My fulltime job is with a small
company that sells commercial ventilation equipment. We finally decided that
maybe this Internet thing is not a passing fad after all. To take advantage of
“digital media,” our firm set up our own YouTube channel, on which we can post online
instructional videos. For many years, we’ve done presentations in the offices
of our clients, but usually only 10 or 15 people fit into the conference rooms.
Now with YouTube videos, instead of having a small number of people ignore what
we say, we can have HUNDREDS of people simultaneously ignore us.
After much debate, it was determined
that I would be the main speaker on our videos. I assume I was chosen because
of my vast theatrical resume: I do the readings at church occasionally, and I
was in exactly one high school play 40 years ago. I think you’ll agree this
pretty much puts me in the Laurence Olivier category.
We wanted the production quality of
our videos to be as professional as possible, so we spared no expense. The
backdrop is an old blanket I found in my basement; we record the videos with a
co-worker’s iPhone; and we edit them using a software program we downloaded for
free. From a dollar standpoint, we’ve yet to spend our first buck. But from a
time and effort standpoint, this project is kind of like the Normandy Invasion,
only with slightly more planning required. I suspect our biggest problem is the
fact none of us had any experience making videos. (I take that back. I made dozens
of videos in the 1990s on VHS tape, mostly of people singing “Happy Birthday”
and my children opening Christmas presents. But unfortunately no one ever got a
chance to watch those videos because I accidentally erased them when I used the
tapes to record Red Sox games.)
Our first production was a 40-minute presentation,
broken up into five separate short videos. So we knew it would take at least 40
minutes to record it, and I figured it might take another hour or so to edit the
videos into an acceptable final form. Boy was I wrong. About 50 man-hours
later, spread out over three weeks, we were still slogging through the editing
process.
We finally finished the videos and
uploaded them to our YouTube channel. Then we contacted all of our clients and
asked them to watch. The feedback was whelming, but not overly.
We’re still waiting for someone, anyone,
to tell us that they learned something useful from the videos. But that’s not
to say we received no feedback. Dozens of our clients commented on the videos.
Here are the three most frequent observations: 1. “Wow, you guys sure spent a
lot of money producing those films!” (I’m guessing there’s a bit of sarcasm
here); 2. “Is Bill Dunn able to talk WITHOUT using his hands?” (What can I say?
I speak better while waving my hands around); and 3. “Is Bill Dunn’s favorite
word ‘Umm’?” (Well, we certainly weren’t about to purchase a teleprompter, so I
was kind of winging it from memory, and umm, umm, oh c’mon, gimme a break. My
real favorite word appeared often in the outtakes whenever I blundered: “$#*&!!”).
We are in the process of producing
additional training videos that will be uploaded to YouTube in whichever decade
they’re finally completed.
If you want to check out our efforts,
go to www.youtube.com/c/airequipmentllcct. But be forewarned: the subject
matter — the technical aspects of commercial air distribution products — is so
breathtakingly scintillating, you might find yourself waving your hands around
and repeatedly saying “Umm.” At least that’s how it affected me.
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