Transcripts
1. Intro: Hello, my name is Mostafah Nassar. I'm an engineer and artist based in Toronto, Canada. On the side, I make videos related to the creative process, art, and investment. Part of my YouTube journey was stumbling upon a lot of difficulties, One one of them is to have a really good pre-production plan. What I thought before was I was just going to go ahead and turn on the camera and just shoot my video. What I didn't account for was the script, the lighting, the location, the music, the sound effects, and even the intro, because everything in the YouTube video is very, very curated to the viewer. Because having an engaging video is not just about turning on that camera, everything about an engaging video is everything from start to finish. In this course, I'm going to show you step-by-step on how I create my own pre-production plan and all the tools that I'm using. Step 1, we're going to dive into why should do pre-production. Step 2, we're going to go through the tools that you need to create your pre-production plan. Part of those tools is we're going to be using Notion and we're going to be using Milanote. Combining these two together, we're going to come up with a really, really simple-to-use system that you can create over and over and over for all your videos. I hope you enjoy this course as much as I enjoyed making it. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below. I have my YouTube channel linked to this account and I would love to connect with you.
2. Pre-Production? Why bother ?: Before I started YouTube, I always wanted to have an unscripted channel, meaning that I just wanted to turn on the camera, hit the record button, and don't even care about anything. I don't want to think about what I'm going to say. Just want everything just to go flow through my mind and just blurted over the camera. Let's just picture this for a second. I'm just going to have a comparison between what we're doing with the video and taking a road trip. Road trip oftentime needs planning and preparations. You can't just go ahead and just drive north and hope that you're going to find the destination that you want. You need to get your map, look at the GPS, find out your routes, and where you're going to put the gas. Otherwise, you might be stranded somewhere where there's no civilization and your next gas is in 100 miles and you're already out of gas. While if you did the preparation, you could actually have stops in between and have some lunch pit stops and so forth. Same thing with film making. You need to know a lot of stuff, and part of it is just as important as hitting that record button. Having all of that in perspective is going to help you have a lot of confidence in front of the camera, or even if you're behind the camera shooting something. It will just give you this direction that you need before you actually hit the record button, so everything is going to flow on paper and in return is going to translate into the lens. Planning a shoot as a sole filmmaker is actually one of the hardest tasks to do. The thing is if you pull that off and if you have all the preparation done beforehand, everything falls in place and it becomes very easy. It's always a good idea to do your research and homework about what you're going to shoot and let's say if you're shooting a commercial, for example, you want to look at previous commercials that were shot for this subject and see how they shoot it and what's their preference? They like daylight? They like studio? Are they going for neon vibes? What angles are they looking for? Do you have that lens? Are they doing close-ups? Is it a lot of talking head? Does it require a gimbal? All this stuff has to be known right before you do a production. Otherwise, it's going to be an uphill battle from there. Especially if you're doing something that you've never done before, you want to at least become a master in your head about everything about the subject so you can go in with an unfair advantage. To me, filming without a plan feels like filming in the jungle where you're just having a camera running around, you don't know if you're going to be attacked or if you're going to have a sunny weather, cold weather, raining, you just go in and blindly and hoping that everything falls in place. You just don't know what you're going to get and hopefully, you end up being okay. In this course, I'm going to go through the system that I used to help me with my production and I hope it helps you too.
