The first 60 odd videos on my YouTube channel had the following process:

• Code up a project (3 - 4 hours)
• Switch on screen record + microphone (2 - 5 hours)
• Edit (0.5 - 1 hour)
• Create a thumbnail (1 hour)
• Upload (0.5 hours)

Which worked, in that it allowed me to find a style to relay educational material via videos, gain a few thousand subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views within 2+ years.

The problem was that the quality of production had quickly plateaued. There was nothing that allowed my videos to stand out against the thousands of other coding tutorials that were on YouTube.

On the other end of the spectrum you have channels such as Fireship and Hyperplexed. I’m willing to bet that they spend more time on script writing and post-production, than recording footage and audio. Which you can tell by the sheer quality of their work.

Not only is their work informative, but actually a pleasant experience to view.

YouTube viewers have a good eye and appreciation for quality content. Something that delivers some form of value whilst at the same time remains engaging. Has some personality, has some life. Now a screen recording of some code with a voice to follow it may deliver value, but tends to lack the rest.

With all of this in mind, I decided to change my production process. It’s now more like this:

• Code up a project (3 - 4 hours)
• Screen record (1 hour)
• Write a script (2 - 3 hours)
• Record audio (1 - 2 hours)
• Post-production (8 - 10 hours)
• Create a thumbnail (1 hour)
• Upload (0.5 hours)

Yes, overall a lot more time is spent per video. However this includes experimenting with different modes of expression within the Adobe Creative Suite, which is a challenge in and of itself.

This process does not mean that the quality of educational content decreases, on the contrary. Great production quality should be there for two reasons. Enhancing the educational material and improving the viewers experience.

Furthermore, the time spent in post-production is always worth it. Since I adopted this new process, I’ve started to see new forms of comments on my channel.

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