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The kind of video tutorial you DON'T want for your fabulous new software.


rasputin1963

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http://vimeo.com/couchmode/user5021932/videos/sort:newest/16237232

 

 

You've spent, I dunno, many goodly thousands of dollars in building an important new software, which you hope will be competitive and useful within a pre-existing professional sphere.

 

Done.

 

Then you ask your 15-year-old niece-- she's cute as a bug's ear-- to cobble together a video tutorial demonstrating to users how to use this rather tricky new software.

 

She, in a high-pitched Neo-Val accent, amply laced with New Jersey and Ghettolicious pronunciations, chants the procedure in the earnest, but slightly clueless, voice of a toddler saying her bedtime prayers.

 

She uses Windows MOVIE MAKER to do it, and ensures that all household buzzings and whirrs, and all outdoor car traffic is heard, as she speaks into her $14.00 stem microphone she bought at WAL-MART. Creating a loud wall of brown background noise that sounds like she's broadcasting from the Bikini Atoll.

 

Your niece rehearsed her script for, I dunno, an hour or two, and now has just the slimmest grasp herself on the software procedures she's describing.

 

 

The question is Why? Why would you spend X amount of dollars on an ambitious (and very good, but complex) new software... Then, at that crucial first meeting of consumer and product, cut yourself off at the knee with a sequence of amateurish online tutorial videos? :confused:

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All a part of this DIY, burn-hollywood-burn, "everyone's-a-star" ethos the Net has given birth to.

Well, what strikes me as sad is that all these videos are needed in the first place.

 

Sure, there are processes -- like this one, perhaps -- that are best explained via video. But I see stuff all the time that would be much easier and quicker to explain via the written word and maybe a diagram or screenshot or two -- easier, that is, for those who can read and understand the printed word. ;)

 

 

PS... I'm all for whatever DIY, burn-Hollywood-burn ethos we can whip up, frankly. And let's make sure we get Big Music in that target cluster.

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NJ and Ghettolicious pronunciations?...whoa, That's music to my ears....I am so THERE dude,:love:

Didja get her name, or Zip Code or NJ turnpike exit #....?????

 

Give me a holler if you have any vital statistics like her cup size, or cup size, or cup size...would love to ask her out for a slice of Boardwalk Pizza...

 

Tanks, Luciano

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Having recently made my first screen-cap tutorials, my general feeling is that it is a tough thing to do well, but that since tools to make them have become much more freely available there are a lot more bad tutorials. Who knows if she's using WMM and a stick mic to make the thing. Personally, I like Jing, and I use the 2$ headset mic I use with skype.

 

But maybe I'm not seeing what you're seeing. I didn't hear anything egregious.

 

It does sound like a mediocre in-house productions, and is obviously not a gnomon or lynda level production-- even though I've seen some pretty rough stuff come out of gnomon. To be honest I've also seen a lot worse tutorials and I've heard much worse VO work.

 

Who knows how that tut came about-- maybe they honestly are just bad, sucky people who suck at life and what they do... or maybe they just didn't figure that people would be willing to fork out another $500/seat to have real training on the program. Probably somewhere in between.

 

In any case, It looks like a good opportunity for a third party to make some cash. Wanna produce some pro tutorials and sell them via the web?

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:lol:

My first thought was, why the heck would Ras be watching this...


Ras?

 

Besides the music, I'm also a 3D/CGI artist. I especially like to do images of shapely women, create dresses and hair for them, etc. (Hence my interest in that particular software). Here's my latest image: a portrait of "Rotary Rachel" Lichtman, a Hollywood-based radio personality heard every couple of weeks on LUXURIA.MUSIC.COM

 

Can I do a 3D version of any of you guys/gals?

 

gallery_2430_1679_240460.jpg

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After all these comments I'm almost tempted to watch it - - then I remembered getting a virus from watching that damned Kwiklube video... No use letting the same dog bite you twice, to paraphrase Coco Montoya.

 

 

I got the same virus - it was effing awful....

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The bottom line is that this is an issue of COMMUNICATION. Whether it looks like Windows Movie Maker with a 15 year old narrator or Angelina Jolie is in a Spielberg production, the question is this. DOES IT COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY? ARE THE INSTRUCTIONS CONCISE AND ACCURATE?

 

I understand corporate image and all that cr!@ , but really the end user will be happy with any production that answers his/her basic questions.

 

dAN

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