Skillshare Success: How to Make a Top-Performing Skillshare Class

1. Introduction: Dreaming of creating an online course, but have no clue where to start, wondering how to structure it, what to name it, or even doubting, why would anyone listen to you? Well, you have come to a right place. My name is Adisin, a ideographer, YouTuber, and a course creator. In 2020, after being laid off from my job and facing zero income, I decided I didn't want to rely on a job to pay my bills and live in a constant fear of being fired. That's when I started teaching on Skillshare, and that decision completely changed my life. In the past four years, I have grown from zero to over 33,000 students, and my courses have been watched for over 1.2 million minutes. These courses are generating a consistent income every month. And the best part is, I don't have to work on them every single day. I publish one course every two to three months. In this class, I'm going to teach you how to create your first successful online skill share course. We'll cover everything including strategically planning the course name, building a simple and effective structure, writing, engaging content, filming with ease and editing like a pro. And of course, I'm also going to give you some tips on how to make Catchy thumbnails. By the end of this class, you would have a clear step by step formula for creating a successful steel share course. So let's get started and turn your passion into a successful online course. 2. Why Make An Online Course: Before we go any further, first, I want to discuss with you why you should be making online courses. The first and the most important part is the passive income, what these courses generate. As I told you in the introduction, that when I got laid off from my job back in 2020 during COVID, I had no source of income, and that time I decided that I don't want someone else to define how much I would be getting paid every month. And that's when I stepped into this course creation world, and that completely changed my life. And yes, it's a great passive income, and it is a consistent income, what you would be getting monthly. Of course, if you're a beginner, it's not going to be already from the first month, you have to keep making courses. You have to make good courses, you have to learn from your mistakes and implement what you have learned in the following courses. And that's what I'm here to teach you that how you can save so much time of just trial and error and just make the courses which people would actually be watching. The second one is, I think it's one of the coolest thing to teach someone what you're passionate about. I am passionate about making videos, making YouTube videos, freelancing for my clients. You know, I work as a freelance videographer, and I'm really passionate about all this videography world about the camera err, editing, filming, and all that sort of stuff. And that's what I love to teach to other people as well. And it's so cool to see results, you know, when you teach someone who had no idea how to start videography, and then you see someone making cool videos online, and then they show it to you that, Hey, thanks, Adi, because of your courses, I am able to make this. I think it's one of the best feelings in the world. And the third one is the flexibility it gives you. Of course, if you have a consistent online income, that gives you flexibility to travel anywhere. That gives me flexibility as a freelance videographer to say no to clients with whom I don't want to work with. Or if I want to go travel for, say three months, I have a consistent income coming, so that also gives me a lot of flexibility to do things what I really like. And with making online courses, there is a big chance that your first course might not be successful. But don't give up already at that time. My first courses were terrible. I I I watch them, I'm really surprised at why is anybody even watching that? It's just so bad. But that's how you learn. That's how you learn how to make courses. That's how you learn how to talk to a camera. You get feedback from people, and these feedbacks are so important because as soon as you get a feedback, you can implement and recorrect in the following courses. So you're making more of these courses that also gives you an idea of what works and what not. But we're going to talk about that later in the section as well that what courses you should be making. 3. Self Doubt As A Teacher: Now that we have discussed why you should be making courses, I know some of you might be doubting that is it really for you? I know some of you might be also thinking that, why would someone listen to me? There's already tons of information. There are already tons of free YouTube videos. There are already tons of other courses what are being made, and they already have so many students. So why would someone listen to me? Look, whatever skill you have, if your skills are here, You are not teaching people whose skills are above you or same as you. You are teaching people whose skills are below you. You are helping those people and whatever you're going to teach, you, of course, know more than them. So why not share that knowledge to these people and bring it to your level? A lot of times we are also really overthinking that should I do it? Should I not? I would say just do it. Worst case, nobody watches your course. At least you learn something. You learned how to edit your course, you learned how to film your course. You learned how to talk to the camera. You learned something. And with that experience, next time when you make a course, you don't have to learn again the video editing the filming because you already learned when you were making the first course. The next time what you have to learn is that how can you make better courses? And I think it is such a good skill to have especially in these days, because I think in future, there would be only few jobs left for which people really have to go to universities. All the other jobs, all the other aspects people would be learning online from that. 4. Market Research: In this section, I would be giving you a few tips of how you can do market research to know what course you should be making. The first step of doing a market research is identifying the market. You have to see, are there even people willing to watch the courses, what you want to make? And how do you check that is by researching similar courses or similar videos on YouTube or any other platform. So when I started when I wanted to make this course, how to make a course, there are so many YouTube videos, and of course, there are also so many classes on Skillshare about this. Are classes and all those classes, I saw that how many people are watching those class, and there was a decent number of people who are willing to watch a class on this topic, also on YouTube. So then I knew that, Okay, whatever I'm going to teach, there is a decent market for that. And the second step is to see if the market is saturated or not. I'll give you an example. I wanted to make a course on the int result 18. It's a video editing software. That's the software what I use. And when I started doing market research, I saw that there are videos on YouTube about it. Free videos, you know, anybody can just go and watch. There are a lot of courses about the Winter resolve on their websites. And that's for free. There are a ton of material already there online. And also on Skillshare, there were decent amount of courses about the Winter resolve. So the market is kind of saturated. But then I also saw like all those videos and all those classes are getting a lot of views and the Winty resolve is a new and emerging software. So I thought that let's just try it out and make a class about it. That class has, I think now over 2000 students. And I made another course before that about the winters, 17, that class is, I think about 5,000 students. I don't really remember. But yeah, that was a saturated market, but I still made a course and that course worked. There's a benefit of saturated market. The benefit is There are a lot of courses, but there are also a lot of students. There are a lot of courses because all these course creators, they know that if I make a course on that, there might be a 30% chance that that course can be successful. That's the benefit of saturated market, and the demert of a saturated market is that if you make a course, that course might get lost in all the crowd. You know, so you really have to stand out. And how do you stand out is by making an effective title of the course is by making an effective thumbnail, which I would be teaching later. An unsaturated market is a market where there's not much material about that course. The course, what I'm making now is how to make a successful class on Skillshare. There's not many videos about it on you and there are also not many classes about it on Skillshare itself. There are classes, but those classes are for people who want to launch courses on their own platform. The market is very unsaturated. Which means that I don't really know if there are people who are willing to watch something like this. But then the pro is that if someone is searching for something like this, my class would be the only class that would pop up. As I laid down the benefit of saturated and unsaturated market, you can decide for yourself what route you want to choose. Think whatever their out is, you should just start. Even if you get as I told zero students, you would learn so much, and the next time, whatever course you're going to make, you would be so much better than the first course. So yeah, really just start. But you should also be keeping in mind all these different markets. And the next step in doing market research is, you should really check where your potential students are hanging out. For example, when I wanted to make a Dvente resolve course, there were a lot of people who were hanging out, of course, on YouTube, because there are a lot of tutorials about it. There is a Daventue resolve form as well. So a lot of people are there as well. So you can see the demographics, you can see the gender, you can see the age of, you know, your potential audience. And the next step would be to understand the demands and problems, what your potential students are facing with the video taking with the Davent resolve software. I was just reading the comments on YouTube, you know, of whatever the courses are for Dvent to resolve that. What are the questions what people are asking? There were a lot of Facebook groups, I was just checking, you know, the discussions that what are the questions, which is appearing a lot of times? What is the main problem these people are facing? The answer of those problems, I can put it in my course. So whoever is watching when I publish that course, their problems would be solved then probably your course was the only place where you could solve that problem. And the next step in doing market research is that identify the goals of the people. For example, I identify the goal of you, the people who are watching this class is that your goal is to make a successful online course on Skillshare. You don't want to fail. I have to teach you exactly how to make a course, and I have to teach you what are the mistakes that you should be avoiding in making a successful course, and I have to teach you how you can market that course to get many students as possible on your skillshare courses. So that's how as I identify the goals, it becomes more easier for me to talk about things. It becomes more easier for me to write content about that, to film content about that. So, you should really identify what is the goal of an audience. For example, I made a course about how to film yourself cinematically. So the goal for my students in that course was to fill nice looking video, you know, a cinematic video by themselves? They don't need help from anybody else? You can film a nice and beautiful and a professional looking video? A by yourself? All you need is a camera and a tripod. And that was the goal of my students. And I think I delivered in that because that class did really good. The next step, what you should be doing in doing a market research is competitive analysis. You should be doing a lot of research that if I see a certain class, if I see someone making a video on the topic, what I want to make courses about, what are the things that instructor did good that they have a lot of students? Did they had a good title? Did they had a good thumbnail? Way they talked was really good, were they entertaining or the knowledge what they gave or super spot on, like what did they do, that their classes or their videos are successful. And you can, of course, note that down, that those were things, what they did, or some courses, if they didn't do good, why it didn't do good. You should also be looking at some videos or some classes which have really less students, really less views, and then just see why people are not watching them, and then list down what are they doing? Don't do that so that you don't end up being like that. So that's why it's really important to do competitive analysis as well. And the last step in doing a market research is differentiation statement. It's a fancy world, but in simple term, what it means is that how you can make your course different from others. I'll give example of this class. On Skillshare, there are a lot of classes about how to make an online course. And most of these courses are for someone who want to publish a course on their own platform. There are barely any classes about someone who want to publish a course on Skillshare, and that is my differentiation statement. So that's why, it's really important to do market analysis, market research. Now let's move on to the next section. 