I like to stream movies while hanging laundry. I prop my phone up above my washing machine, ramp up the volume, and I put on a movie I’ve already seen before to keep me company. Recently, I was watching 22 Jump Street while hanging up my clothes, and it occurred to me just how clever it is.
And just like that, I started writing another episode of Story Stripdown. This time, I wanted to try something different. Instead of a regular audio-only podcast with an accompanying 90-second quick-summary reel, I wanted to make a full video essay. That meant I had to design a workflow to efficiently produce a 10-minute video essay that could also be exported as an audio-only podcast, and an accompanying 90-second reel. I did, but at the same time, I had no idea just how much work that would entail.
An audio-only podcast allows me to waffle on and on, for as long as I’d like. The restrictions there would be editing out all my erms and you-knows, as well as putting in the occasional audio clips and music. But filling it up with 10 minutes of relevant video clips was quite the herculean task! I spent a whole afternoon capturing clips from the movie, but that wasn’t enough. Then I had to get the side clips from the other movies mentioned. Then I ran out of footage and had to forage for more. And that’s not even factoring in how I ruined a whole batch of clips by capturing them at the wrong frame rate and had to redo them all.
What normally takes me about 2-3 days (including the time to research and write the script) now blowfished to about a full week’s worth of work. And was it worth it?
I’m not sure. I would very much prefer the agility I enjoyed before.
Anyway, take a look and see what you think!
