Description: MIT 20.219 Becoming the Next Bill Nye: Writing and Hosting the Educational Show, IAP 2015. View the complete course: http://ocw.mit.edu/20-219IAP15.
Instructor: Elizabeth Choe
License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
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PROFESSOR: All right, end of day 11, rough cut screening. The most important thing about this class, and I know I've said before, but I'm going to repeat it, is not so much what you achieve in your final product as it is the ability to be able to look at it and identify its strengths and its shortcomings, and to have the self awareness to be able to look upon your work, and really be able to say, this is where I could have been better and this is what I did well.
And I think that I see those elements of being able to critique and edit and knowing what makes a quote-on-quote good video when I look at your Google Docs and the feedback that you give to your peers. All of that looked excellent, and a lot of you said the same things I was going to say myself. So that is always really awesome. See, the scripts are excellent.
Pre-production is something that I think is super overlooked by lot of people to try to make technical videos. They don't really see how much work goes into the video before the actual cameras come out. And so to the pre-production process, I know, was very intensive, but I think it really paid off, because these scripts are really, really good. I know that after you put together a rough cut, the last thing you want to do is re-shoot things and redo things or add more things, and it can seem discouraging. And I myself felt really guilty while I was giving feedback on some of your videos, because the last thing I want to do, after this super intense two, three week experience, is to ask you guys, hey, shoot a little bit more or try redoing things.
And at the end of the day, it's your call what you want to do, as long as you are able to justify those decisions. I understand that people are working under limited time and limited resources, but at same time, I don't want you to be discouraged just because you have to redo things, because as I said, cutting more than once, literally, is unavoidable. It really is an essential part of the creative process and discovering what path you want your video to take, and it really is what is crucial to move people forward. So, second cuts are just-- they're part of the process to everyone, to professionals. So I wouldn't be so scared or apprehensive to do them. Don't be discouraged if you have to do them. We're around for the rest of the week if you have any questions. Until then, I'm super excited to see where these go.