STP 86 Recording and Editing Your Course Video
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My friend, Julie Harris wants you to hire with confidence, have a profitable mental health practice. That's why she's offering the course money for therapists.
In it, you're going to learn how to hire with confidence so you can have a profitable practice. Click the link in the show notes for the course money for therapists from my friend, Julie Harris at green Oak accounting.
Hello and welcome to the scaling therapy practice. This is your host James Marland. This is the show where we empower mission-driven leaders to launch life-changing. Online courses. Today. And we're going to be talking about the topic of mastering, your course, recording pro tips for smooth edits with the script. Editing an episode or editing, your course can be daunting. There are many options.
There are tools that you can use. There's AI tools. Uh, what can you do to edit your course? If you're you're a little bit of a DIY wire. And you don't want to spend $500 to edit a video, or you don't have a production crew. How can you make those smooth edits yourself to have professional looking videos? Well, we're gonna, we're gonna, I'm going to break down my process. And I'm going to tell you what I do.
A lot of these tips are going to apply no matter what program you use. However, I am going to be talking specifically about the program Descript, which is the, uh, easy to use. Editing recording and editing program. That I use. Um, it's. These scripts. I just ideal for non-techie people. Uh, it has a lot of AI tools.
It has a lot of ease of life tools. And. A lot of the edits are simple. It has pretty much everything you need. For a basic, uh, recording, whether you're capturing screen capture or you're recording. Just like, like I'm doing right now with the faith, you know, my face to the camera, which is on YouTube.
If you want to happen to, uh, find it. So. Remember recording your tasks can feel daunting. But with the right tips and the right tools, you can create professional looking content. Without spending hours in the editing room. So let's get into it.
So first, uh, prepare yourself for a smooth recording. I covered this last episode in the microphone episode, but you always want to start with a test. You always want to start with a test record, a five to 10 seconds. Where you're recording into the microphone doing level check. Making sure it's sounding correctly.
There's no weird pops. There's a there's no. Background noise that is distracting. So do a test, make sure you're recording the audio you want. So do a test recording. The other tip for smooth recording is recording chunks. So if you're new to recording, Uh, it's going to feel awkward and you're going to second guess yourself, and you're going to say I'm a lot and there's might be some dead spaces. So what I like to do, what I like to tell people, if they're going to DIY, if they're going to do the editing themselves. Record one slide at a time. So you have a slide, you record the slide, you get it. Perfect. Take a second breath. Record the next slide. Then in the editing process, you, you move the, uh, the slides together in that way. You can, um, delete the chunks you don't want. And when you have a natural transition, a natural breath, a natural slide change, then you cut out the, the, the take that you don't like. And then you just move on.
So. So it's an easy way to get flawless recording with simple steps. And also you don't have to rerecord the whole thing now that you used to have to do that. When you were making edits, you used to have to rerecord everything if you wanted to get it perfect. Because the editing process was much harder, but the editing process in. Some of these. Um, new tools, plus a plus Descript. It's it's really easy descript.
Uh, it transcribes everything for me so I can edit it like a word document so I can see where there's takes. And then also I can simply drag. Uh, cutout and delete the section I want, or just drag the good section over the bad section and it deletes it. So, uh, there's a way to do that. So when you're, when you're recording the, the takes. Uh, that, that, and you're recording in chunks.
You're able to save the good chunks. Um, now if you're, you know, if the whole thing's a big mess. My tip here is to just rerecord it. Just have you, if there's too many edits. Uh, Many of these online courses, the ones I've seen, they record in chunks, five to 15 minutes. Um, just to get, to convey the message and to allow people to take the course at their own pace.
So they record these five and 15 minute chunks. Well, if it takes you 30 minutes to edit a 10 minute chunk, just rerecord it, like really. Save yourself some time and you'll probably do it better the second time. So. Rerecord in chunks. And the other thing I like to do is I like to clap,
In between bad takes.
So I can, when I'm editing, I can either see it in the, in the text or there's a, a layout view, a timeline view where I can see the audio and I can see the clap inside the audio. So I just edit in between the claps and normally. Uh, after I, I clap at a section, I edit everything before that and just replace it with what I say.
So. Uh, that's a tip. Uh, clap. You can see it in the wave form.
I want to mention other editing techniques that are specific to the descript program. One is of course the transcription. I use that a lot. Like I, before I had the transcription. I used to have to listen to everything. And, uh, edit. Like listen to things at two X speed and look for these edit spots. But with the transcription, they're easy to see because you're editing like a word document.
So. Uh, if you're doing it yourself, find those things, find a program that makes it easy for you to edit.
And it allows me to use the best takes. Now. Uh, another editing technique is. The script does have an AI feature where it says find the best takes. So, if you are doing the chunk version that I'm recommending and you are doing the best takes. The AI will look for your best takes. And it will stitch them together automatically. I found that this works. Maybe 80% of the time, it gets you 80% of the way there.
