DEV Community: Dara Oladapo

My Video Content Creation Process

Dara Oladapo — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 07:45:57 +0000

As you may know, I make videos on YouTube (and TikTok) and I stream (although that has been on break for a while). A lot of my contacts have asked me how I make the videos and how I manage to be consistent. I hope to share answers to the first of the question in this blog post. In coming posts, I will write about consistency among other content promotion strategies. Let’s get started.

What and When

The first thing I think about is what I want to talk about in the video – it might be a video to answer someone’s question, or some video about a dev or cloud technology, it might be an unboxing video.

When I think about this, I put it in my To-Do List, so I do not forget about it. I then have to decide if I want to make the video soon or later and set a reminder to do such in the To-do App. If I have things to do to get ready to make such a video, I will list them also as sub-items in the to-do item.

How

The next thing I think about in the process of making a video is how to deliver the content – and it could be one or more of the following.

Would I record the screen video first and do a voice-over later?
Do I need to create a script for this video or freestyle it?
Do I need/want to show my face in this video?
Do I use my local machine or a machine in the cloud or a sandbox environment?

Tools

After I decide on how to make the video, I would then think of the tools to use for recording and editing. This is mostly from my list of software tools (Check out my media kit).

Do I need lights, do I need the camera (which of the cameras should I use), should I shoot in 1080p or 4k?

After that, it’s pretty much left to creation.

Create

Creating is a lot of work – arguably one of the hardest parts of making content. You can spend 30 min or more recording just a 3 min video if not prepared mentally, physically, and technically. There was a particular time I “recorded” a 1-hour video only to realize I did not hit the record button.

My creation process is easy if I have everything planned out (which I sometimes do in my head).

I set up NCH Mix Pad to and test all the audio II want to record and I close the door leading to my home studio. If I am recording video, I turn on the lights and camera, ensure I am getting the right feed in and set my teleprompter (if running a scripted recording).

An extra step for screen recording is to set up my screen capture software to the right screen and input and verify that it’s getting the right feed. I also verify that I have the right amount space and all unnecessary tasks are stopped.

Next is to HIT RECORD, wait a few seconds to ensure all recording channels are recording and then start speaking and/or capturing the screen. Sometimes, I record more than once when I make mistakes, or my devices just decide not to be nice to me. But on most days, I only record once. For unboxing videos, I most times record the unboxing first, then narrate over it.

Edit and Encode

This most times is the hardest step in the creation process for me. Here are the steps that go into that:

Remove any noise from the recording: if I am lucky, there would not be so much work here
Compress audio: so that I have some professional feel to it

- Export audio: most times I export WAV for video post-production, this give me high quality audio.

I get video in from the camera into my storage and post-production software.

If it’s just a talking video, I use Filmora Pro
If I do screen-recording, I will use Camtasia
- I sync audio and video: with Filmora Pro, it’s automatically done most times. For Camtasia, I still must do this manually (I wish auto sync can be added to Camtasia).
- I cut out the fluffs – all the unnecessary silence, unforgiveable mistakes and I speed up some long running screen captures.
- I put some background music if I feel the need to
- I play over one time to be sure everything in place

Final sub-step here is to export(encode) the video to a .mp4 file.
If it’s a tutorial video, I mostly do 1080p (that’s 1920×1080)
Head talk video, I do 4k (3840×2160)
For TikTok and YouTube Shorts, 1080×1920

Publish and Design Assets

After encoding is done, I upload the video to the target platform – YouTube, TikTok mostly. As upload goes on, I get on Canva to design the thumbnail for the YouTube video. Nothing fancy. Just a text with the title and an image. I then export the thumbnail image and upload as custom thumbnail for such video.

For YouTube, I do the following:

Modify the title.
Set description.
Put 2 or more hashtags.
Add tags – I use Tubebuddy and VidIQ to help get the right tags based on my title.
Make the video go live right away or schedule it for a later date (which I mostly do these days)

For TikTok, I put a short caption and some hashtags and post. Most times I leave multiple videos on draft for posting later.

After I’m done publishing, I then start the final bit which is sharing the video link to various platforms. I have set up some automation to tweet and post to LinkedIn once I post a video for YouTube – so I have that bit covered. Next is to share to Facebook – my personal profile and page. I then share on my WhatsApp Status and to my special contacts on WhatsApp.