5. How To Teach Better: How to teach better. I'll give you an example. I used to be a fitness instructor as well, and we would be taking group fitness classes. And there was another fitness instructor. He was this elite athlete in our university. His classes would be really advanced. All the exercise, all the workouts, what he would be doing with his training, he would give that to people in the group fitness class. And mostly people who are in group fitness class, they are some sort of beginner or intermediate. They don't want to do all these fancy exercise what this elite athlete guy is doing, you know. They just want to have a good workout. Just something easy so that they can follow along, don't think too much. And then I talked to them and then they were like, Yeah, the exercises are so advanced, that in the grow fitness class, I'm just focused on if my posture is right or not, and I can barely push myself. And the problem was that that instructor, his level of exercises was here. And the people who are coming to the class, say, for example, their knowledge about certain exercises here. And he's giving them exercises of this level to do in a really intense environment where all the workouts are time based. So you're going really quickly, you're moving from one station to another really quickly. And That's why these people didn't even have that chance to learn those exercises, because they were too advanced. The reason why I'm telling this story is that that's the same thing with courses. For example, I'm a professional videographer, and if I'm teaching someone videography, I want to teach someone in their language, so that whatever I'm saying, they can understand easily, they can consume the information easily. Always talk with keeping your beginner students in mind. Always talk in their language. For example, if you have to teach a child something, you teach a child with really simple language. You don't give them really complicated explanations, and that's what you have to do when you're making a course. Talk in the beginner student language. For example, if I have to talk about say aperture, aperture is a thing in the camera which increases or reduces the depth of field. What do you understand? Nothing. But if I would have explained to you in this way, aperture is a setting in the camera, that sort of changes how much blur you see in the background. So now it makes a little bit of sense. The more the aperture number it goes, say if I go to F 11, the less blur you're going to see in the background. But if I reduce the aperture number to say F two, then you would see more blur in the background. And of course, more blur relates to the footage looking cinematic, the footage looking professional. And that's what Aperture does. So you see how easily I explained that because everybody knows what a blur is, everybody knows how cool the blurry background looks in a video, in a photo. So I talked in your language so that you can understand. And that's what you have to do. You don't have to flex your knowledge to your students. Your students know that you are good. That's why they're watching your course. So you don't have to flex all the knowledge, what you have. You have to only talk in their terms and only talk about the things, what they really need to know at that point. Because a lot of information at the same time can be overwhelming for them as well, and then the student might think that, Oh, I think learning this thing is not my thing. I wouldn't do it. First of all, speak in students language, and then just teach one thing at a time. Do not overwhelm them. Everything what you want to cover in this course. And it's also really important to over explain things because some people can understand really quickly, some people can understand not that quickly. So you have to also over explain things. For some people who could understand quickly, they would always skip to the next chapter. But for the people who can not understand quickly, because for me, if I want to learn something, I really need someone to really explain me good so that I can understand that really good, that I don't want to go to the basics again. And that's how I also try to over explain things to people so that whatever I'm teaching, it is super clear to them. If you have any questions until now, just leave them down in the discussion box, and I would be really happy to answer you. And now let's move on to the next one. 6. How To Name Your Course: Once we have done the market analysis, now it's time to name your course. Of course, by now, you would know, what are the topics on which you want to make the course. But then one of the most important part of a course to be successful is that the title of the course. And there are some steps what you can follow to generate an effective title. And the first one is desired result based. For example, I can take the title example from my iPhone filmmaking class. The title was iPhone filmmaking. Create cinematic videos from your iPhone. Simple, but you can see the desired result of my potential student is to make cinematic videos from their iPhone, and that's exactly what I wrote in the title. The next thing what you should be keeping in mind while naming a course is time based results. I'm sure you might have seen a lot of courses that learn filmmaking in two days, learn filmmaking in 48 hours, or make a certain amount of money in one a lot of people, they want to get results fast, or if you're teaching something, which you really believe that you can teach something, you know, that can help people to learn something in say, one day or two days, you should really put it in your class. I could have also done it, how to make a course in seven days. But I also think that this time frame also really differs from people to people because a lot of people might have full time job, a lot of people might have kids. So it's a bit difficult to make course, if someone has zero knowledge of to make a course in a week. But yeah, that's why I didn't choose a time frame option, but I think it's a really effective way to include in your title if that sounds realistic. A lot of people, I've also seen a lot of YouTube thumbnails or videos is that make $100 every day. That's not really possible for everyone. Otherwise, everybody would be rich, right? So, make a time frame, which is also believable. And the next one is experience based. I think I had made a course about the winter resolve. I'll just check the title. Yeah. Video editing in the winter resolve 18, a complete beginners guide. So if someone who wants to learn the int resolve and they are a beginner, that's a complete beginner guide. So I am giving an experience level. I also made another class video editing in the Winter resolve advance editing, something like that. So people already know that that's for Advance. You know, I would rather go to the beginner one, and then I can learn. Same as this class. This class is for someone who have never made a course, who have never filmed themselves. So this class is for them. And that's why you are here because as soon as you read the title, you knew that, ok, it's for beginners. So I can just join and see what I learn. And the next thing is specific effort. You can also put it as a time frame, learn making course in seven days or how to make, say, $10,000 by working just 2 hours a day, you know? So that 2 hours is specific effort that you oh, I just have to work 2 hours, and I can make $10,000 a That's just an example, but you get the point that with specific effort, you can tell your students that if you just put this much effort, I can take you from point A to point B. Of course, in your title, you don't have to put everything. You can make a combination. For example, desired results. What I could have done is that learn making successful course on skill share in seven days. Experience based, make successful course on Skillshare as a beginner. That's the mixture of desired results plus experience based. That's how you can mix these different different aspects and come up with an effective title. The title, what you come up in the first go, that wouldn't be the title. You can just write it down and write down all the other potential titles. Maybe also just use chat GPD and give a prompt that, hey, I'm a beginning course creator and I want to make course on this topic. And this is the topic what I came up with. Can you give me different variations of this topic? And later in the section, I will also teach you how to use chat DPD to write down your courses. That's how you can come up with a really effective title. And title is the most important thing. And to be honest, as I'm filming this class, I don't know the exact title of this course. But yeah, as you can see, it doesn't matter. You can just start making the course, and of course, you can make the title in the end. So there's no rush in making the title of the course. And the good part is that you can always rename the title. You can always do some manipulation. If you see that I've posted a course and it's not working, you can just change the title. But it's really good to keep those things in mind to be making an effective title so that people can really click on your course because there is so much competition everywhere, whether you go on YouTube, Skillshare, or any other course creating platform. As soon as someone types something, say videography, there would be hundreds of classes and how your class can stand out is with the title and the thumb. Thumbnail, of course, I'm going to teach you later, but that was the title. So now let's move on to the next one. 7. How To Structure A Course: In this section, I'm going to be teaching you about how to make a starting point of the course, what to teach in the beginning, what to teach in the middle, and what to teach in the end. With teaching someone anything, you have to start with an nice and effective introduction video that I'm going to teach you later, how to make an effective introduction video. The second part is the motivation, why they should learn, as I told you in the beginning of this class, that why you should be making courses that gives the students some sort of motivation some sort of meaning, you know, why they should take this class seriously because I'm here to share my knowledge, share whatever I've learned. Then the third one is stick to the basics. With teaching anything, you should be teaching a little bit of basics to the students. For example, I made a course about filming myself. I can show you For example, if you see my class, how to film yourself a solo filmmaking master class. Here, of course, I started with introduction, and then I started with filmmaking care. That's the basic that what care people need to make a nice video, lighting equipment, what equipments they need to make a nice video. Then I talked about best video settings. That's the basic. People should know what video settings are. What are these different terms? Because when I'm going to use those terms later in the course, my students should exactly know what I'm talking about. And framing and competition. So all these basic things you should be teaching the students already in the beginning and really tell them that if you are a complete beginner, you must watch these sections, because what I'm going to teach later, that wouldn't make sense if you skip this section. But if you have a little bit of knowledge about what I'm talking about, then you can skip to a different section. Because the last thing you want to do is to waste someone's time, you know, in learning something. Learning basic also gives confidence to the students because a lot of people might not watch your course in one go. They just want to do the basics first, and then they come next day and then they learn the advanced section, and then they learn the following section. That's also really good to already teach the basics, and basics mostly are somewhat boring. What I'm teaching now is somewhat boring. But this is something which you should be learning as well to make a successful course, 8. How To Use Trello: To make an effective structure, you should be using a platform, which is called Trello, which I discovered recently, and I will show you how Trello looks. So this is what I'm looking at. So you can see here there's introduction, what, why, what and how. So I told you everything, and here we're talking about getting started. So structuring the class, if I open this, then you have how to use Trello. That's what I'm teaching you now. And then of course, I'm going to teach the following sections. So Trello is a software that can help you structure anything. I structure my courses on Trello, and I'll show you how this works. So if you just go to trello.com, this page appears, you know, with a lot of templates. And here, if you go create, create a board. So what I showed you before that was a board. So if you create a board, say I do test, create, and Triller would create this board for me. And here what you can do is that you can list down the sections of the class. I'll give you the previous example. You know, I can give you an example of a different course. So I can give you an example of iPhone filmmaking course. Here, as you can see that introduction is one chapter. Basic videography knowledge is second, video recording on IPhone is third audio best apps. So these are different different chapters, and all these are subchapters. That what I'm going to teach under this, what I'm going to teach under this. And making something like this, that just gives you entire overview. Of what I'm teaching, Is it making sense even for myself? If not, then I can move the audio from here to here. Move things, you just just shuffle around things, and that's what you can do as well. Maybe I can do intro here, and then if you want to do a second chapter, then you can do say basics, basics. What you can do is that in the intro, you can do first, the intro, Yeah, add cut, and then you do add cut here, motivation, what I talked to you before, motivation, then you can add cut. It's just so easy. That's how you can have subchapters. Maybe do one, ad cut, do two, add cut, and you can do so many subchapters and you can do so many chapters as well. The best part is, I'll go to IF one filmmaking. The best part is, if you go here, say basic videography knowledge, and I'm talking about frame breds. If I go here, I can link down the Google Doc. So whatever I'm going to talk in this class, I already wrote down in Google Docs, so I can just go to this Google Docs, and here is the text of what I wanted to talk in that subchapter, and then you can go back here. And you can also do some short list. For example, I wanted to show some B roles of what all video, I want to show when I'm talking something. Changing framework. If I was done with the shot, I should have done this, this this, which I forgot, but yeah. And how to write all this. Let's go here in the intro, and I can do say safe, Yeah, and then I go click here, so then I would go in this box. In this box, what I can do is that I can paste a link of anything. Also what you can do is introduction or any chapter, if you found a similar video, you know, which has something what you want to teach. You can also put the link of that video there. So when you go to Trello and saw certain sub chapters, you know, and if you want to explain students about what you saw on that particular YouTube video, you already have the link there, so you don't have to search for that YouTube video. So everything could be here. You know, you can paste links, and you can also do checklist, what I did as a shot list, but your checklist could be completely different, you know. So if I do add checklist, the checklist gets ads here. So I can do say shot one add shot, two, like, something like that, and once you're done, you can just write in that. And you can also write down the comments. For example, for this class, if I go to Trello, And this is all free. In the free version, you can create up to five boards. And what I do is that whatever course I've already made, I delete, you know, the previous courses, and I can just make a new boat. So I think you can make maximum of five boats, and after that, you have to buy it. So here, I wanted to show something. If I go to light setup, you see, there is some this card has a description, the description, of course, it has, and this card also has some comments. So if I go here, in the light setup, I want to talk about light setup, panel light, blah, blah. And then I also have something in the comments, you know, because I want to take reference from my own class. If I click here, then my class opens up, certain chapter opens up. You can also put something in the comments that talk about this or take reference from here or show a student this thing. You can just put so much information here. I used to use Google Docs before, but with Google Docs, you have to keep scrolling, keep scrolling here and things can get lost and here you have everything in the front. What are we going to do now and what chapter am I doing? What you can also do is that if you see here, I can show you the different boards, iPhone filming. You can also label all these subchapters. What I did was after I filmed everything, I put green label, and how do you put label, if I go to here and say if I film this, I can edit labels, I can do green. You can choose any label you want. Edit label, For some reason if I didn't fill market research today because maybe I didn't have enough information or something was not working, then I can leave market research, and then I can do edit label here. Now maybe tomorrow, if I have an overview of this course, then I can know that, I haven't filled market research. Let's film that. The blue labels, why I did was that whatever chapter is edited, I would put a blue label. Then I know that I'm done about filming and editing of that chapter and now I don't have to think about it, and let's just focus on the chapters on which the blue markers are missing. That's why I think Trello is a game changing platform if you are a course creator. So that's why I would highly recommend to use Trello if you are making a course because it just makes life so much easier. 