3. Brainstorming And Capturing Ideas : Now that we've established that you don't just go ahead and turn on the camera and just hope for the best, you need to have an idea to spark your video. You need to do some research about who your target audience is, what they're looking for, what kind of problems they're facing, and what is the objective of this video. Is it an educational video, is it the entertainment? There are so many ways to spark ideas. You can get them from Twitter, blogs, or even you can be inspired from other content creators, can go into the channels and read the comments and see what people are asking. Sometimes they have some really good questions that you can get and you can actually hone that into your own ideas and maybe fix that for them. Think about it. Most of the time when you go to YouTube, you're actually looking for a solution. If you have an idea that can solve someone else's problem, you're already ahead of most people. The first tool that we're going to use today is how to actually document your ideas and have them all categorized. The tool that I'm using for this is Notion. This is not a Notion course, but I'm going to go through what I use in Notion and how I create my own templates. We're not going to deep-dive into API of Notion, we're just going to go and create a very simple template that can help you get your ideas in check and we're going to go through a very simple Kanban structure where you have an idea, production, and then reviewing and posting. That way, you can hold yourself accountable and see what you have in the pipeline and you can track it really easily. The reason I use Notion because it's a Cloud-based and I can always bridge that between the phone and the computer. If I have an idea on the fly, I can just type it on my phone and it can show up on my computer. There are a lot of different programs that you can use, but the main reason I like Notion because it has that Kanban structure and it help me track my project statuses from one day to another.
4. What is a Mood Board (Shot List): Another thing that you can use is having a shot list or a mood board. The thing with shot list is that they establish a really great foundation for your project, and it helps you visualize a project from a different perspective and visualize how the end product is going to look like. It also helps with clarifying your vision because sometimes when you're working on a project, you get carried away with a lot of other stuff and you can lose track of what the important things are. Having the mood board or the shot list will help you clarify your objectives. It's a visual objective that you need to get the shot done. If you started working on something else, then you're deviating away from the project, and it's very effective if you have multiple people working on your team. If you're a solo filmmaker, it's not going to be a big deal because you already have an idea and you don't have any external factors coming in, someone tells you a new idea, or someone wants to deviate from a project. But if you're working with a lot of people, let's say someone has an idea, someone wants to deviate from a project. It's always good to have that board as this is the definitive action, items that it needs to be done for the project. It will help the team to have a clear focus on what the final vision is. The main reason that I like it because it actually puts you in the process of actually gathering information. It will give you that mentality that I need to get this shot done, so you start doing research. While you're doing the research, the process of doing the research, you might actually stumble onto better ideas, better than the one that you have in your head. Because when you're looking at a shot, you're going to see what was used for that shot. What kind of angle, what lens, and even what lighting. All of that is really great when you have it on paper rather than just having it in your head and experimenting on the spot. All of that is time wasted because if you don't know how much light or what is the angle, what kind of lens? You're going to lose a lot of time experimenting where you can just go in and shoot it in 10 minutes. While if you're experimenting, it could take you 30 minutes and your time is valuable. Doing all that pre-production research is going to help you cut down on your cost of your production. Remember, the shot list is all of our exploration, and sometimes the project can take you in so many different directions. But as long as you have a clear vision with you and the client and agree on what the final product is going to look like, then the shot list have done the job and all the shortlist did is really just set that train in motion. One good thing that the shot list does is it involves the client into your process. It helps create a quick summary and brief of what the project is and what is the direction it's going. Sometimes what you have in your head can be completely different than what the client wants. The shot list will help clarify all of these issues when you're working on it together. It will help present it in a very visual manner and it'll help clarify what the client needs there are. There are so many tools that you can use to do a mood board and shot list. But the tools that we're going to be using today, it's a program called Milanote. We're going to go ahead and dive into that next.
5. Notion Overview: Now that we talked about pre-production and why it's important, now it's time to go into Notion and write all these ideas down. This is what I have in my content calendar. I break it down to Ideas, In progress, In review and published, and I have a scrapped bin just in case if I wanted to regroup and go back into those and remake it again. But I'm going to show you how I use this and how to make it from scratch. We're just going to go into workspace and you can do that with the free account, no problem. We're going to add a page, and this is how it looks like. What I really like to start with, is to go into template. In the template they have a lot of different ones that you can use. We're going to go down to the personal and select the task list and use the template. Once you do that, most of the hard lifting is already done. What we need to do, is need to add another group. We are going to call it Completed. Now we can just go ahead and change that to Ideas, In progress. This one we can call it In review. You can just change those as you see fit. We're just going to go ahead and delete. But now, how does that even work? Let just say that this is video number one. You have this idea, once you start shooting, you can move it into progress. Once you shot it then you have it in your view, you move it to review. Then once it's complete, you just move it to the complete, and that's simple. The more ideas that you have, you can just keep adding. Then the more you have In progress, is going to give you a clear perspective of what you have and what's need to be done. But let's just say that you want to take it a step further and have a template within a template. I'm going to show you how to do that. Now that we've created the Kanban boards, its time to create our tasks. First task is video one, I put it under Ideas.
