Video killed the still picture star

(with apologies to the Buggles!)

I've been working on doing more video-form ... things. I realized halfway into writing that, that "video form videos" sounded really dumb. And "video form pictures" doesn't even make any sense! Honestly, I never wanted to do videos. I'm a photography girlie (I blame my dad for developing film at home - anyone else still smell those chemicals?); photos are easy to take and edit and post and they capture a single moment in time. Videos? Time consuming to set up, to edit.... who has that kind of time? When I could be using that time to actually make things?

Well, in the last year I've taken a couple of different classes on video how-to, and I'm kind of pleasantly surprised to find out that thanks to advances in cell phone tech, it's actually really easy to take videos. And I've figured out that I can just set up my bonus!phone to record my entire work session, and then take screenshots from that video for social medias. Added bonus from that is that now people get to see how I hold things, turn things, etc.

Anyway, I'm writing this because I have some things to think about out loud, in regards to videos. I'm not necessarily asking for advice, but your thoughts are welcome in a "think tank" kind of way.

I want to do two things with my videos.

1. I want to do in-process videos that show how long it takes to make things

2. I want to do finished object videos in a stop-motion format

So then.

If I make in-process videos that show how long it takes to make things in real time, those videos are going to be loooooooooooooong. So do I ... cut them up into smaller bites, showing the highlights of making things in 1-3 minute videos, doing maybe 3-5 videos per subject? Or do I take all of the sessions I've recorded, combine them into one long video, and then speed that whole thing up so it fits in a 1-3 minute video? The latter is sort of what I've been doing for Patreon - speeding up a single recorded session to about a 2.5 minute video - but I'm ready to start putting some of these up on The Socials so I need to figure my stuff out.

I have to take into account (or do I?) that a lot of the video tips I've been getting say that you have to - HAVE TO - include the finished piece at the end of your video. Like, you absolutely MUST or else you will lose viewers. Which is another thing that kept me from making videos for so long. It takes roughly six to eight weeks, start to finish, from "I'm going to make something" to "here it is, finished." I can't tell you how many times, when I first started trying to make videos for Patreon a couple of years ago, that I'd just record one part of the process (like the handbuilding) and then ... crickets. Completely forget that I was making a video. In the six to eight weeks it takes me to make something, there are maybe three to five sit-down working sessions on that piece that are worth recording. You think that doesn't sound like much but for my brain that's also three to five times I can forget what I'm doing! And trust me... if I can forget it? I will.

I'm working on a system for keeping better track of what I'm doing, but that's almost a whole other blog post by itself.

So in general, the process is: making --> tweaking/cleaning --> underglazing (if called for) --> bisque firing --> glazing --> glaze firing --> decal and decal firing (if called for) --> unloading kiln and taking product photography. That doesn't sound like much when I write it like that, but some things can take a long time and/or need multiple coats of the same glaze/underglaze which also calls for drying time in between each coat. So there's a lot of things I can video in that six to eight week process... but there's also in that same time frame a lot of time in which I can completely forget what I was doing as far as the video goes. Did I video the making, and then forget to video everything else? Or maybe video the making, and the underglazing, but forget to video the glazing and then suddenly I'm done? If I can barely remember what I'm doing, how am I going to remember to add the finished piece in there?

I've figured out that it's going to be much easier for me if I take a video and then post the video after I make whatever kind of time edits I want to make for it. Which means posting videos before there's a finished thing to show off. Is that going to make people angry, if there's no finished piece? Or will people understand what I'm trying to say - that good things take time. That you might not get to see the finished piece in the video where I'm first sitting down to handbuild the piece, because that's not the way the real life real process goes.

Does any of that make sense?

Am I just ... overthinking all of this?

Maybe people will be fine with whatever I put out. Maybe people would like a variety of things; slower videos that show parts of the initial handbuilding session followed by sped up videos of the painting and glazing - which might or might not contain a finished, out-of-the-kiln product at the very end?

Notice I haven't mentioned the stop-motion videos -- I'm pretty happy with what I have going for that, other than I just need to practice making them to get the timing and pacing right.

Sometimes being the boss means I don't have a guidebook that someone else has already written and tested. Half the time I don't know what I'm doing, or how it'll turn out. At the same time, I get to experiment and figure out what works for me, personally.

So. What kind of craft-making videos do you like to watch?