9. Writing An Introduction Video: Now let's talk about writing the course. This part of making a course is the most important part. I spend a lot of time writing the course because there's a lot of times when I would write something, and then I would go back and forth that whatever I've written, is it even making sense? Is it really valuable? If it's valuable? How can I write it better? How can I explain it better? How can I explain it more simpler? How can I make it more shorter? When I started out, I kind of undermine the whole process of writing a course. And that took a lot of back and forth, then I would, you know, film something, then watch it in my laptop, and then I would be like, whatever I've told is a complete carpet. So let's film it again. And I never made an effort to write the course. And that was the biggest mistake. So that's why I would recommend you to spend some time in writing the course. And within writing the course, the most important part is writing the introduction of the class. Because on platforms like Skillshare, even if people click with your very attractive title and thumbnail The first video what they're going to watch is the introduction video. If the introduction video is not impactful, if the introduction video is not impressive to them, then they would just hop on to the other course because there's always another course right around the corner. That's why writing the introduction video is really important. Introduction video is something where you introduce the course, that why should people watch it? What is inside the course, you introduce yourself, and then you also tell the students that In this course, I would be taking you from post point A to point B, and in between, we're going to do this disease process and this disease would help you to get you from point A to point B. All these things, you have to summarize that in an introduction video so that the students they exactly know what they are signing up for. Now we're going to talk about how to even write an introduction video. There is a proven strategy of how to write an introduction video to impress your students and of course, convince them to watch the entire course. This is how you start introduction video. Start with a problem. So, for example, with this course, I started with an introduction. Are you dreaming of creating an online course, but you have no clue where to start? I'm already telling the people that if you are someone who wants to have always been wanted to make an online course, you who always wanted to share their skills, share their passion to others, but they don't know how to start. They don't know how to structure it, how to name it, or they're even doubting who's going to even listen to them. So these are some of the problems for anyone who wants to start a course. And that's what I'm telling people that are you this person? So I'm kind of identifying that person as well. And that brings the second point. The second point is identifying if it's them. Are you blah, blah, blah, Is that you? If that's you, then keep watching. You are kind of already eliminating the people who you don't want to be watching your course because that might not be valuable for them. And then you are sort of targeting the people who are really your target audience. For example, in an iPhone filmmaking course. I already told them in the first or the second line that, are you an iPhone person who cannot make a professional looking video from an iPhone? So anybody who has any smart phone and if they see my video, then they know, Oh, it's just iPhone users, I'm not even going to bother clicking on that. You know, and iPhone users, they'll be like, Oh, that's me. So you have to keep these key identifiers already in the beginning to target the audience or to target your potential students. And once you started with the problem, then you target the audience, the next step is to introduce yourself. So who you are and why you are teaching this course. L, like, Why should I teach you this, you know? And what is my credibility? This is kind of really like, if I'm learning from someone I would really want to know, who are they and what have they done that I should be listening to them. For example, I also want to make YouTube video, like a really big proper YouTube video course. But I'm at, I think, 92,000 subscribers, and I really want to reach 100,000, that at least I can have this credibility that I am this travel YouTube, who has 100,000 subscribers. This is how I have achieved. This is how I reach from zero to hundred. At least I have some credibility, you know, to show that, hey, I have done it, you know, and chances are that if I give you some tips, you can do it too. So that's why it's really important to introduce yourself in somewhat relatable way, you know, that this is where I was, and this is where my audience also might be, where you might be. And this is where I am now. And everything what I've done in between, I'm going to summarize that in this few hours, of course. So right now I'm literally summarizing last four years of me Just trying to make some sort of online courses. Most of them fail. Some of them are successful, and I'm sharing that knowledge with you. So yeah, introduce yourself in a really strategic way that is relatable, and then you are also sort of crediting yourself that why people should listen to me. And the next part is, how am I going to solve your problems? How as a teacher, how are you going to solve your student's problem? So of course, yeah, I have made so many big BB courses, blah, blah. But then So what? How are you going to help me make courses. So then I tell in my script, in this class, I'm going to teach you how to create your first successful online course on Skillshare, even if you have zero experience. I'm also telling about the experience. We'll cover everything including strategic planning, your course name, building a simple and effective structure, writing, engaging content, filming with these editing like a pro designing an eye catchy thumbnail, marketing your course effectively. So I'm literally telling people that this, this, this, this, this, I'm going to be teaching, and that would help you to make a successful course. And that's exactly what I would be doing in this class as well. And this is just a little introduction of all the things I would be doing. And I would be going so in depth in this class that by the end that I would be surprised. Of course, you have promised in the beginning, but by the end, you are kind of over delivering. So, yeah, that's why you have to introduce certain chapters as well so that that can tell people that this is how their journey would be, that would take them from point A to point B. So after we tell them what their journey would be, you know, so they start from here and here, and then you do a call to action. And what was my call to action? By end this class, you have clear step by step formal of creating a successful course. You know, that's kind of the end that I'm explaining about the point B, that this is where you would be. Let's get started and turn your passion into successful online course. So this let's get started is the kind of call to action. And why this introduction video is really important is because you can use this on your social media platform, say if I'm doing for Instagram. Instagram, if I'm posting this video, then the call to action would be click in the link in M by or click in the link in the description or click in the link in my story to enroll ini course. So that would be the call to action. But for this course, because they're already on Skillshare, the call to action is. So let's get moving. Let's get started, you know, So really it's really important to add call to action as well. And that's how you can write introduction video. And with my introduction video, what I did was, I can show you. So, as you can see on the screen, this was my introduction video. I wrote everything down, whatever came in my mind, blah, blah, blah. Then what I did was, I asked Chad GPT that I'm a course creator. I'm making a course on this this. This is my introduction video. Can you make it better? Then then Chad GPT came up with this result. But their result was a bit more scripted, a bit too salesy. So I kind of edited how I wanted to be. I kind of edited it to look more human like, and this is what the introduction, what I came up with. And the surprising part is, I haven't filmed the introduction video yet. So that's what I do. I film the entire course, and then I see that how the course went, what all I taught, what I didn't teach. And then I make the intro video on some other day when I'm full of energy because intro video is the most important part. That's the time when you have to be full of energy. And the reason why I didn't film. The first thing in the morning also was that if I put a lot of energy in filming introduction with Then I might not have energy to film the rest of the course. That's why I just film intro video and Outro on just separate days. A quick recap for the intro video, which is very important. Start with a problem, identify your target students, who are you? Introduce yourself in a very strategic way, give credit to yourself that why should people listen to you? How can you solve their problem? How can you take them from point A to point B? And how would their journey be what all steps you would be taking in this class to help them to reach to point B. The last one is call to action. Of course, you can use this intro video to promote your courses. Of course, you have to do some changes in the call to action to promote your courses on social media or Linked in Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, anywhere you want. 10. Class Project: The project of this class, I want you to make 1 minute introduction video for your upcoming course. And of course, you can post it in the project section, and you should be using similar tips and techniques what I've taught to write and to film a nice and high quality introduction video. And of course, more information about the project of this class is in the project section. 11. Writing The Course: Now that we have talked about the introduction video, now it's time to write the entire course. And in my opinion, there are two ways how you can write a course. The first way is to script every single sentence. And I would give you pros and cons of all different writing methods as well. And the second way is to do bullet points for each chapters. With the method of writing everything, there are some pros and cons. The pros are, you know exactly what you're going to talk about. There is no rambling around exactly what you're going to talk about because that's already written in your script. The script what you would be writing would be similar way. You write down everything. Then if you want, you can go to C DPT, ask them to make it better, and then you rewrite it again according to the results from Chap, or you can just do it without that. I personally, I am not a really great writer. That's why I rely on the AI as well, but if you are a great writer, just write how you feel like. That is also very time efficient when filming. Then you're just not talking about the entire the whole world, you're talking to the point. And then you're also saving your energy because talking also takes a lot of energy, you know, and scripting is also really good for beginners. When I started making courses, then I was scripting everything, you know, I would rewrite on everything. Sometimes I would talk to the camera. Sometimes I would read from my laptop, and when I'm reading from my laptop, then I would put some roles or images, you know of whatever I'm talking about. So I could still read and talk to the camera, go back and forth. It also helped me with editing because then I am not really chopping off a lot of extra pots or a lot of paths which I don't need. So yeah, those were the pros of scripting everything. Now the cons are, it is time consuming. You have to spend at least a couple of days to just write the entire course because of course, I'm assuming that you would be making a video for 45 minutes or 1 hour or even 2 hours, writing everything down, revising it again and again, of course, it takes time. And sometimes what happens is that if you're reading a script, you become a robot. You especially for beginners, you're just reading something, which is on the teleprompter. Teleprompter. I'm going to teach you how to use the teleprompter. But yeah, you're just reading something which is on the teleprompter or you're just reading something which is on the laptop. And the third part of scripting everything is you have to get a teleprompter because you cannot just read the entire course from your laptop, you have to get a teleprompter and that can help you speak whatever is in the script. The next approach in writing is the bullet point approach. So that's what I also showed you in my trello was, I wrote down all the chapters, all the subchapters. And then whatever topic I have to talk in those subchapters. I would just write down some bullet points, you know, the first sentence or even just the main aspect, and then I would explain what is the bullet point about. And that's what I'm doing as well for this course. But for the intro video, I wrote everything down. And I would be using a Teleprompter to write the intro video because I want the intro video to be shot, really effective and really powerful. I don't want any rambling in the intro video. So that's the bullet point approach. Pros are, it is less time consuming if you are someone who's a good talker in front of the camera. So I am a YouTuber as well, so I have been making YouTube videos since the last seven years. I've made, I think, I think ten to 15 courses. So I've had a fair share of experience of talking to the camera. So I think it has become easier, the bullet point method. But I think first three to four courses, I scripted everything. But now if there is just a bullet point, I know exactly what to talk about, because most of the things what I'm teaching is something what I've been doing for years. If I have to teach someone about how to use a camera, I know exactly what to talk about. I just want to know the structure so that I'm not losing my and teaching everything already in the beginning. Like, I should just speak in a structured way so that it makes sense for the audience. So that's why I do bullet points as well. And the last pro of bullet point approach is the flexibility. Sometimes when you're writing something, there's something in your mind, or if you miss something, you cannot really change the script at an instant because the texts are going on in teleprompter, and you have to read that. But when you're doing the bullet point approach, something also might come up when you are talking like this, you know, so then I can add something or something which I some bullet point if I think that, Oh, that's not necessary. I think I've already talked enough, then you can just take it out. It also gives you a lot of flexibility. And it just looks feels like I'm just chatting with you. Sometimes you can also just talk so much. And in the end when you're editing, you're like, Oh, this has to go, Oh, maybe this little part has to That big part is to is just such a pain in editing. I think if you're a beginner, I would really recommend to write down the entire script rather than rely on a bullet point approach. But if you're a good speaker, if you are confident with talking in front of the camera, then I think bullet point approach, it works really good for me. Yeah, those were the pros and cons of different writing methods. 