I am up much later than I should be trying to hammer out another cut of the next Newberry Minute. I keep learning valuable lessons, but the incremental nature of the project means that I don’t feel like I can benefit from them. What are these lessons?

1. Go slow!

There is no need to rush. This has led to really questionable shots of items–bad pans and tilts and so on.

2. Is the object open or closed?

I did not appreciate until this recently. But I think these short videos work best when there is a sense of working through the object. In part this is because, at least in my opinion, that it is very obvious when you are jumping back and forth between an object that is closed then open then closed again–all in the space of 30 seconds!

3. Keep all hands on the object

Another subtle visual thing that I did not appreciate is that it is much easier to cut back and forth between shots of the object and the presenter if there are hands on it. In the current video, I have a few shots of the book just sitting there, passively, surrounded by blue felt. It is very jarring to then cut to a shot of the presenter holding the object and turning pages.

In sum, I hope that I become more proficient at making these things. They are feeling a bit burdensome at the moment.