[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cffpRjIUePA&w=560&h=315]

The more I record and edit video the more I realize I need to be more careful in how I speak for video. Specifically, I need to cultivate two new skills. First I need to better break up my sentencing. I notice this whenever I want to cut something out of the video. It takes a lot of effort to find just the right break point between words or sounds. It might help me to do multiple takes of each segment, but I also do not want to lose that natural sense to my speech patterns.

What is more important for me to address is some of the imprecision that shows up in my casual speaking style. For example, in this video I start to talk about two types of sermons. There are actually quite a few different types of sermons. What I should have said is that I tend to do two different types of sermons: topical and textual. I also should have defined textual clearly, it is the style I’m preparing for my message to EcclesiaX. My friend Robert commented that in my maker videos I play loose with the technical terms of carpentry. Perfectly understandable for a hobby carpenter, and I try to correct these mistakes with text in the video. What is less understandable is the imprecision in my talk about subjects for which I am highly trained.

In the classroom a large part of what makes lecturing so exhausting (much as I love it) is that you need to be very careful how you phrase everything you say, you cannot play loose with technical details. I call this being ‘on’ all the time. Often at the end of a lecture I just need to sit and rest, which is fine, it lets me know I’ve done good work giving my best to the students. In terms of my videos I want to have a similar level of ‘on’ness. I think the answer is to record shorter bursts of video, because it is when I go off on a rabbit trail that I get the most in trouble. I expect that video work is a craft like any other and that I’ll improve with each one I post.

I would love to hear your comments about my first maker video for preaching.