12. Structure Of A Chapter: And now let's talk about how to structure a particular video. So here what you do is that come up with a powerful title of the video because a lot of times people who before enrolling in your course, they kind of go through, you know, and get an overview of what the courses about. Is it really worth their time? So what do they do is that they read out the chapters. And if the name of the chapters are quite compelling, then that helps them to, you know, build more confidence that This is the course what I'm going to enroll in. Most of the time, it can be a hook or it can be a small solution for the problems what they're looking for. And then once you start writing the intro of that particular chapter, then already cover in the intro or just explain a little bit in the intro that what this particular chapter is about, what we're going to cover, so that people are not lost. And then of course, we can do either the bullet point approach or you can do the full script writing approach. Once you're done finishing the chapter, you can end up with a final conclusion. Say, for example, in the previous section, I told about how to write. So in the end, I gave a little conclusion that, ah, if you're a beginner, then it's really good to, you know, write the entire script. If you are not a beginner, then I think bullet point approach can also work, blah, blah. And if you're a good talker, bullet point approach can also work. So I gave a little conclusion of everything. I didn't leave the student just like half hanging that, Oh, what was the even point of talking about all the things? Finished with a conclusion, and then give a little recap that in this section we learned pros and cons of this, and in the next section, we're going to learn This is how we can structure a video and make it more effective, make it simple, clear and concise. Yeah, and then you keep moving to the next section. Now let's go to the next one. 13. Ideal Length Of A Chapter: A lot of times people talk about the ideal length of the video. The idea length of the video, it also depends on what you're teaching, because sometimes the video can be a 45 minutes can be a 1 hour, and that wouldn't hurt because everything in that video has to go in one flow. But sometimes a video can be cut down in 2 minutes. There is not a hard and fast rule, but usually I keep my videos to about some videos are just 5 minutes or 3 minutes because that's what is necessary in that section. But some videos, most of the times I keep my videos up to ten to 15 minutes, 20 minutes max, because I want to really break down my classes into sm, small, different different sections. The first reason why I do that is that if someone has already watched my course and when they are making their own class, and then they want to know, Oh, I wonder what Adi talked about in ideal video length. I want to go to that class because there's a special small chapter for that, you know, so that's not going to waste their time. And the second reason why you should be doing is that because a lot of times, as I told before that, if someone wants to enroll in your course, they want to get an overview, you know? So if they get an overview of list of chapters, then they also exactly know what they would be learning in detail, they can see, you know. And that also gives them a feeling that, Oh, wow, I'm going to learn, there are 30 chapters in this course. So that's really good. So let's enroll it rather than just five chapters of even if those chapters were 1.5 hours each, h, just five chapters. Oh, maybe I don't learn enough. And the next one is micro achievements. So if a student has finished, you know, say 5 minutes of lecture, 5 minutes of say five lectures. They already have this feeling of accomplishment that after every lecture, they're like, Oh, I finished it, you know, I learned something good today. So now let's move on to the next one. Or maybe after this lecture I'll take a little break and then I come back. So that's why I think it's really important to structure in mini, mini classes. In my opinion, ideal length of a video should be for ten to 15 minutes. If you can make it shorter, even better, but not too short that every lecture is just 1 minute. 14. Camera Setup: Now we have come to the most interesting part, at least for me filming the course. In the first section, we're going to be talking about camera setup. So what camera you should be using, what all equipments you should be using along with the camera. Whatever camera you're going to be using, it should at least film in Four K. The reason why it should film in FK, even though you're going to be exporting your courses in high definition is that sometimes if you crop in, your course shouldn't lose quality because high quality content grab audience's attention and retention. So it's really important to have a camera which films in four K. And a camera, which has good auto focus because my camera is really good auto focus, and it's always tracking my eyes. So even if I go front and back, it's always tracking my eyes and you don't want to film from a camera where half of the course you have filmed, you are completely blur, and then you have to refilm it again. That would be so frustrating. So that's why you choose a camera which has good auto focus, and then a camera should have a good flip screen as well. My camera has a flip screen. I can show you with the iPhone. My camera has a flip screen so I can see myself, but I'm also using an external monitor. That is the external monitor, what I'm using. You don't have to buy this fancy stuff because I happen to have this because I'm a videographer. But of course, if you can afford it, it's not going to hurt. But I don't think that's that important if you have a flip screen. Because in the flip screen, you can see everything as well. Yeah. Get a camera, which films in four K, good auto focus, and a good flip screen. But now, don't limit yourself with filming courses if you don't have a professional camera. You can also film course a class with your smartphone. I have also made an iPhone filmmaking course. So if you have an iPhone, then you can watch that class, you to how to get the most out of your iPhone. But filming with an iPhone, a lot of people have made really big, big, really successful courses with an iPhone or with a good smartphone. As I told before, the students Of course, they care about the quality of the claus because it looks good, you know, but they don't really care too much about what color grading you're using or what is the specs of the camera you're filming with. They care more about the value what they're getting, the knowledge what they're getting. The smartphone, in my opinion, is enough to film a professional looking course. But with Smartphone, the audio quality from the Smartphone or even from a professional camera is not good, so we're going to be talking later about what all audio equipment you should be using. But yeah, either a professional camera or a smartphone, you can still film really quality courses. Also make sure that whatever courses you're filming, make sure to keep the camera in your eye level. Right now, the camera is in my eye level. If the camera was I would have looked like this, you know, then I would really look like cameras filming you from above, or if the camera was there, I would look like this. It just looks so weird. So always make sure that whatever tripod you're using, keep the camera at the eye level and keep it consistent, really do not touch the camera when filming the course. A lot of times I take out, the SD card to check in my laptop if everything would have filmed this good or not. And I really make sure that I'm not really touching the camera. Sometimes I stick a tape on the floor for the tripod legs, you know, if I'm filming for multiple days. So yeah, that's why it's really important to keep everything consistent. So a good camera and a tripod or even a smartphone would do wonders if you are filming a course. So do not really limit yourself. And when you're filming the course, film the course at 24 or 25 frames per second. If you want to know more about the frames per second or other video settings, I have other courses as well, but I don't want to go too much in depth because that's not really important. But every camera has a setting. If you have whatever smartphone, you can just you tube it, that how can I film at 24 frames per second with this smartphone or how can I film at 24 frames per second with this camera? Film my 24 or 25 frames per second, keep the wide balance of the camera consistent. Do not let your white balance change. White balance is something which makes the whites in the frame look white? So I have kept the wide balance to about I think 4,700 Kelvins. And if you want to know how to keep the wide balance consistent in your camera or your smartphone, there must be a lot of YouTube videos because I can only give you example of the devices, what I use, and what device you might be using, it might be completely different. Keep the wide balance consistent, film at 24 frames per second, eye level shot and make sure you are in focus all the time. So these are a few things you should be keeping in mind when filming yourself. 15. Filming Yourself: Now let's talk about framing yourself. So whatever course you're going to teach, there are a few things what you should be keeping in mind when you're framing yourself. So you see this shot. It is not a super wide shot, or it is not a super close of shots. I've kept the focal length at about 35 millimeter, that is giving a wide medium shot. And in this shot, of course, you can see myself. You can see my body language, you know, because sometimes I've seen people they're just filming just this much. So in this much, you could barely see the hand movement. In this much, you can barely see the body language of the teacher. Body language is really important. So that's why I would recommend to keep it to wide not supervised, but wide to a medium shot, not super close up as well, and also not supervised because what happens with supervised is that you expose a lot of things. So I don't want to show too much of my background there. I don't want to show too much of my room here because that is not really important. I want students to be focusing on myself, on this frame on this setup. So yeah, medium shots I think is the way to go when you're filming yourself. Now let's talk about center framing or side framing. I'm looking here because my monitor is here. From the framing where I'm in, it is quite intentional. So I wanted to do center framing in some of my courses, I have done center framing where I'm in the center. But today I am here. Reason why I'm doing is that because I want to leave some room for the text here, you know. Also, if I zoom in, I am not out of the frame. I'm still towards the side in a way. I didn't want to go too much to this side because that would leave a lot of room in the center, and that makes this whole frame look a little bit empty. I'm on the side, but not too much. I'm still giving enough room for all the graphics and all the texts to be here. But if you are not planning to put any texts or any graphics here, then I would recommend to just do center framing. In a lot of courses, I've done center framing and they look phenomenal in a lot of courses. I've also done different types of framing that we going to talk in liter section. They also look good. There's no hard and fast rule, but I think, keeping yourself in the side frame that makes it easier when you're going to put the text. 16. Book 1:1 Session With Me: You're enjoying this class so far, please give a review of what you liked about this class, or if there is some room for improvement, please leave that down below as well so that when I'm publishing my next class, I know what to do better. If you're going to learn how to make a successful course with me one on one so that I can give direct feedback to your course, to your introduction video, or anything related to course creation. I'll also put that link in the description to book a one on one session so that this whole learning process can be even faster and more effective because everything what we would be discussing would be according to your goal, would be according to what type of course you want to make. Now let's get back to the next section. 17. Audio: Now let's talk about the most important part about filming a course is the audio. Doesn't matter how expensive and how professional your camera gear is. If the audio is not really audible to the audience, then the whole course is garbage. Having a high quality audio is really important. It doesn't matter if you have a professional camera or it doesn't matter how expensive smart phone you're using. External audio is the key to get good audio. By external audio, what I mean is that I'm using this mic or you can use any other external mic. This mic is a lav mic, and this mic is attached to my DJI mic, and the receiver of this mic is on top of the camera. This is a wireless system. So a lot of companies have this wireless system where they have one or two transmitters, what you can put on different people, and the receiver sits on the camera. That gives you a hzle free wireless connection. There was a point where I was using this overhead mic. To use that, you have to have a tripod, you have to have a wire which goes from the mic to the camera. There are a lot of wires, a lot of setting up and still I didn't know if the audio was good enough. So that is why these lab mics, in my opinion, are really good option if you're filming an online course. But I would give you other options as well. So the second option is a shotgun mic. A shotgun mic is something which can also just sit on your camera and film. But then the problem is that if something is on your camera and that is recording your audio, then that also records a lot of echo in your room. In my room, there's not too much echo because I have this, you know, the noise densening sound panels that kind of reduces the echo, but there is still some sort of echo. And if the mic is attached on the camera, that also captures a lot of echo. So if your room has a lot of echo, then I think the lave mic is a way to go. But if you just have this shotgun mic that kind of sits on the camera, Then maybe bring yourself closer to the camera because now camera is a little bit far away from me. Maybe it's like 3 meters away from me or 2 meters. So the mic was on the camera. It would also capture a lot of echo. And this mic is so close to my mouth that it's only capturing my audio. There's nothing coming in between. What you can also do is that you can also put the shotgun mic on top of your head. I used to do that before. The audio quality was really good, but it was just so much hassle to set it up. I would still say that Lab mic is really good. But if you have a shotgun mic, then you can use that shotgun mic on your camera to film blogs or to film whatever video you want. I have both because I told I'm a videographer. But if you're looking to buy something specifically for making courses, then go for a Lab mic. 18. Lights Setup: Now let's talk about the light setup. As you can see that I am using some lights in my room. And these lights, I specifically didn't buy to make courses. I have these lights because I am a videographer and I have to use them for my client work. But when I started making courses, I bought this cheap Amazon lights, and they did really, really good. I had two of them. I think they were just for 50 bucks, and they are just phenomenal. So I'm using three light sources at the moment. So this is the main light source right here. There is a fill light because if I if I just use this light source and not the fill light, this is how the video would So this is the video without the fill light. You see this sight is super dark, so that's why I use the fill light as well, and then there's a back light that just adds a little bit of depth in the video. So a depth means that that light looks a bit more blurry, you know, and it's also lighting me from the back. But don't worry, we're going to be going in depth about lighting in a few minutes. I'll just turn on this fill light. So yeah, I'm using three light source, the main light, the fill light, and the back light. And as we're talking about the light, I just remember that I have explained in detail about filming with studio lights and how to film, what angle to set up the lights? Why you should be using these lights? If you don't have all these fancy lights, what are the alternatives? I'm also teaching there how to film in natural light. Let's move to those classes. They were filmed lighting two months back. Let's move to those chapters, and then I'm going to see you soon. 19. Filming With Natural Light: I Now let's talk about filming in natural light. That's exactly what I'm doing now. So I'm in my living room, and there's a light source right on my face. I'm not sitting at an angle, and this is how it looks. You can still get away with this light with this talking shot, if it's an orcast day. But if it's a sunny day, it's a completely different story, then you cannot sit