I basically mainly write everything out so that I ensure that I say exactly what I want to say. In my early videos, I would actually tape the notes below the camera. And so it can be tough to disguise taking a peek at your notes. You can kind of see it a little bit more. And it can actually be a little bit distracting for viewers. So now I actually use a teleprompter. I can load up my script into a program on an iPad. And then the, you know, I look directly at the camera, which actually shoots directly through the teleprompter. And, you know, it's voice activated. So as I talk, the text scrolls up on its own. And it's pretty cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. I wasn't expecting that answer, but that is pretty cool. So like I figured I, you know, you're looking or reading something, you know, whether it's notes or, you know, just, you know, kind of the script laid out in front of you. But that would be brutal. The teleprompter is super smart. When did you, when did you start doing that in this process?

'''David Parker:''' Boy, it's been a couple of years. Okay. But it's one of those things where I, okay, I'm always looking to improve and get better and improve the quality of things. And one of the things I didn't like was I didn't like the fact that just there was no good place for me to put my notes. I wasn't going to memorize a 12-minute long review. Other reviewers do an excellent job of at least seemingly like winging the review. That's just not me. I've kind of decided to go a different way and I, but if they can do that, then that's fantastic. Good on them. But I need to write it all down to make sure I hit all my points. And that I wanted to figure out a way to do that without being distracting for the viewers. And, you know, when you're sitting there staring at your face while you're editing all these things, you notice all these little things that annoy me. So I know if they annoy me, they annoy other people.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, for sure. And I know if Myke were here, we would definitely have a comment on your preparedness and we would probably kick you off the show right now because we don't prepare that much for this. We wing it a lot and therefore we do get in trouble sometimes. So good job by you staying out of trouble as much as you can. So like the entire process. So one video, 15 minutes, for example, what amount of time does that take you in totality to just put that together? That's not necessarily spending time with the pen beforehand. So you know what the pen's like and things like that.

'''David Parker:''' I'd say, you know, right around like five to seven hours. It can depend on the review. But from beginning to end, writing, recording. Like when I write my reviews, I actually write them by hand because, you know, it's a good excuse to use the pen rather than me just typing the review. I mean, it's a good opportunity to use the pen and then I can maybe find revelations and things that I care and don't care about it as I'm using the pen to physically write the review. And that, you know, some reviews are quicker. But, you know, I try to include a lot of other information in my reviews as well. Like, for example, in the mail today, I just received a Montegrappa Apollo 11, the open edition, not the limited edition. That someone lent me one of those and that I need to do some research into the Apollo 11 mission in order to come up with some relevant, you know, facts that I hope would be interesting and information to help folks understand the importance behind the pen. Especially when a lot of folks maybe, you know, it was 50 years ago. And so a lot of people weren't alive and they might not have necessarily understood the impact of what that really meant to the United States and the world to have someone land on the moon.