Over the next couple of days/weeks, it gets automatically posted with some of the automation that I’ve setup.

That’s it. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if this helped you and the way you create videos.

Reflections towards a major milestone

Dara Oladapo — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 19:30:00 +0000

It is another birthday of mine – and I am incredibly happy to be alive. I have made it a practice now to have a reflection on every birthday I have and share some of those reflections with you.

The things I am grateful for

God

I am grateful for God – yes. He is the source of everything I am and all I do. All I do is to promote his goodness and bring others to the light of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Family

One of my daughter’s rhyme songs goes this way.

I’m thankful for my family

I’m thankful for my friends

I’m thankful for the things I have,

The Thank You’s never end

What are you thankful for?

What are you thankful for?

What are you thankful for?

Hmmmm…

Source: https://lyricstranslate.com

And I must say it’s one of my favourite songs. Family is everything for me. They are the point of support when things are going well and when everything else fails. I’m especially thankful for my wife (awesome as always) and daughter (she is a great gift from God) – they are my constant source of joy and inspiration.

Friends

My favourite song about friend is by Dionne Warwick and Friend – That’s what friends are for. Having friends, you can always count on is a rare blessing. More importantly having friends that push you to always be a better version of yourself is a priceless gift.

Reflection towards a major milestone

Let’s get reflecting, shall we?

One of major lessons I learnt during the last 365 days was that if I want something, I should just go for it. If I can’t do it immediately, I should make achievable plans towards achieving it.
I am responsible for taking care of my mental and emotional health – I should not let anything affect it.
I should pace myself to avoid burnout – Doing too much can be a recipe for breakdown.
Spend time with those who love and value you.
The hours in the day are finite – calibrate your actions and tasks to fit.

The next 365

In this new year, the plan is to be more intentional about achieving my long-term goals – taking daily actions to achieve them.

No negativities – just good vibes.

The Dev Advocate

Dara Oladapo — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 11:48:05 +0000

Becoming a Developer Advocate

A friend reached out to me on Facebook a few days ago and asked me how he could become a Developer Advocate.

Here goes my response. Maybe I start with a story to bring some points home.

Who is a Developer Advocate?

In my view, a Developer Advocate is someone who “preaches” or enables the “preaching” of technology in one way or another.

The Story

I first had official contact with Microsoft in 2012 when my team registered for the Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition and we had the Microsoft Open Conference in my school – the Federal University of Technology, Akure.

I met Shina – who would then become my first boss and mentor. My first impression of him – I want to be like this man. Because I loved the way he “preached” Microsoft Dev Tech. He was the Developer Platforms Evangelism (DPE) Lead for Nigeria and WECA at that time. I followed Microsoft Tech like a faithful disciple from then – installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview and bugging Shina many nights when I had questions and issues with the OS. He would kindly answer all my questions and give me tips. I then ensured I would help others with any issues.

I remember Eva – my internship partner whose role wasn’t as technical as mine, he would ensure that all my speaking engagements were set, plan the events and execute – I would come in to give the tech talks and demos. We both reported directly to Kendra who was a mix of both before we joined Microsoft. Shina was a mix of us all – he clears the pathway, ensures we have the budget needed to execute, guides and “protect”.

My 2 Cents

To be honest, I’m not sure there are hard and fast rules or guides to becoming a Developer Advocate or Technology Evangelist. So, I’ll give a few pointers I can muster (while taking some points from those who are way ahead of me in this line of impact).

Be ready to help someone: take time out of your day to think of how you can improve someone’s technical experience
Don’t be a dick about what you know: I understand you may know a lot, do not make others who don’t know as much as you or do not meet your expectation to feel bad for now knowing things.
Show Up (Credits: Scott Hanselman): if you’re supposed to be on a weekly stream, show up and stream, people are waiting to listen.
There are more out there who are ready to listen than you know, so speak:
Be consistent: if you do your advocacy at specific intervals like podcasts, video lessons, streams, etc, try as much as possible not to break the flow. I understand it’s not easy when you have your day job calling.

How to Start?

What’s that idea you have of helping other developers?

Just start it
Plan
Get feedback
Connect with others

Are there times you would feel you’re making no impact? Yes. But as my friend Sam would say – we move. We don’t stop. If it’s just one life we’re able to make better, it’s worth it.

Got anything to chip in, kindly add them in the comments section. Thanks for reading.