6. Milanote Overview: The next tool that we're using is Milanote. Milanote is going to help you with your mood board and all the shortlist that you need. I've already used it in the past and I think it's very intuitive. It's one of the best programs that I have used for the mood boards. But I prefer Milanote because it's easy to use and I'm familiar with it. To start with, you need to make an account with Milanote and it's Cloud-based, so you can actually use this app in your phone. If you're on the fly and you're looking for a shot, you can just have it ready and it's very cool. I'm just going to go through a very quick overview of what is done or how you can use it. I actually have used it to do one of my videos on YouTube. This is how it looks like. I was very inspired by The Matrix. I took a lot of screenshots from the movie, I wanted it to be similar. I'm going to go ahead and break this down in the next module. But to start with, I'm just going to show you how to use Milanote and where to go from there. To start with, Milanote uses a left tab very frequent and they have all of their tools on the left side. You can add a board, which is going to be almost like a folder. We're going to call this one as new video idea. Now that you have that done, you can right-click. You can change the colors, rename. Even on the left side, if you click, you can actually change the icon. You can upload your own pictures, or you can just use whatever icon that they have in here. I'm just going to do this as it's a great idea. Now, double-click to go in. They actually also have templates. If you can't have a mood board, it's going to give you a lot of different ideas that you can choose from. It can also give you something that you can go ahead and adjust on the fly. You can do a Team Planner. But we're going to be pretty much like I'm using it as a mood board because the team planning can do a Notion. The only disadvantage that you have with Milanote, that it's limited to 100 cards. But if you use Notion, it's actually unlimited. I like to do all of my writing and other planning on Notion, because it has a very big advantage there. When it comes to Milanote, I like to put screenshots and create my shortlist. For now, we're just going to have an empty board and continue. Now, I can just add an image, and I can just go ahead and drag whatever they have in there. Or, if I have a folder, then I can just grab these pictures and drop him in here. For example, I just want to have a bunch of pictures. I can just drag and drop, and I can just have another picture that I want, let just say this one, and now we can just create. You can just move them around. Say that I wanted to have a sequence where someone is drawing and someone the sketching, so I can have this one in the beginning, and I can just drag this line, move it from here to there. If I wanted to type something, I just select and start typing right away. Say subject or player. I deleted it. I can just click and then say player throwing ball, player catching ball. Let's just say that this one is another shot, so this is second shot idea. I can just grab a note and put it in here. Let's keep in mind that this is a football game, not soccer. I can just drag, move it. You can edit into columns instead, so you can have something like that. Let's just say I need to move this one out, I can just do that and do it into the column. This column is going to be all of the shot ideas that I have for this. Let's say I wanted to get a touchdown, so I just can go and get a touchdown picture. We're going to call this touchdown, this one catch. From there, I can just have this one and I can create my own story. I can add the to-do list in here. Let's say if I wanted to add some tasks. Make sure that camera shutter is 1/1000 of a second or more. I can have that assigned to say Mustafa, and I can change the color into this. Then I want to add something else. Make sure ND filters are packed. The last one is stay hydrated or something. Now that you select this, I can assign this to someone else. If you have someone else connected to your account, you're going to have to add them here. But for the time being I have that, I have just myself. I can just click here and add a title. I can just call it this is very important list. Now that you know how everything works, you can actually export it. You can export it to PDF or PNG file, or you can just publish it and share that same document so people can view it in here. Or, you can just add an editor where someone can add or assign it to someone else by adding editors in here. You can invite editor via shareable link. You can generate it, copy it, and have it done, and that way you can just have multiple people on the same project. Coming up next, I'm going to break down one of my videos on how I use Milanote to do my shortlist.