And sometimes I've had to re-edit things when I use it.
It could be because I'm. Uh, some, some of my videos are 30 to an hour long. And so maybe it was too long for it. But that could be something you could use if you're just doing a 5, 10, 10 minute chunk of video and you're recording six slides. And you have two retakes. You could use the AI to, I just would a. I wouldn't trust it a hundred percent.
Not yet. Anyways. Like it's very exciting what it's doing. I mean, it also makes social media clips and highlight reels, uh, that are pretty good. And then you can apply a template like a video template to it and create a reel in just a few minutes. Uh, with your content so you can use it that way, but I would just be careful with the AI tools.
It's good, but not great yet. That's my impression. Um, So I, and because I, I started out editing right now, it's easier for me to edit it, but if you're, if you're just starting out, you might want to try the AI tool and see. If it gets the. The takes for you. The other, the other thing that I do for editing is I like to add a little bit of intro music.
So, uh, what I do is I layer the music. Um, before the, the, the video. And I also put maybe an intro slide there. And I use an effect, I guess, called ducking. I'm not sure where ducking comes from. If you're in music or audio engineer, you probably know what ducking means, but ducking means that when the music. Plays over dead, a dead spot. The music is loud or it's normal value, man. It, when it starts to play over the script or it starts to play over the words. The music. Um, mutes itself, but it doesn't go away.
So it's like music in the background for a few minutes. So I like to use the docking. Um, Uh, at effect. In my, uh, courses for some just extra professionalism.
So, uh, there's a lot of little features like that. There's other things in there that I don't use. The there's a lot of audio, um, leveling, I think it auto levels for me. So when I record it goes, it just levels the audio. So that sounds, At the same volume so that people don't have to turn up and turn down their volume.
Uh, the last thing about editing is final touches, trimming, fading, and uploading. So trimming. Is something I do at the beginning where I cut out the dead space and trim the trim, the content right up to where I start to speak. And then I also trim the end because often when, at the end of the video, I'm like reaching to. I'm reaching to turn off the video or height, roll my eyes or I smile or I look away or I have an extra time.
So that's called Treme. You trim. That out and makes it easy with either drag the words, , in the timeline, or cut them out with the, in the transcript. Or there is a cutting a blade tool where you can like, just. Cut. It's like cutting film. It's like still uses the film analogy where you cut the film and then select the film that you don't want and then hit delete, and it's gone. So even, uh, even a two second fade in and fade out can make your video feel more professional instead of just popping and being like, Hey, I'm here. Uh, fade in shows a little bit of professionalism and it helps the first moment. Um, give interest to the first moment. The other thing I do. When I'm doing, when I'm putting these up on YouTube. Is the, the script has a AI, uh, it says YouTube description.
So we'll take your transcript if you've transcribed it and it will.
Turn your transcript into a paragraph summary. With timestamps now, why this is important for you too. Is because YouTube, when I upload this description into the YouTube video, YouTube takes the tine stink. Timestamps puts it in the description and now you can click them. It like breaks it up into chapters and you can click the timestamps and take people to exactly what they want.
So it's a neat little use. Four. Getting a little more out of your YouTube video. If you're posting your content on YouTube or you're posting a summary on YouTube.
The other tip I just have for you is just practice it's. Uh, the tools can be intimidating at first. Um, when, whenever you use something the first time you use it, it is. It's new to you. You're not going to do your best job the first time you use it. But I think if you enjoy this type of thing, Uh, there there's nothing better than taking your RA, your RA video, your RA course, and turning it into something that is professionally looking good looking and it students will want to look at and see and watch.
And you did it yourself.
Okay to summarize. Record into chunks. Make it easier on yourself. Get five to 10 good minutes. Pause. Record your next chunk. If that chunk isn't good.
That's okay. Clap. Say, take two. And then rerecord re record your next chunk then. Delete the bad stuff. Keep the good stuff. Nobody knows. Uh, it makes it much easier and less daunting to record five good minutes 10 then to say, I gotta be perfect for 30 minutes or 15 minutes. It's really hard to be perfect for 30 minutes. use a tool that makes your life easier.
I use Descript. I like it. It's not incredibly expensive. It's easy for beginners. They have good support. They have a discord channel that you can go in and ask questions from community members. So, uh, get, get a program that you like, um, that has the features that you want that will help you record.
finally. To put some professional Polish on it, trim the video, fade the video in the music. At timestamps for a professional look. And, um, just do the, do a few simple things that make the video feel. Professionally made.
So those are my tips for recording your video content. If you're ready to create a high quality course without the tech overwhelm. Start small practice, the steps. And soon you're going to have courts video that you're proud of. Thanks for tuning in and put your mission in motion.
