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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

I am backlogged with a lot of pandemic stories. Sometimes I wonder if I am too late in writing these stories in hindsight, but people do ask me about my background, especially with my move to Ipoh.

So I shall begin with the first story, which is video editing.

I learnt video editing during my undergraduate days. I graduated with a degree in multimedia design. For the uninitiated, multimedia encompasses different media such as graphics, video, animation, text and audio. Hence, I have acquired basic skills such as graphic design, video editing and audio design. Eventually, I decided to focus on UI/UX as a career for close to ten years.

After completing my Master’s degree, I re-explored video editing again during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. I re-explored video editing because there was a need to create video content, especially with young people. Many of my friends were struggling with basic tech skills, and they were hungry for certain knowledge. To make it worse, most of them struggled with English and certain materials in Bahasa Malaysia were lacking.

While the focus was creating content to educate, I have explored different styles of editing. Here is what I explored:

Music video

This was the most fun among other types of editing because it required me to think about the concept and the lyrics. If I want to create a music video in a short period, I collect video clips that describe the lyrics. Also, I have learnt music video editing during my university days, so this style of editing was familiar to me.

As I was doing it for experiment, I found most of the video clips are found through Pexels. I like Pexels because the videos are more conceptual and diverse.

It would have been a lot more personalised if I have shot the videos by myself but I was stuck at home during the lockdown. Hence, I am just using whatever that it available.

Book review walkthrough

I bought a book for my nephew on his birthday, and I could not keep the book. I shot a video of me flipping the book.

However, I made some mistakes. Firstly, I did not do prior planning before this shot. I shot this video on my phone in a rush, just hours before I gave the book to my nephew. Secondly, I did not prepare a basic script. All I did was just shot a video of me flipping every page.  Thirdly, I did not like doing voiceover. To be honest, I dislike my voice and I speak with a lisp. Not only that, I did not know AI application such as Synthesia or else I might have finish this book review walkthrough.

Two years after this last project and influx of content creators, I learnt that I do not need to be perfect, which is something I do appreciate from the Gen Z. As a millenial, we were often striving for Instagram worthy (oh, it sounds so old) videos and photos to the point that I was scared to create because some of the people can be so brutal. I am not saying that people are still not brutal, but the focus on today’s photos and videos is just getting out there. I have seen less polished work getting traction because the content is relatable.

Tutorial video

During the pandemic, I realised there is gap with of knowledge between the English speakers and Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia speakers. My friends not tech savvy, and when the pandemic hit, they were caught unaware and faced with the lack of technology knowledge especially everyone was working from home.

Therefore, I did a few videos tutorial videos on Google suits  but it was quite daunting for me. I did not know how to do a tutorial video that is interesting, concise and in Bahasa Malaysia. I had to screen recording my phone and desktop screens so to create those tutorials. Also, I realised there is a difference between Indonesian and Malay speakers. Most of the Indonesians I know will change their phone and computer interface to Bahasa Indonesia while the Malaysians will generally use the interface in English. Hence, I have to think how much English terms to use because if I translate all interface terms into Bahasa Malaysia, the users may not understand me.

I found that the most effective video tutorial courses have someone speaking and guiding users through. So I did two videos, one with my voice and and without and both of them are pretty cringy. Well, at least I have uploaded them and no matter how cringy it is. If anything that I learnt, I need to post up cringey work in order to move on to better work.

If I ever want to recreate a tutorial video, I will do in short form like how video creators do it on TikTok and Instagram reels. Also, I might just explore on Synthesia to create avatars and let it do the talking. At least I do not have to use my speaking voice when the AI voice is better than mine.

In conclusion, I am glad that I have basic video editing skills and now there are AI tools to enhance my work. I hope to explore more on this the future.

 

 

 

 

Lianne

Author Lianne

Observations, experiments and processes. "I know how much you care when you get my name right."

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