1: Don’t underestimate how long it will take to edit your videos! Before becoming a Udemy instructor I taught at a for-profit college, where live lectures were recorded daily. This left me with the impression I could knock out a course in the same amount of time I could at my teaching position. While it was true, I could create a course at that speed, I was confronted with the brutal reality that I would also be creating it at that quality, and I hold myself to higher standards than that. Editing took about 2x as long as making the video! My course was completed 3 months later than I had originally planned due to not considering editing. 2: Record when the kids are sleeping or at school, or even better, record somewhere other than home! I learned during my course creation process the walls in my house are paper thin! Even with a shotgun mike and being located in an upstairs room my children still managed to audio bomb my recordings. Fortunately, I was able to edit those portions out without having to re-record the video (most of the time). If you are married, also communicate with your partner on when is a good time to record and when is not. I made some big pushes to finish my course and I will admit my marriage suffered for it. My wife largely supported my endeavor into Udemy initially, but as summer rolled around and the kids were wild and free, she got overwhelmed trying to keep them quiet. 3: Create a system for when you edit and when you record Video As a solution to the sound issues in my home and due to editing taking twice as long as recording, I developed a system where I recorded during hours when the kids were not active or were at school, then spent the time they were at home editing. I didn’t start this way though! Their rambunctiousness turned into a bit of a blessing, as the system worked very well for me! Before that, I experimented by first recording an entire section, then doing all the editing at the end. For my 1st section, this worked fine, as it was only a handful of videos and the editing didn’t take long. When it came to the second section, it became regrettable! By the time I finished editing all the videos, nearly a month had passed since I last recorded. It was a struggle to pick up where I left off. I think there is no one size fits all system when it comes to this, and it likely depends on the course you are creating, but it is something important to consider, especially if it is your 1st time tackling course creation.
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