like this. Of course, I'm going to show you an example if the sun comes out someday. Anyways. This is how this shot looks. And here I am just keeping the camera at my eye level. And of course, there is an ambient light back there. If there was no ambient light back there, The footage might look a little bit boring. That's why to show you the depth to show you a bit more coziness I put that light was already there, of course. And there's also another light source from the other side. So I am using kind of two light source, which is acting as back light in this scenario. So that's why this footage looks a little bit decent. But now we're going to play with it a little bit. Earlier, I was sitting facing the light. And now what I'm doing is I'm sitting at about 45 to 60 degrees from the light source. So now what this light source is doing is something really interesting. Now it's kind of making a triangle on this side of my face. So now what's happening is one side of my face is completely lit And the other side has a bit more darkness, a bit more shadows. And that is creating a bit of contrast in my face. And this angle also gives a bit of shape to my face because now there's a bit more shadow on this side. And this angle I've not just randomly discovered. There's actually a term called Rembrandt lighting. Rembrandt was, of course, a well renowned painter. And every time when he would paint that was way back in the day, he would always paint as if the light source is hitting the subject at an angle. And on most of his portraits, you can see that on the subjects, there is a triangle shaped light on the other side. And this technique is used in movies, interviews, TV series all the time. So this method is really important to learn. And later on, I'm also going to discuss with you how you can achieve the Rembrandt lighting technique using studio lights. So just bear with me. But of course, we're going to use this technique, what's happening on my face now later when I'm also giving some live examples. This technique is applicable everywhere, whether you're filming indoors, with or without lights, outdoors with or without light source. Now we are using another lighting technique where I am sitting perpendicular to the light source. So the light source is just hitting me from that side. And as you can see on my face, one side of my face is completely lit, but the other side is almost dark. And you can use this lighting technique when you're going to create a bit more drama in the scene. Not in interview shots, you barely would have seen any subject lit like this when you're doing an interview. But if you're using natural light, and you're going to create more drama, create more cinematic look, I think this look would do the job. Here I'm using another aggressive lighting technique where the light source is right behind me, and I am sort of facing somewhere where there's no light source. Of course, my face wouldn't be as bright, but this back light it creates a lot of shape in my body. And you can use this sometimes, but this is the least common method of lighting yourself when you're using natural light. 20. Filming With Studio Light: Let's talk about the artificial light, the studio lights, what I'm using now, what I'm using here. The studio lights consist of three things. The main light, the umbrella on the top, which looks something like this, which is also called soft box, and tripod. The main light, it has different different powers. A lot of lights the start with 30 watts, 60 watts, 120 watts, 300 watts. So I have a light, which is 150 watts, and I'm still using that at 40%. So, if you are buying a light, I would recommend you to buy the lights with a little bit higher power, 150, 200, 300, so that if you're filming in a big room or at a big place, the light can spread out everywhere. But if you're just filming in a room, I think that 60 watts or even 120 watts is more than enough. That's the light. Of course, there's so many brands. I'm using from G Docs,'s a good brand. I bought it, I think, three years back, and I'm still using it almost every other day, and it never failed on me until now. And apart from light, there's a thing called soft box. So the soft box, they come in different sizes and also different shapes. I'm using the circular soft box, and that helps the light coming from the main light, spread out, makes it softer. That's the whole point of soft box. And it also has this reflective curve inside it, so the light kind of reflects everywhere, and then it brings a soft light on the subject. So if your soft box is smaller, then the light would be more harsh because the light is coming from a small area. But if your soft box is bigger, then the light is more softer. If the light was super harsh, then you would see a lot of shadows here, then you would see a lot of contrast in the image. But if a light is soft, then the light spreads out everywhere. I'm using a 90 centimeter soft box There's also 120 centimeter soft box. But the thing with those soft box are they are super big. They're h to fit everywhere. But a lot of professionals, they use 120 as well. And they are also soft box, which is 60 centimeters. I wouldn't recommend to use them because the light coming out through that soft box is still really harsh. And the soft boxes, they also come in different shapes. Some are rectangular, some are square. But I would recommend to just to invest in these circular ones. They are the most commonly used ones. So yeah, that was soft box for And then you also have to invest in a good sturdy tripod. And these lights, they have a different tripod system than our camera tripods. So you really have to look into it, and again, buy a good sturdy tripod rather than buying a cheap one, and then the whole lights fall on you or fall or even worse fall on someone else. 21. How To Use Studio Lights: Now that we have learned about different components of the studio light. Now let's talk about how to use them. And of course, from the knowledge of natural lights, what I talked in previous section, you can tell that I'm using the Rembrandt lighting technique. And of course, I have put the light at about 45 degrees, the camera is straight in front of me. And because of this angle, it is producing this triangle on this side of my face. And of course, this side is a bit more darker. The upcoming sections, I'm going to show you how to fix it, but this is how it looks, and this method is used in a lot of interview shots where the main light is at about 45 or 60 degrees angle. And this is how the room looks. This is how this frame looks with just one light setup. If you're a beginner and if you want to become a professional videographer or just take your content to the next level, I would really recommend to invest in these lights. I think they are a game changer. Are expensive, but it's a really good investment because these lights would make your talking head shot really good. These lights would also make the product shots if you are filming any product shots. It just makes it look so professional. These lights would also help you if you're filming any sort of cinematic video. And I forgot to tell you that there's also one more light source in this room, which is this window behind me, and that is acting as an ambient light. But here what I'm going to do. I'm going to experiment a little bit. So I have this Philips Hue bulbs, which has crazy different colors. So I'm going to put that on this background. So for that, what I have to do is So here, what I did now was, of course, the last shot was, in my opinion, but we can make it much better by creating contrast between the subject and the background, and how I did it was, because I am a bit more yellowish, a bit more brownish, and my T shirt, and my shirt, whatever I'm wearing, it's white. So how this can pop out from the background is by making a background, which is of completely contrasting color. So this side is a bit more bluish, this side is a bit more pinkish, and that makes me pop out a little bit more because in the last example where I'm using the natural light, everything is white, so it's not really an attractive frame in my opinion. So that's also what you can do is that you can change the color of the background by either using a backdrop, which is just a sheet of paper or a curtain of different different colors, or I have this Phillips hue lights, and they change the color to whatever color I want. For example, if I want to change the color to reds, this is how it looks. I think if you're a creator, this is also a really good investment to invest into these Philips Hue lights because they can just change the color of your background to any color you want, literally any color you want. This is how you can also light up the subject and the background with different colors to keep the scene engaging to your audience. Of course, later, I'm going to show you different different scenarios. I'm going to show you a making off of some short videos, what I post on my socials. So yeah, I'm going to show you really how I light up the subjects, how I light up the background, with different different types of lights that I have. I have moved the light from 45 degrees to 90 degrees and now it's lighting me up like this. Now I've also opened the curtains and let the natural light come in, how it was in the first scenario, and I can also see the light in my frame. This also you have to be a bit more careful, move the light a little bit back. In this frame, you can see that it is creating a bit more drama. It is very unusual. It is very unusual way to light up a subject because one side is completely dark, but this is what you can do in drama. This is what you can use if you want to create that settle emotion in the audience, where you show the subject, but you're also kind of not showing the subject because you might have noticed that in all the comedy movies, they don't use these kind of lights. The subject is well lit. The whole environment is well lit. But if it's a dramatic movie, you can see that there's a lot of darkness in the movie. There's a lot of contrast. There's a lot of well lit areas and that there's a lot of darker areas. So that's how filmmakers also create contrast. That's how filmmakers also create emotion within the audience. Now what I'm going to I'll show you how awful it looks if you bring the light right on the face of the subject. So here what I'm doing is that the light is literally on my face. And this is how I look. I can still not make it fully on my face because the camera is in the way and this office is a bit more small. But you see, you can already see the difference between the previous clip, the previous frame, and this frame that this is just subject this flat out. And now what I'm going to do is that, I'm going to introduce more lights in this scene. And of course, if you're a beginner, you must be thinking that, Oh, I just invested in this light, and now I have to invest in another light. If you can, Yes, because it's a really good learning curve. But if you cannot then really master just lighting up with one light. Everybody has started with one light. Nobody was buying a whole set of film lights and then they started learning. Just invest in one this main light and then just experiment and take it as a challenge that how can I make this scene really cool with just one light? But now I'm going to introduce a lit light. Can you guess what I just did now? If you can guess, pause this class and put it down in the comments. But here what I'm doing now is that. I have introduced a back light. So this is the background light, this pink thing, but this is the back light, and the back light shines on your subject. And what it does is that. Let me just give you an example of an image without the back light. This is how it looks without the back light on, with just one light source and the background light. And now the back light is on. And now you can see the difference that the image looks a bit more full. And here, the main job of our backlight is that to light up the subject, to give more lines to the subject. Because in the previous scenario, there was nothing here. There was no focus here. And now you can actually see my shoulders, the shape of my face more clearly, because this side was all dark in the previous scenario. And that's what back light also does. Sometimes the back light is also kept a bit more higher, and that can light up the subject from back here. I can show you that now. And you see now that I have brought the back light a bit more closer, you can also see it in the frame. Now it looks more intense. Now you can see a lot of yellow light here. There's a reason why I've made it yellow because this light is already white. Something to contrast that I've put it yellow. Because if this was also white, it would look too much blended and it would almost look like the scene is lit with just white light, and that doesn't really create a nice framing. So yeah, that's how you can use backlight. And now I would introduce one more light because there's still a bit more darkness on this side of my face. And to eliminate that, we have a solution. And here we go. So now I've introduced a fill light. A fill light is something which is acting as a fi light, of course, which is sort of filling all the darker areas. So the main light is at 45 degrees. The fill light is also at 45 degrees, but on the other side. And usually, these fill lights, if you don't want to create a dramatic scene, this can be of the same color as the main light. So it almost looks like there is some natural light coming from the other side. And this is the image without the fill light. So you can see now how much darkness is on this side. Let's turn it on. So you see now how much difference the fill light makes. So now we are actually using four lights, which is totally unnecessary. But if you want to create a nice scene, I think there can be important. But each light, they have their own necessity. Sometimes all these sometimes there is barely just one light is necessary, and sometimes two of them are necessary. Sometimes three of them are necessary. But yeah, do not get overwhelmed, Light. I'm just here to teach you what all things are existing in the filmmaking world. 