04/02/2021
So what goes into making a video? It's not as hard as you may think.
Step 1: Find a game you want to make videos of.
I chose "Elite: Dangerous", because it's a 1:1 scale Milky Way galaxy to fly around in, and the story possibilities are limited by your imagination.
Step 2: Find capture software
When I started out, I knew next to NOTHING about making a gaming video. I'd never used video capture software before, but much to my surprise, it turned out that I had some already. The software that came with my video card (AMD Radeon Software, or something like that) had video capture capability, and I love it. I suspect that nvidia software has a similar capability.
Step 3: Find a video editor and a microphone.
My very first video in my first series ("Self-Isolation Expedition 2") was done with the default Windows 10 video editor, but I ditched that for the totally free OpenShot (https://www.openshot.org/). Every video after my first one has been made with it, and I couldn't be happier.
A microphone will let you make the dialogue, of course. I used the default Windows 10 Voice Recorder, and have had no problems with it.
Step 4: Start simple.
Ok, you've got all the stuff you need, and you're inspired to make a masterpiece....that will almost certainly be a flop, because you've never done this before.
If you go back to the first video of my first series, you may start laughing because it's so bad. However, as you go through the series, you'll see that I improved on each one (I consider the 4th video in my first series to be when I hit my stride).
Start simple with your videos. My first one didn't even have dialogue in it. Aside from the fact I couldn't find the microphone, I was just focused on MAKING the video. Once I knew I could make one (and after I had found my microphone), then I added dialogue.
Step 5: Improve with each video.
If you think "YAY! I did it!" after your first video, and don't challenge yourself with your next one, you're not going to get better at it. ALWAYS add one thing you've never added before to each subsequent video. Yes, it'll be more complex to make the video, but it's worth it, because you'll learn something new each time.
Step 6: Don't give yourself burnout in the process of making videos.
I learned this the hard way on my first series. I was trying to crank out a video A DAY, with each one being more complex than the last. After the 5th video, I just stopped playing for a couple months, because I'd run out of ideas, and had no motivation at all.
Now that I'm on my second series ("Self-Isolation Expedition 3"), I don't have self-imposed deadlines. A video takes as long as it takes. I may say when I HOPE a video will be done, but that's not a definite thing.
That's pretty much the basic stuff. If anyone has any specific questions about this, please put them in the comments.
OpenShot is an award-winning free and open-source video editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Create videos with exciting video effects, titles, audio tracks, and animations.
