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šŸŽ„ I'm not allowed to edit videos


Iā€™ve created and edited hundreds of videos over the course of the last few years. Iā€™ve used Descript, Screenflow, Final Cut Pro, and various in-app editors. Iā€™ve shared these videos on my now-nearly-defunct YouTube channel, on my now-defunct TikTok account, for clients and courses. I even hosted a now-defunct video creatorsā€™ community, and explored running a video editing agency. (We served a couple clients, werenā€™t optimistic about the uniqueness or margins of the business model ā€¦ itā€™s now defunct :)

No more.

From here on out, Iā€™m not editing any more videos. It turns out Iā€™m the worst kind of person on earth for this kind of work.

Why?

Iā€™m the kind of nerd who enjoys pursuing mastery of tools. Any tool. So I get really into learning features and shortcuts for whatever tool Iā€™m using.

This isnā€™t a bad thing, but I also have a nasty perfectionist streak.

You might not know that from watching any of the videos I shared! But each time I hit ā€œUploadā€ it was a forceful decision to quit overthinking, quit tweaking, move on with life. Each time I stopped editing (I never really finished) it cost me.

On top of that, some of the videos I made were collaborative. Interviews that I thoroughly enjoyed, then proceeded to turn into nightmare projects of obsessive fussing.

Add a hefty dose of people-pleasing to the perfectionism, put someone elseā€™s image and expectations on the line, and you have a recipe for a never-finished, never-published video. Iā€™ve got three of these in my queue right now. Iā€™m abandoning them. It feels terrible. But at least Iā€™m not adding to the queue.

What Iā€™ll do instead

As evidenced by the inclusion of a one-take, no-edits video at the top of this post ā€¦ Iā€™ll do one-take videos and share them without editing.

Iā€™ll focus on training myself to recover when I misspeak, or fumble my words, or stutter. Iā€™ll push myself to let a video be Good Enough as it is. Hopefully this will train me to be a better podcast guest so by mid-2024, when I hope to start marketing my second book, I can enter those calls with confidenceā€”and leave the edits to the hosts.

Iā€™ll turn my nerdy passion for tools to focus on using OBS Studio to add a bit of flourish to my live recordings.

Iā€™ll spend more time on prep for videos, but not much moreā€”nothing even close to how long I used to spend on edits.

Iā€™m on the fence as to whether I trust myself to edit audio content. I had a blast recording a proof-of-concept podcast episode for my blog post about criticism of Jimi Hendrix, and Iā€™d like to do more. Audio is way simpler than video.

So, do I dare trust myself with a few Audacity sessions? Probably, weā€™ll see. (Watch this space for a January 2025 ā€œIā€™m not allowed to edit mp3sā€ post.)


© 2024 Brian David Hall