22. How To Talk To A Camera: Now let's talk about how to talk to a camera. I'm assuming that most of you are beginners and who have never talked to a camera. I have been there. It is extremely difficult, not impossible. Trust me, it really gets easier over time. First thing what you should be keeping in mind is that it's all about practice. You're not going to talk like me or talk like any other person, what you see on Internet. Some people have a natural talent. I never had it. But it's not going to go in one go. It's going to take some time for some people more time for some people less time. But it always starts with practicing. A lot of times people only talk to a camera but when they really have to when they're really filming some of YouTube video or when they're really filming some sort of course. But if you really want to become a creating courses online and where you have to talk to a camera, then really start with practicing, just pick up your smartphone and talk to your smartphone every evening and just talk about what did you do whoa, how your day went, If you do that really every day for even ten to 15 days, by the end of that 15 day, you would see yourself improving so much. And that's what I did as well, I think, six, seven years back when I started making YouTube videos. I had this like little point and shoot camera. I would come from my uni, and then I would just sit with the camera in my dorm where when there was nobody. And then I would just talk to the camera, you know, and just talk about how my day went. That also helped me sort of tell stories to the camera and also gave me a confidence of just talking to this lens, this weird lens, you know. Yeah. Over time, it became better. The more you talk to the camera, the more you look yourself back in the laptop or in the camera, your recordings. The more you get feedback Oh, maybe next time I do this, maybe next time I do that, and then it definitely makes things better and easier. Few things, what you need to be keeping in mind when you're talking to a camera is, talk to your camera as if you're talking to a friend. I am really seeing the future you who would be watching this class, and I'm really thinking that I'm talking to you. That's why my voice is also not like monotonous. It's not like robotic. It's actually sounding I hope that it's actually sounding like I'm talking to a person. I really treat the camera as your friend or as your parents, as your siblings, as your cousins, that you are telling them this story, and that already makes things a bit more less awkward, I would say. The next one is talking to a camera or talking about something official or talking about something, when you're educating something, you tend to put a bit more effort than talking to a normal person, that takes a lot of energy, especially for introverts. I'm an introvert and I don't talk this much every day. Yeah. It takes a lot of energy from me by just talking. I've been recording for a while. I think 2 hours and you yourself would feel exhausted. So after 1 hour, I took a breakfast break. So I have been filming since I think 7:00 in the morning. It depends on you when you film. So yeah, I filmed 7-8 or I think 815, and I had breakfast. I was chilling for 45 minutes, then 9:00, I sat out again. And now it's 1025, so yeah. Still not bad, really take breaks because they help a lot. Because when you're talking to a camera, you get exhausted over time. You don't realize it, but then you can see feel in your voice. When you're editing, then you will see that, this is a time it looks like I had a little bit of less energy. Yeah, take breaks, take off your break, just go drink some water. That's also really important for your voice. Also film at a time where you have the most energy. So I prepare everything the night before. This morning, I didn't prepare the filming setup, you know, the light setup. But I kept the lights in my room. I kept these tripods in my room. I am an early morning person, so I knew that when I wake up, I have to film. So I was just focused on this, so I didn't waste so much energy, you know, while talking to my wife. And I just made sure that I'm really fresh, mentally, physically, vocally to talk to you. So yeah, planning, what time of the day you would be filming is also really important just to check on how much energy you have because your students, they are seeing you for the first time, and you better show the best version of yourself because you have to impress them not in a bad way, but you have to impress them to watch this really valuable course. But if you are someone who's just talking with low energy, just like this, then yeah, I don't think that would be convincing enough for them to learn, because what you are teaching, you should really show that you are excited for them to learn what you have to share. That's why I think it's really important the time of the day, what you choose to be filmed. One more thing, of course, it happens with me as well and if you're a beginner, it's going to happen a lot. If you do some mistake or if you're fumbling in between, that do not start from the word where you did some mistakes. Start with the entire sentence. Wide, it's going to be a nightmare for your editor, and it's going to be a nightmare for you as well because your footage might look super choppy. And the last step about talking to the camera is talk in different different tones because that really makes your student feel like you're actually having a conversation with them. Because if something is really important, then you have to make them believe that that is really important. And if something is not that important, then yeah, just talk in a casual way. You see what I just did now, right? When I had to talk something important, I kind of emphasized on that thing, and when I had to talk something not that important, I kind of laid back, and I was just talking in a normal tones. So yeah, these kind of different different tones actually kind of humanizes the course rather than they shouldn't feel like they're just learning from a computer. There's a reason why choosing you a teacher. So come with your best energy, come with your best preparation of the course, and, of course, talk as if they're your friend. They are someone you know, who are a position where you were a few months or a few years back, and you really want to lift them and help them to come with you on this journey and be where you are. 23. How To Use A Teleprompter: As I promised before, I'm going to tell you about how to talk with a Teleprompter as well and guess what I have. A teleprompter. This is from Small Reg. It's called desk desk view. I bought it, I think, three years or two years back. I would link in the description as well about the Amazon link or whatever link of this product, so you know and you can buy in your own country. And the best part about this teleprompter is, you don't need to have any electricity. It comes with a remote and a few accessories, and I'll show you how this works. So this is a remote with which you can control the text. This is a thing where you can attach your smartphone. So how it works is that you can put your smartphone like this. And then there is a little cover. So you can open this cover, and then there's a glass here. You see the glass? Yes. That is the glass. It's a transparent glass, and your phone goes here, and then you can attach this spot on a camera. And this spot is 82 millimeters. So this pot has a certain diameter, but doesn't matter what is the size of your lens. They also give a converter. If your lens is 62 millimeters, you can just research that whatever lens you have, you can just research what is the diameter of my lens. And it has a converter. So if you have a 62 millimeter lens, it has a converter 62-82, and you can literally hang this on front of a camera, and then the mobile phone is there and the text goes. I'll show you. So they have this app as well, desk view, and desk view looks like this. I have some text as well, and I'll show you how this works. So this thing, you can attach it behind the This is what you have to do is put the phone holder here, and then I'm just going to attach this. So if I have to say put the intro video here, so I'm just going to copy and paste. If I just go new lines, so you go new lines here, and see, I just go int intro video bam. So I just pasted the text of the intro video here. And then I can go here, finish. If you want to do any titles, so you can do intro Yeah, finish. And then you can go here, and then you can see that there's a black screen with all the text. So here I would go in the setting in the left corner. Of course, I'll change the orientation to landscape mode. It's like this. Then here in the thing, you can change the word size, If you're not change the word size, playback speed you can change, so how fast or slow playbacks. I usually keep it on white, the background and the text color as black. The count timer is that when you want it to start, and then monitoring, mirroring or not. I would do mirroring, and if I do mirroring, then the whole thing mirrors. You see, Now, you can actually see the reflection of my phone here. So I don't know if you can read it, but if I just start it, it's going to go like five, four, three, two, one. I can show you here, you see. You can actually see all my intro video. And if you want to pause it, I just touch it and it pauses, and then I touch again. It's that. It is really, it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Of course, you can change the speed of the text, and you can change the color of the background. And the best part is, there is no electricity needed, you know, like all these stupid wireless lights. So that's the coolest part about this desk view, you know, desk view, small rig teleprompter. And the good part is that the lens really sits here. So it would look in theory, it would look like you are looking at the lens, but you're actually reading the text, which is right in front of the lens. And sometimes you might see a little bit of glare, you know, through the lens, but most of the time not. So it's really good because people think that you're just looking at the lens. But in reality, you are just reading the text, which is just right in front of the lens. So that is really handy. That's when this teleprompter comes in handy, and there's a remote as well so if you want to start or a stop. So the remotes bluetooth gets connected to the phones bluetooth. This is what I do, and it starts, and if I just press a button, it can go and then I can just go up, change my script, go up and down. So that is really cool. But still talking to a teleprompter, You shouldn't really get used to it so much because you're not reading. You really have to still practice with how to talk in front of the camera. As I told before, and there are pros and cons of a teleprompter. The pros are, of course, you have all the text right in front of your eyes and it also doesn't look weird that you're looking here or there, you're actually talking to the camera. The intro video I did with the teleprompter, did you find any difference? Probably not. You see how good this device is. That's the prose, but the cons are that sometimes your audience can't tell that you're actually reading something. That's why I would still recommend to practice a lot with just talking in camera just in general. Then once you're compatible with that, then talk with the teleprompter. Of course, you have the script written as well, but I think you should also just practice without the camera. Just speaking to yourself, just read the script from your laptop and then speak to yourself that what tone I have to use where in this whole paragraph and then once the text is here. Then it becomes more easier because you've already said the entire paragraph so many times that this becomes really easy. So that was Telly prompter for you. Now let's move on to the next section. 24. Screen Record: And now I'm going to teach you how to screen record. Because a lot of times whenever you are making a course, most probably you'll be also showing people the screen of your computer or your laptop. So yeah, let's dive in. So this software is called OBS, and it is absolutely free for Mac and Windows. I would link down where you can download this software as well in the description. So this is OBS, and whenever you open, it would look like this. And then you see this yellow thing around my cursor. So I also have this software which is called cursor. That is literally the name of the software, and it is hidden somewhere here. I would link down the link of this cursor as well. You can change the size of the cursor. You can change the width, I like this. You can also change the color of the cursor, if you want to make it red or yellow or whatever. I kept it yellow because I think that stands out. And you have to minimize this. I would link it down as well. It's really easy to learn how to use this cursor software, but OBS. This is the OBS and right now it's actually showing what it would be recording. And you just have to click here on the sources to select which source you want the software to record. Right now it is actually recording the screen of my laptop and the screen of my laptop that has a different resolution size as compared to the resolution size, what I've set for this software. Here we can also see that it is recording from the mic of the computer. It can also record the decstop audio. If you want to play a video, it would record here and that levels you can see here moving. But I think with the software, you can just play around and just really see how it works. Because everything is just super easy to be used, I'll just make it full screen. I'll go to settings. If you go to the settings, general settings, I just leave it the same. I barely even touch it. Streaming. I don't do any streaming, so that's not a problem. The output, I keep the video bit rate to 25 KBS, audio bit rate to 160. By that way, it's not really giving me very big file sizes and the video quality is coming out, is also still good. Where I want it to be stored, that would be here. Right now, everything is gray because I'm already recording. Obviously, you cannot change the settings while you're recording. That's quite obvious. This is where it should be saving all the files. Record quality, it would be the same recording format MOV. You can choose between MOV and MP four, it's really up to you. Then audio quality. Audio quality is the same. You can just copy all these settings. The mic what is using is from Macbook Pro. If I want to record on an external mic, and if you connect the external mic to the computer, then you can change. You can also choose the mic from these iPhone from my iPhone or if you have airpods, you can also change the audio input from there. You can have two, three different types of mics. Video quality. The video quality it is recording in four k, which is pretty handy because if I want to crop in, I can crop in without losing quality. And that is also one reason why it is showing this black bars because the resolution is this much. But the size of my screen of these mac books, they're not in a ratio of 16 in to nine. That's why they have these black bars. So you can either zoom in or zoom out. These are quite general settings. If you are filming at 24 frames per second, then you can tell OBS to record at 24 frames per second. If you're filming at 25 frames per second, you can tell OBS to record at 25 frames per second. So you can change the values here. You can also record at 30 or 60 frames per second. These ones, I don't even touch it. Yeah. The main settings you can change is in video. I would really recommend to record in four K. Then here is all the OBS file saved since morning. Morning, what I showed you was the video file from, I think Trello If I go here, So that was a recording from Trello, and I will just close it. So yeah. That was OBS. I still cannot believe it's a free software. It is just amazing how it works. I've used the software so many times with all my editing classes, and it has never given up on me. But one thing what you really need to keep in mind is that press the record button. I've had some times that I'm teaching everything online, you know, then later I realized that, I didn't press the record button. Yeah, you can start and stop record from here, and here, of course, you can go to the setting. Let's stop recording. That was OBS and the cursor software for you. I'll just open my trello. That's how you can screen record, and I'm going to put in the description the link for the OBS software and the cursor software, what I'm using. 