I have a new respect for tutorial makers

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

I'm gearing up to send the hats of Theory11 my first flourish tutorial. And man, making a spoken tutorial has been an absolute painstaking process.
It's not like I don't know the flourish, but it seems like I keep messing up what I want to say in between each take.
One shorting the entire thing was an absolute no-go.
So I've been doing 'takes' for a total of 7 hours all day today. I'm up to a 'good' 10 minutes of footage. I have to give it to you guys and gals who have made tutorials. There's A LOT of work that goes into it.

So far, the only fun I have had so far has been making the preview trailer.

 

[Josh Burch]

It is so hard! It is crazy hard to figure out what to say and do to clearly communicate it. I totally feel your pain!

 

[CaseyRudd]

I'm gearing up to send the hats of Theory11 my first flourish tutorial. And man, making a spoken tutorial has been an absolute painstaking process.
It's not like I don't know the flourish, but it seems like I keep messing up what I want to say in between each take.
One shorting the entire thing was an absolute no-go.
So I've been doing 'takes' for a total of 7 hours all day today. I'm up to a 'good' 10 minutes of footage. I have to give it to you guys and gals who have made tutorials. There's A LOT of work that goes into it.

So far, the only fun I have had so far has been making the preview trailer.

Haha - it's definitely a lot trickier than what it seems. A little tip that could save you tons of time: Script your explanations before hand on a sheet of paper, etc. Not cardistry related, but working with Wayne Houchin was always easy because he would have everything scripted out before the shoot, saving tons of time and maximizing the time we had.

Write down the explanation on a Word document or something of the sort in a way that is the most clear, concise, and direct. This way, you have everything you want to say, and can adjust anything you want without ever uttering the word "ummm" over and over.

It's very thoughtful planning but it will save you a lot of time and make the production a lot more professional. Hope this helps a little bit!

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

Haha - it's definitely a lot trickier than what it seems. A little tip that could save you tons of time: Script your explanations before hand on a sheet of paper, etc. Not cardistry related, but working with Wayne Houchin was always easy because he would have everything scripted out before the shoot, saving tons of time and maximizing the time we had.

Write down the explanation on a Word document or something of the sort in a way that is the most clear, concise, and direct. This way, you have everything you want to say, and can adjust anything you want without ever uttering the word "ummm" over and over.

It's very thoughtful planning but it will save you a lot of time and make the production a lot more professional. Hope this helps a little bit!

What's funny is that I did have a script--initially. What turned into 'this is what I'm going to say' turned into: 'HEY! Add this helpful note in here!'
'Add this there!'

So at the end of it, it looked like this monster with 18 different appendages. I mean, I was explaining how to do straddle grip for a flourish I'm listing under red-difficult. I lacked a bit of perspective, but it's a bit of a long tutorial for one move. Nuances. All about the nuances.

I spent a lot of time preparing for it, but I think I put way too much pressure on myself for it. I'll make a more 'infallible' script for the future.

 

[sethw]

I'm the opposite, i can easily film a 10 minute tutorial with one or two cuts but when it comes to making the preview i'm completly clueless D:

 

[Khaleel Olaiky]

I have exactly the same problem, the tutorial i'm editing these days has a lot of cuts, but i thought the reason is that English is not my first language but now i realized that this is not the main reason, making a script is such a good tip Casey, thanks .... i tried to kind of practice the explaining part on my own few times and then try to film it but that wasn't that helpful.

A question: does having more cuts in the tutorial make it worse and rejected from the wire?

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

I don't think the amount of cuts matter, as long as they are all done in a way that makes it easy to learn and in a way that doesn't make you, as an artist, look sloppy.

 

[TylerScottIllusionist]

I had my best friend who is a film major help me with my trailer and tutorial. We devoted several weekends to doing nothing but filming and editing. In fact, one weekend we had zero hours of sleep between the both of us between filming and editing.

But I was pretty happy with the end result. It turned out to be decent enough and we learned a lot from it. Plus it's nice to see all the feedback and rewards from making it. I had an absolute blast. You should check out my one forum post on here about creating magic. I give some pointers that I learned along the way that might help boost your morale.

Best of luck to you Brett!

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

All right. Sent the video to the Theory11 team last night. What sucks is that I need to send them a new trailer video as I made a typo error in the one I sent

I'll have to see what happens first

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

All is full of pipe!

During Thankgiving dinner, I get an email saying my tutorial was approved!

Even though I did the best as I possibly could, I had this negative expectation that it would get rejected for X, Y, and Z.
The missus even announced the news to everyone at dinner. Fortunately I had a deck of cards on hand and a demonstration for context.

Even though I think it's a far cry from dislodging 'Daddy Tie' from #1 on the chart, I'm just glad the team is giving me the opportunity. ..AND give the good news during Thankgiving dinner; huge good timing win, by the way.

I'm guessing that after the resubmitted video gets approved (unless correcting the statement that the tutorial is '9 minutes' instead of '18 minutes' lands it into unapproved territory); I'm going to take a WAG and say that 'Oni Cut' will be up December 1.

Thanks for the holiday win, T11 team!

 

[Justin.Morris]

Hey congrats! I'm excited to see it!

 

[graffhead]

you did it!!!!
i really want to post mine too but it looks really hard because i don't really have any experience with filming and also don't have a camera
but i will do it someday

and, don't tell me its a one handed cut

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

you did it!!!!
i really want to post mine too but it looks really hard because i don't really have any experience with filming and also don't have a camera
but i will do it someday

and, don't tell me its a one handed cut

Oh, it's one-handed. And it's a doozy.

And don't worry about anything fancy. I did everything off of IPhone 6, a hallway, and Windows Live Movie Maker; just with what I could work with and afford.
Casey mentioned the scripting, and it'll help. Trying to wing a verbal tutorial will not bode well.

I'll help you out if you would like

 

[opticalshadow]

Congrats man, hope it makes it though!

 

[yipyiphiphip]

Top Five Now!

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

Top Five Now!

I saw that and nearly shat a brick.

And it looks like it's going to go further up in the list--even though the 'stars' are less than stellar. Not sure why or how to improve from that. My guess is that the move really IS difficult. If that's the case, mission accomplished! I made something legitimately difficult

Thanks to everyone for the support!

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

In a funny turn of events, 'Oni Cut' is currently #4, but two of the star ratings disappeared and only a 1 star rating remains.

All right. For anyone who actually has the download, any feedback?