AP 0897: Should I Post Full Video Takes or Edit out My Mistakes?

AskPat 897 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 897 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have an awesome question coming in from Michael, but before we get to Michael's question, I want to thank today's sponsor, which is DesignCrowd. You know what? If you're stuck for ideas on how to develop your logo, or your website, or business cards, or anything design-related, make sure you check out DesignCrowd. It's a website that helps businesses crowdsource custom graphics from over a half million designers worldwide. Whether you're a dentist, or an accountant, a DJ, a photographer, it doesn't really matter. You can get the perfect design every time or you get your money back, which is cool. Check out DesignCrowd.com/askpat to learn more and download your free guide to crowdsourcing great logos, graphics, and websites for your business, and you can get $100 off there, too. Again, DesignCrowd.com/askpat and make sure you enter the promo code, “AskPat”.

All right. Now here's today's question from Michael.

Michael: Hey, Pat. My name is Michael Patrick and I have a blog, which is StillFeel21.com. Initially, when I launched my blog all my content was of a written nature, so they were written blog posts for about the first six months. Then, just recently I started dipping my toe into producing and posting some video content. The way I do it is I shoot everything that I'm trying to convey all in one take. If I goof up on a word or if I'm not happy with it, I will do an entire retake until I'm satisfied.

My question for you is, should I start editing individual bits and lines together to then compile an all-star or best take possible? My concerns about doing that is that I'm worried that could potentially take away from authenticity, take away from me just being transparent and real with the camera and the audience. I'm also not fully satisfied in my editing skills to make it really be a clean, concise, edited version. The upside of doing this, though, I would then eliminate my countless retakes where just one misspoken word could ruin an entire take.

That's my question. Should I edit versus try to do authentic, full-run takes? Hey, Pat, thanks for everything that you do. My blog has been keeping me way outside of my comfort zone, which I do recognize as a good thing. But you have been a really positive and reassuring voice through this whole process. Thanks for everything, Pat.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Michael. Thank you so much for this question. Man, I had the same issues with video. I felt like for the longest time I had to get it right on the first try. This was even going back, and dating back to even before I put my face on camera. I felt like every screencast or screen recording video had to be shot in one take. If I messed up even five minutes in, I'd have to feel like I'd have to start over. I don't know why I didn't do that. I felt like I had to be on a perfect run, because, like you said, it feels more natural. It's more genuine that way, or so it seems.

But what really got me was just—I was not producing a lot of videos because I had just struggled so much with trying to get it right every time. I felt like I just knew going into a video shoot, or a screen recording, it was going to take an hour to run a good ten-minute video. Just to get ten minutes of content, it was going to take me over an hour because it would take at least six or seven tries at best to get it right. That's not good.

I would highly recommend, Michael, that you focus on your best takes. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't necessarily need every sentence to be its own edit. Which there are actually some YouTube personalities that go pretty heavy on the editing between takes. It's just a different style of video. There's a guy you might want to check out. His name is Phil DeFranco, or Philip DeFranco. He has a very, very popular news-based entertainment/vlog thing going on. He was one of the first vloggers that I ever followed. Anyway, I loved his style. It is really engaging because he just speaks to you very quickly and it's edit, to edit, to edit, to edit, to edit . . . Now you don't have to get to that point, but I would highly recommend you check that out just to see how even though there are edits there, it's not disingenuous. You know that he didn't do all those things in one take. He just took his best clips.

What I would recommend doing is, Michael, trying your best to get through it in one take. If you mess up, just pick up from the last stopping point that made sense and start over at that point. You might want to have—and this might be a great exercise to do, is take the content that you want to do and break it down into maybe five or six different chunks. That way you're focusing on perfect little chunks. But once you pass a certain point, well, then you know you're not going to have to ever need to edit that first two minutes ever again. You're going to work on the next two minutes.

What you can do to actually help with the editing is—this is something I learned from my buddy, Caleb—that you can do a very, very slow zoom in. One that's almost not noticeable until you go back to where you were. What I mean by that is maybe at the end of that initial minute run or whatever, the last fifteen seconds, you're zooming in a little bit. It just adds a little bit more engagement. Like, “Whoa, something's happening here,” to the viewer, even subconsciously. Then when you edit, all you do is go back to the regular view. It doesn't seem unnatural at all. It just seems like a cut. It just seems like, “Okay, well, here's the next stopping point.”

I think, actually, that's a great thing to have these stopping points, or break points, or visual break points in the middle of your video, because it really gives people, similar to a blog post, that next section, or that next headline, or that reset button before potentially getting lost or going somewhere else. I would recommend doing it that way.

Retakes, those things are fine. You can also add some clicks like this, or claps if you mess up, so that when you go in and edit you'll be able to find the ones that didn't work out and you can pick up from the last click, which you'll see in the audio format, the blip, that click, or the three claps. That will be where you picked up the best take. You just keep doing that until the last one that you see. That's how you know that that's the best take. Then you use that one and then you edit the videos in those ways. Try it one time and I'll guarantee that you will have nobody who says, “Hey, man, you didn't do that in one take this time.” Nobody cares about that. What they care about is just, are they getting the great content? It actually might be more engaging in this new format, too.

Michael, thank you so much for the question. I appreciate you. I want to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show as well, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you. If you didn't hear, I'm actually, in about two weeks, coming out with a brand new course. It's called Power-Up Podcasting. It's there to serve those of you who want to get your podcast up and running, you're just not quite sure how to do it. You've gone through some of the free material online. You just need a little bit more in-depth, step-by-step information, a little bit of hand-holding, some office hours so that you can get access to me, so that you can get your questions answered, and just really, really good videos to help walk you through the process. Plus, not just how to set up your podcast, but how to launch it, how to know what to talk about, how to know how to reach out to guests who will say yes, and all those kinds of things. It's all included. PowerUpPodcasting.com is where you go. Sign up for the wait list there. It's coming out in mid-July, so you'll be the first to know if you sign up for that wait list. Again, one more time, that link: PowerUpPodcasting.com.

All right, thanks so much. Here is a quote from Winston Churchill. That is: “It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” I'd be curious to know what his definition of “too far ahead” is, because I still think it's important to plan ahead . . . but I understand what he's saying. Anyway, Winston, if you hear this and you want to get on a call with me, let me know.

Anyways, thanks guys, take care. I appreciate you and I look forward to serving you in the next episode. Bye for now.