25. Filming B-Rolls: Filming B rolls. What are be rolls? Because I'm assuming that you're not a filmmaker, don't know what are be rolls. B rolls are certain videos, what comes on the top of what you're talking about. You see what I just did. So I'm talking about B roles and I put some videos on top of what I'm talking about. The audio, what we are talking now becomes an audio and then the video what is playing on is not this video, but some other videos. That is helping you to understand what I'm talking about, and that is B roll. This talking part, what we are doing, that is a rolls. For making a class, I think that B roles are also useful. Because B rolls, like, first of all, they give the audience more information. Because a lot of times it's also really nice for someone if they're learning to hear something and really see what they're listening so that can ingrain that information so much in their brains. That's why I use a lot of times B rolls as well, and how I even decide what to put B rolls off. Is by this process. The first process is, I film all the errorles and then I give the videos to my editor, and then he just chops off, and then I see the class, the final talking paths, after getting rid of all the errors, or all my mistakes, all the paths, which is not important. Then once I have that video, then I watch that video and then I decide Oh, maybe at this part, if I'm talking about camera lenses, then it can be nice to show three, four different lenses in one screen just for the audience to get more information. If I'm talking about landscape videography, then it can be nice for me to show the audience the actual landscape so that they can understand it more. Once I see the talking parts, then I write down that, this is the B roles, all these be roles I have to take, and then I go out and fill more or if I fill in my office. That's one process of filming a be role. Another process is, once you already have the script, Then you can already decide that when I'm talking about this, I can have this this is B rolls. Then you already have a list before even filming the talking head, that I have to take these be roles as well. So once you did the talking part, then you can film those B roles. And there's also another benefit of using those B rolls is that, say, I am here, I'm talking to you, and then I'm looking at the screen, and I'm reading what important things what I have to say, which I really cannot remember when I'm talking to you. Then I can talk like this, and I can actually put the B roles when I'm looking at the screen and talking. You would never know that I was being sneaky and looking at my screen and reading while you were watching the beautiful be rolls. At the same time, the visuals also looks more interesting and more pretty. That was be rolls, and now let's move on to the next one. 26. Course Thumbnail: Now let's talk about thumbnails. So thumbnails are really important. I am looking at my computer because I want to talk about some thumbnails, what I have used in my previous classes. And I also make a lot of thumbnails for my YouTube videos. So I have a bit of knowledge of what kind of thumbnails they work, what kind of thumbnails. They don't work. So let's go to classes I'm teaching. So I can show you a bit of intent about like what is a psychology behind the thumbnails. A thumbnail is a picture. That can give the exact information of everything what you have inside a course, and that can be represented in that thumbnail. Looking at this class, how to film yourself, a solo filmmaking master class. In this class, I have this beautiful shot of me using my phone and then the text is film yourself. Why I chose that is because I wanted to show a really cool shot which looks like straight out of a film. Then I have the shot and next with the shot, it says, film yourself. Yeah. And then in the title, it says, how to film yourself. So I want to show to the audience that after watching this class, you can make beautiful cinematic shots like this without needing someone's help and by just filming yourself. So that was my intent behind making this thumbnail. And a lot of times text they also work. Because if I didn't have the text, then it might not give the full message. People would just see that, Oh, it's just a beautiful image. Because a lot of times people first see the picture, then they read the title. They saw a beautiful picture, then you're like, Oh, film yourself. Oh, what's the title? So that's how the instinct is. There's another beautiful thumbnail of these travel blogs. I have this photo of myself in a beautiful sunset, beautiful Mountains looks like a proper cool travel destination, and I've just written travel blogs. That can already show people that, oh, that's a travel blog, that looks so pretty. I want to learn from this guy that how can you make it look so pretty? The text is creating exciting and authentic travel blogs, a beginner's guide. The next thumbnail, what I would show you is video editing in DaVinci Resolve 18, a complete beginners guide. Here, You can see Dini resolve logo that looks quite official. It's written D Dawnci, then resolve in 18 with a red background that attracts the audience. Then if you see on the left hand side, there is a Dawni resolve on my monitor. The audience, they know that, he's actually going to teach Davin resolve. And then there is my face as well. So a lot of times people kind of hide themselves behind the camera. But I think putting a face to a course is also really handy because that builds a lot of trust between the teacher and the students. Because now in this course, I can show the people that I'm going to teach you the inter resolve 18. And this is me and that's what I'm going to teach you. It builds a lot of trust. Otherwise, it would just look like AI generated thumbnail, you know. I think it's really important to put a nice text, a really compelling text. It can be as simple, just going to resolve 18, or it can be something really impactful. A nice text, which is visible, which has a nice font, and also your face as well. This class, I think didn't work. Why because there are a lot of courses about drown filmmaking, but this thumbnail is not that impressive. First reason, if you see here, there's a lot of contrast. There is pink in the foreground, there is blues in the background, in the color grading master class. Here, also there's a lot of contrast. There is a black shadow person. And there's a bright background. But if you see this drone master class thumbnail, I don't think it's good because there's just one similar colors throughout the whole picture. I'm wearing something white ish, the sandal to look the same color. I'm not really popping out. You barely see the drone, and the text is also not that impressive. Yeah, that was a few examples of me showing what thumbnail works and whatnot. I think the most important is the face of the instructor. And then the second thing is what you're teaching, how can you just really brainstorm that how can you show people everything what you're teaching in the course? Of course, you can take a lot of inspiration from people who are actually teaching this. Yeah, I think thumbnails are also something which you should really pre plan. When I started making videos, I would just put the screen capture from my courses in the thumb nail and they were so bad. It's really important to give some time and think about the thumbnail as well. Because a thumbnail and a title of the course is the most important part, which would add to the success of your course. 27. Editing A Course: Now let's talk about editing. And yes, I've broken the rule. I told you that when you're filming of course, all the setup should be consistent, but I just wanted to give a little bit of change, you know, because now we're talking about editing, and now I wanted to show you my editing setup, you know, it looks like we are in an editor's room. So yeah, that's what I wanted to show you as well. That's the kind of be I wanted to get through. And I've also done something a bit brave. I have opened the curtains. Usually when I'm filming, I keep the curtains closed so that there's no influence of Natural Light, but it is early morning. It is 7:00. So I don't think the light would be that harsh, and it is a nice and clear day, so I don't think that there would be a lot of clouds and a lot of sun. So there wouldn't be a lot of fluctuation in the natural light outside. But let's see. Now let's talk about editing and why it is important. Of course, the writing the course, filming the course. That is really important, but how you edit it, how you're presenting it to the viewers. That's really important because a good quality editing really sort of transfers the story, what you want to tell to your audience. And in cases about course creation, a good edited course would really deliver the knowledge to the students in the simplest term possible. What I've been doing in this course is you see my talking head. You rarely see any roles, but most of the time, you are just seeing texts because this is a purely educational course. I'm not here to impress you about my filmmaking styles. When I make filmmaking courses, you know, I remember I made a course about how to film yourself. So there I wanted to show my students what all things I can do, you know? So then I would show some beautiful be roles or beautiful images of me being filmed with the camera, because that's the thing, what would impress them and would increase their curiosity to watch it more and more. But this is a purely educational course, and I just wanted to get the message through. And that is with the help of, you know, the talking head shots talking as clear as possible, in the easiest possible language as possible, but also implementing a lot of text transition. So it's a proven fact that if you want to learn something, You can listen and read at the same time and that helps you learn even better than just reading or just watching like this. So that's what I've been doing in this course, and now let's talk about editing. Of course, editing is really important, and there's two ways to edit. One is you edit all the courses yourself, and the other is you outsource the editing projects. I do almost both. First three years of me making courses, I edited all the videos by myself. But since last year, I have hired an editing team. So they edit half of the course, and then I do all the finishing touches. I edit all the places where a lot of decisions have to be made because I still love editing, you know, but at the same time, if I edit all my course, it takes a lot of time. But yeah, I will go through the pros and cons of editing yourself, the pros and cons of hiring someone. Now let's get started. Here in this section, I'm not going to teach you exactly how to edit the course. I'm not going to teach you how to work on this video editing software because that would be another 3 hours of video lecture. But I have made a complete beginner course on how to edit on CAP COD, how to edit on the Vine result, which is on at the moment. Yeah, you can check my previous classes after watching this. If you really want to learn how to edit as a beginner. And in those classes, I've taught everything related to editing, and that would help you to edit a professional looking course. But here in these sections, I'm going to give you some tips of how to edit the course, how to edit better, and just to make a professional looking course. So let's get started. 28. My Editing Workflow: Let's talk about my editing workflow and how I have made some small, small changes to make it simpler, easier, more efficient, less time consuming. So yeah, let's get started. The first and the most important part is just after you have filmed, organize everything as if you have to send this project file to someone else. I actually do it, so I have to really organize it good. But even if you open this project after five months, six months or even a year all the files should be exactly clear to you, that this is what you have talked in each section. And how you can do it, let me show you. So here, if I just open, you know, that's my external hard drive. Let's go to CAPCut, because I actually sent this whole project file to my editor. So as you can see, if I have opened the folder, there are three subfolders. The first one is CP Curt resource file. These are the resource files for my students, you know, so they can go in the description and download these resource files. And CAPCOt thumbnails because I took a lot of photos. I wanted to keep it here because if I want change the thumbnail later. I know where it is. That's the CAC thumbnail and here is main talk cap cut. This was a course about how to use CAP Cut. Really interesting course, I would link it down below. But here The only thing what I filmed was meet talking, you know, the main talking hit part. And then the screen recording. So the screen record because, of course, I want the students to see as well what's being recorded. So I have made every part part one part through. So there were 11 chapters. So I have 11 screen recordings. There were 11 chapters. I have 11 main talk parts. And this is the intro part because as I told, I filmed the intro separately after filming the course. And this is the audio. So this mic, what I have that also records externally, So I have this audio file as well. So anyone if I sent not even to my editor, if I send this file to any editor in the world, they would know exactly what's happening here. And this is how you should be organizing your files as well. I'll give you another example of another course, how to film yourself. I'll open this and here it's a bit less organized because I filmed by myself, but all the talking paths are here. Yeah. Then here, these are the videos from Insta 360. These are the Bro, all the previous videos, what I use. These are the be roles from Canon. These are the extras. I had some templates, that's extra. These are the footage from iPhone. When I'm talking about the lights, This is the section. So you know, like, the more subfolders you divide your project into, the easier it is for you to find these files, find one particular file when you are doing editing, you know, 02 years later, if you want to just sort of grab a little clip, you know exactly where it is. So that's really important. So yeah, organizing is the first part. Of course, once you have organized everything in the subfolder, you can sort of copy the exact same subfolder in the software that I've also taught in the materials off class and Cp cut class. But here, if I open sort of this project file, you can see here as well that there is a short breakdown. The main talk is here. It's following the exact same structure, how my folder was. And then what I do is that, of course, I'm going to drag and drop the file. To the main timeline, like all these things I've taught you, yeah. So I'm going to drag and drop this file to the timeline. So say, for example, if this was my talking head pot. Yeah. So here, if I have to do any changes in the audio, for example, if I want to increase the audio level, I would already do it here. Rather than later, and the reason is that, because, of course, this is one rough file, you know, and any changes, what I want to make on this file. I want the entire section to have the same change. Because if I do, like, say, for example, little little cuts here, you know, little cuts like this, then I have to put the changes on each of these pots like here here. So it's really smart to already make all the changes. And also, what I do is that once the audio is taken care of, I also do color grading on these as well. So say, for example, I'm going to show you So if you see this file, it looks like it's not really color grated, but I've done some color grading because if I just disable all of this, this is what it looks before. I've just done a little bit of color grading, so this is what it looks before. This is what it looks after. So yeah, if you have to do color grading as well, first, import the main talking part in the timeline and then do some audio tweaking. I have also tought about how to enhance the audios and stuff in the mater resolve class. And once the color grading and everything is done, then you start chopping the clips. And how do you chop the clips is by using shortcuts. If you just press A, and it sort of 's the clip, then you don't have to go through all the different things, and it has been proven that every shortcut you use, it would save you at least 30 to 40 seconds every time. If you combine them in a three to 4 hours class, it's going to literally save you at least 20 to 30 minutes of editing in total. So yeah, use shortcuts, and then the next step is just chopping everything down. So that's what my editor does as well. So if you see these clips, all these cuts are where I messed up, where I said something which was not really important, or where I did some mistake, where I had some uh, you know, all these sort of things. So I sort of chopped that out. And then I rewatch it again, that is there anything that needs to be chopped up or whatever I have cut it out, what if it's an important information? So I rewatch it again after cutting everything. And then what I do is that, as I told you about filming B roles, once I have all the talking pots, then I put all the B roles on the top. So as you can see here. Let's check if the camera has a flip screen. My camera has a flip screen, so that makes my life so much easier to film myself, because as I'm filming See here, I'm talking when my caravan has a flip screen, so that's what I'm showing there. So that is more powerful to the people, you know, and that gives them exact information of what I'm talking about. So me and my students