„Forget a book !!! We need an online course !!!” – Benny Drees, in a comment on one of my Youtube videos
I was looking at the talented Dave2D on Youtube and wondered how he does it. How many people does he subcontract? How big is his team? I’m certain he’s not editing himself, what is his workflow? How does he record his voice in such a small, concrete-walled room without any reverb at all? How does he study the facts he’s talking about? Is he even involved in creating each video’s outline? Is everything prepared for him beforehand – the bullet points, graphs, animations, the devices he’s presenting in his show (with or without table), everything – and does he thus work like a news anchor does? Just without teleprompter and instead with freedom of speech? Or does he prepare everything by himself? What would interest me most is this: when in his life and how did he learn to speak in such a smooth, flawless, uninterrupted flow?
I will continue with daily writing for a little while longer. Then stop in mid June, or end of June, somewhen around that time. Daily writing is something I feel confident about. It’s very time consuming and demanding, but I don’t feel stuck or overly overwhelmed. That’s why I had the idea today that – after daily writing – I might try daily videos for a while.
End of June, that’s pretty soon. Scary. That’s why I feel it’s time to focus more on writing out actual movement sequences. I don’t have a team, I don’t have script writers. I will probably have to be my own script writer. But I doubt that I will have enough time to write and film at the same time. I spend 3 to 6 hours a day on my blog posts alone. I’m not a fast writer at all. The whole idea of daily video making worries me down to the bone. I would not even have the money to employ a ghostwriter short-term. What good would such a ghostwriter be?
My scripts would need to have defined, concrete learning goals, formulated via its vehicle: movements. That’s the thing: the movements are like words. The movements are the vehicle for meaning. Any spoken word in a meaningful conversation is spoken for a reason. Any written word in an essay is written for a reason. And similarly, every movement in my movement sequences is there for a reason. Every movement carries meaning, is there for you to discover something very specific. And at the same time is also open for the unspecific.
I don’t know where to start. Take „Shoulder Circles – where to go from here”, for example, this is my draft:
Shoulder Circles, Lines: forwards-backwards, upwards-downwards, Arm Positions: hand standing in front of the chest, arms extended forwards and on top of each other, arm extended resting on the side, arm hanging down behind, arm long over the top, Leading with: shoulder, elbow, hand, Hip Circles, Lines, Leg Positions: folded on top of each other, lower leg bent – upper leg long, Leading: hip joint, knee, foot of long leg, clarify: Movements of the pelvis: turning in sagittal, transversal, frontal planes, auxiliary lessons, Combination of Shoulder and Hip Circles: rolling, twist initiated from shoulders, twist initiated from the hips, Constraint with both knees on the floor, hands interlaced (arms extended)
That’s material for probably two weeks of daily videos right there, each 10-15 minutes long. Maybe even three weeks. Or, maybe I should forget about a script, instead teach to a student directly. Improvise it, film it. And pull a transcript from the video afterwards, instead of creating a script beforehand. Would that work? Is this something I would like to do? Or should I be the only one on camera? Or should there be a pretty model, an actress, like in the Youtube project „Yoga With Adriene”? Or maybe I could teach to a person, but not film that person, and then play the recording to myself, and film myself moving to the lesson, like I did in my „Good Night Shoulder Circles” video. Would I need to rent a studio? Would I need more equipment? Would I need a team? Would I need more funding and all the extra problems that would come with that?
I don’t know about all that. I’m happy where I am now, where we are now. I’m happy with the slow and steady progress. The small but constant, organic growth. The flow feels gentle, benevolent, not overwhelming. I need time for my work with clients in person, I need time for my writing and filming. I need time for my own learning and studying. And I need time to just be myself. Nowadays we are required to be many things. But not everyone can be everything. Maybe I can be the content manager, and the script writer, and the camera man, and the gaffer, and the sound engineer, and the teacher, and the personal assistant, and the editor, and the channel manager, maybe I can also be the project manager… but I cannot be the business person. I cannot make big decisions, big changes in direction all at once. There’s still some weeks of writing ahead. Sweet writing. And maybe I won’t replace daily writing with daily filming, but just stop daily writing. For a while. We will figure something out. We will take it step by step.