7. Project Breakdown: Now that I showed you how to make your own board, I'm going to go take you into one of my boards and show you how I made this effect. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. Now that you've seen it, we'll just going to go ahead into the mood board. I was actually inspired by a movie called Nerve. I took a lot of screenshots from that movie, and I tried to make something that's cohesive, and something that I can create, because obviously, the effect that they have in that movie was perfect. It was very, very good. The production value behind it was way beyond anything that I have. I just took some shots that I think I can recreate and put down some notes on how to do it. In that way, when I started shooting, I don't have to second guess or have to sway away from the idea that I had in mind. It made my photoshoot very, very simple. I actually shot this whole thing in less than 20 minutes because I knew exactly the shots that I wanted to do going in, and just set it up, and it was done with less than 20 minutes. For the first shot, I wanted to have a close-up and I wrote down some notes. This one is most likely taken with a 55 millimeter and then it transitioned into screen, and instead of having Nerve, I just wanted to say NFT, and then transition into a close-up to an eye which I exchanged the lens. For this one, I actually had a lot of trouble with because they definitely used a dolly in and I didn't have that equipment, and I didn't have a second videographer with me, so I had to opt in with a zoom transition. I put that in, so transition. I actually used that 28 millimeter. I said to adjust the light, test to location and see. I set that down and I put down the date. The way they did it was actually very clever, is actually zoomed into the computer, into the logo, and went on the other side. It showed her making the choice. I ignored all of this because I didn't have the equipment. I just went into the transition, and into the zoom, and showing up the choice. After I accepted the choice, I made the transition into the stuff. I put down the artists and I actually did this because I liked that shot. I actually put that before, and that's where I had to edit it on the fly because I was like, well, it doesn't make sense if I do it after, so the realistic one is this. I can just move this one like that. Now you can just move it. There you have it. This is a very quick overview of how you can use the mood boards and do a shot list. I think it will help you so much with your projects because this will give you a very quick overview in a visual form of what the client is expecting. If you're doing it for yourself, you are your own client, so if you use that, it will going to give you clear idea of what you want to do, and it will cut down your time in half because you already know what you want to do on set. So you don't have to second guess yourself, and everything is going to be very smooth behind the camera.
8. Applying The Work: Now that we have done the scripting on Notion, and now we have the mood board ready, it's time to actually go ahead and film the video. You'll notice once you have everything in place, that your production time had actually got cut in half because all that research that you've done is actually paying off. I was a victim of that before where I thought, why waste time in pre-production where I can just go ahead and film everything, I have it in my head. But when you have everything lined up, it feels like it's a very finely tuned machine and everything is just working the way you envisioned it because you've seen it on paper, and now it translate into the real world. We're treating it as an engineering product. You do your pre-production, you do your prototyping, and then you fix it, and now it's out in the world as a product and that's the way we want to treat our videos. If you have a system that can help you churn in really good ideas and turn them into reality, then this system will be working great for you. I believe that this system will be the extra push that you need to elevate your production value to the next level. But here's the thing. If you want to be good, you can do what's easy. But if you want to be great, you're going to take the extra step to make your videos even better. There are so many videos that's being posted every day, and what's going to entice the viewer to go and click on your video is what you've done with the video. But if your video stands out, it's going to be very, very magnetic and a lot of people are going to watch it and that's what we want to do with your pre-production.
9. Outro: Congratulations, you just finished the course. I hope you find these tools helpful and I hope you can use them into your own production. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below or send me a direct email. I check my emails regularly and I check all the comments. If you have any questions or suggestions, just don't be shy, shoot me a message and I would love to hear from you.
Mostafa Nassar, One step at a time