are on the same page. And that's why B roles are important. So as I told before there's two methods, you can already film the B rolls after filming the talking hit pots, or once you have all these files ready, you know, all the talking pots here ready after being chopped up, then you can just grab a notebook or grab your apple notes or whatever you're using for making notes. He can write down all the roles that you have to film. Once you have filed all the roles, you can just drag and drop to here, you know. So if you're a beginner, I think this method can be easier because sometimes you don't really have this vision of how exactly my course would look. So I think maybe it is handy that you film the talking head parts first, and then you do all the chopping here, and then you rewatch it, and then you can think that what footage I can put there for my audience to make it look more beautiful, for my audience to make it look more not just beautiful to convey more information to the audience. Once the burros are done, then I'm going to add text animations like these. And after I've done the text animation, now it's time to put music. And usually, I don't put music when I'm talking, throughout the course. I've seen some instructors they use music throughout the course, but I think that's a bit distracting, that's a bit annoying, so that's why I don't do it. But I would put music in the intro video and energetic music for the students to get pumped up, you know? For this class, I've put an energetic intro music because I want you to get excited about this class, and I also use music at the introduction of each class. The reason is that, of course, the students should know that there is a bit of change because I'm talking, talking, talking, and if I just go to the next class just like this, then they wouldn't be alert. And the music which comes in between with the text animation that gives a bit of break to their eyes, to their brains, and that also gives them information that, something new is coming. We are finished with the previous section. Music, just in the intro video, the main introduction video, and just in first two, 3 seconds of each lecture, with the text animation. Now let's talk about quality control. Of course, you have organized the folders, you have edited everything, you have put the B rolls, music, texts and everything. It's time to do some quality control. And what I mean by quality control is to just rewatch the entire class again and again. Because a lot of times you might have said something wrong. A lot of times there might be spelling mistakes. There might be just a black screen left, you know, somewhere because when you're editing something, it's just so many files and so many short short clips and so many roles, so many text animation that if you have moved something here in the beginning, something in the tenth second might have also moved. So when I get back the files from my editor, I watch it at least two times, you know, just to see if I've done any mistake or if they have done any mistake, so that we are good, so that the course is correct, You know what I wanted to say, what I wanted the people to see it is there, and if something is missing, of course, I change it. And once you have exported the files, then rewatch it again, not in the software, but in the computer, watch the exported file. Because sometimes these softwares can be a little tricky. What you're watching here They can be completely different than what you have exported. A lot of times there is a difference in color, a lot of times there is a difference in quality. So yeah, watch it once in the software and watch it once it's exported. And now let's talk about what settings you should be exporting in. I will go here in my software. So what I do is that I usually export in.264. So here I export in St 264, and from four K, I change it to high definition. Because most of the platforms, not even skil, any other platform, it is almost pointless to export in four K and to upload in four K because the platform where you would be uploading, that platform would reduce the video size down to high definition anyways. So to save up size, to save up some time, export in high definition. And yeah, frame rates, whatever frame rates you have chosen to film your course, you should put that frame rate as well. Of course, what I do is that I give numbers to my file. If I go say here, I can show you all the skill share classes that I've made. If I go to CAP COD, I give numbers to them. If I go like this, then this CP cut overview, timeline introduction, blah, blah, blah. So all the classes, they have different different, you know, chapter names, and I also put the numbers in front of them so that they are how I want them to be uploaded on the platforms. So yeah, that's how you should be exporting h.264. And here, you can either put the format as quick time. Quick Time would give you the MOV format, or you can also put it in MP four. Here you can do that. And then instead of quick time, you can change it to MP four. P four or quick time format, they both should be working on Skill chair and any other course creating platform. These were a few export settings. And now, let's give you some tips about how to make your editing better. 29. Editing Tips: Editing tips for your successful course. The first editing tip is, do something different every 20 seconds. What do I mean with that is? These stalking had shots or 22, even 30 seconds. This stalking had shot, what we are doing right now. If it goes for say, 1 minute, two minute like that, with nothing happening in the screen, except for the fact that I'm just talking, it gets a bit boring. So what you can do to eliminate that is do something every 22, 30 seconds. What do I mean with that is, you can either put a bro you know of whatever you're talking about, or you can put some text animation, or you can make this jump cut, what's happening now. And these things would keep the audience's attention throughout the course. So yeah, do something every 22, 30 seconds. That's a first step. And the next day, what I would tell you is to film as many be roles as possible. The reason why I'm telling is that if you're a beginner, there would be chances that you are making a lot of mistakes when talking to the camera. And of course, to hide those mistakes, you can put the roles on the top. So whenever there is a jump cut, you know, cutting between third second to the fifth second, if there is a jump cut, the audience would know, and it's really annoying, so then you can put the be roles on the top. Or you can do some text animation. And all these text animation, whatever, I'm talking about, I have taught in the teres of master class or in CPCt master class how to do text animation in those video editing software. So you can learn from there as well. The next editing tip, extra assets. What happens is that you would be using very similar asset in one course throughout the entire course. So what do I do is that I put all these extra assets here. So there is this arrow. There are some click effect, you know, there is some pop effect, which I'm using in this course as well. There are some keyboard typing effects. All these effects, what I would be using regularly, you can put them in a separate folder so that you don't have to search for them every time in the computer. Every time if you think that you have to use the Pop effect. You can just drag it from that folder, and there are a lot of sound effects as well. There are a lot of other effects as well. And if you want those effects, if you want the sound effects, or if you on the arrows and all that sort of stuff, I can put that in the description as well, so you can of course download for free. And these sort of elements and these effects would help you to enhance the quality of your courses as well. Next step, keep all the graphics with the same color, keep all the text in the same font with the same size so that when the audience are watching, there's no disruption. They don't feel that there is something weird happening. The next step, of course, you should make a template of intro and outro of each lecture, and that you can of course copy and paste in front of each lecture and change the title, that would save you a lot of time. These were the few editing tips what you can implement to make your courses better and to make your life easier as well. 30. Marketing Tips: And now let's talk about marketing the course. The good part about publishing on Skillshare is that if your course is good, if it is discovered by audience already in the beginning, they show it to more audience. But how do you get the first 20, 30, or even 50 students on your course? That can be by something you can do externally by advertising it on social media or advertising it on your website or on your newsletter. So those things you can already do even before publishing the course. A lot of times I had it when I was filming the course of how to film yourself and make it look cinematic. I was already talking to my audience on Instagram about that course, that, Hey, this is coming. I was already making posts about that thing. I was already making some of the cinematic shots, you know, that this is what I can do, and I'm making a course. And once that course is published, you can learn from that as well. And a lot of times I give them free link as well. For example, what I did was that, I made a video of me filming myself. And then in the description, I told that, hey, if you're interested in learning how to film yourself, make it look cinematic, comment down cinematic. And for the first ten people, I would give them a free link when the course is published. And some people commented as well. And once the course was published, I gave them a free link. On Skillshare, you can do that. You can choose the number of people who have access to those links. So yeah, that you can do as well to hype up your course even before publishing it. And what I also did was made short intro videos. So for my iPhone filmmaker class, I was advertising it a bit aggressively. So what I did was, I distributed the intro video or the promo video, which I wanted to post on Instagram and Facebook into three different parts. The hook would be the first part. The main content, what I'm teaching in the class, who is this class for? The main content was in the middle and the outro was separate. So what I did was I filmed three variations of the hook for that class. And here are the three hooks. So you've just bought a $1,500 iPhone and you have no clue how to film cinematic videos from them, then listen now. There's nothing more painful than buying a super expensive iPhone, hoping to get cinematic videos, but in the end, they look like this. Well, I have a solution. Are you struggling to get cinematic videos from an iPhone while others, they make it look easy, then listen up. So you see all these three hooks are kind of saying the same thing in a different way. And then once I've had the hook, I put the middle part the same for all the intro videos. And the outro was also different because sometimes if I have the video in my stories, I would say, click the link here and access to the class. Sometimes if I have posted it as a main post, then I would say, go to the link in my bio. So yeah, you can make different different variations of the hook, keep the main part of the promotional video the same, and make different variations of the outrow. So by doing that, you have three to four promotional videos for your courses. And these things you can already film when you are filming the course, you know? So you just have to flip the car camera in a vertical position, and you're good to go. So these things are also really important, especially when you're starting out, because if you publish a course, and for, like, say, first month, if you just had five students, that that course might not be discovered by other students, because the algorithm of Skillshare might think that it's not doing good. It's not something relevant to the topic, what it says is good. So that's why I think it's really important, especially for beginners is to aggressively advertise a course and just give away maybe 20 links, maybe 30 free links, because you want those minutes, you want those students. To be coming to the class and also just encourage them to give reviews, encourage them to ask questions. And the last part about marketing is the SEO. I recently released a CAP Cut course, and I'll show you what I mean by that. P cut. So that's a new class. It has just 27 students. I think published it three days ago. But you see, my class has been ranked the first as compared to the class, which already has 6,000 students, 4,000 784, 1,400, something like that. And why is that? That is because of something called as the search engine optimization. So with that, whatever topic I'm teaching in the class, it's already there in the title of the class. So here I'm saying in depth cap Cut, video editing, master class. So anybody who's searching for cap CT or video editing, SkillShare would think that that is exactly what is being taught in the class. And further, if you go in the description of this class, I say again, welcome to Cp Cod editing Master class. Then I'm telling again here, CP Code is the best video editing software for beginners. So Skillshare is getting more clarity that yes, this is about CAPCOd, this is a video editing software. This is for beginners. I'm using terms like CP Cd, editing, beginners, video editing, filmmaking, when I'm talking, when I'm making an intro video, and I'm also doing the exact same thing when I'm writing the description of the class. So all these things are helping my class to be almost on the top of this list. And when I was doing the research about cap cut, those things I saw was missing in the other class. And that's when I took the opportunity. And that's what I did. And now, luckily, my class is in the top, and let's see how long it would last there. What if you watch my class and then you make another cap cut class with all the tips what I've made, and you make it better, then your class would be ranking a bit higher. But yeah, these things, what I've been doing to rank my classes higher. That's a really good sign to all of the beginners because you see this class is just 27 students, and chances are that if you are publishing your first class, maybe in first month, you get 27 students. But still, you have a good chance that the classes are ranking higher. But there's also one more thing what Skillshare sees is the retention in your classes. For example, if someone just watches your intro video and then they just watch the first lecture and then they're like, Okay, if this lecture is not what I wanted, I'll just click out. Then what Skillshare also thinks is that, the class which is written here in the title, whatever is written in the description, it's not really matching to what is being taught. So then your class might not be discovered by other students. So really, you have to keep the quality from thumbnail, from the title, from what you're filming, from the editing of these classes, almost really related to what the topic is so that you're not really letting the students go away in just first few lectures. Of course, I'm 100% sure that most of the classes, what I publish, maybe 5% of the people are watching until the end But even if 30 to 40% of people are watching until the middle of the class, that already tells Skillshare that this is a valuable class, and this class should be viewed to other students. So these are the few tips that would help you to get more students, to get your ranking of your classes higher when someone is searching about that particular topic. 31. Outro: Was it for how to make a successful course on Skillshare. And if you have any questions regarding how to create your first online class, then please post it down in the description, and I would be really happy to help. And yes, for sure, do not forget to do the class project, what I mentioned before, the introduction video, because I'm really curious to see what kind of introduction video you come up with after watching all the materials. So keep creating, and I'll see you in the next one.