Hey Reader,

Today we talk about simplifying your recording workflow, a way to find interesting stories, and the Oscar winner Flow.

This Week's Frame

Key Takeaway: Simple is better.

Recently I found that a lot of creators feel stuck with creating videos. Not because they don't have any content ideas, but rather because they are stuck with their gear and setup.

I know it from myself, as more fancy gear you get, as more time it takes to set it up. And especially if you don't have a fixed setup (like many beginners), that sucks.

For instance, recording a 10 min YouTube video takes me about 15-20 min. But setting up all my gear takes almost an hour. And that one hour between wanting to start and hitting record often stops me from making new videos.

So what can we do about this? Well, I think the answer is to simplify and reduce friction.

Of course, if you have a fixed studio setup, you can just set up everything once and you're good to go. But if not, I would highly recommend to rethink which gear you use.

Do you need all your lights? Do you need an external audio recorder or would a simple wireless mic be enough? What are ways to speed up your workflow?

I found this very helpful. Sometimes we use gear that might not even make any significant difference and we might just be better off with slightly lower quality.

Frame it Better

Key Takeaway: No stories to tell? Your life isn't as boring as you think.

When it comes to creating videos, everyone struggles from time to time to come up with new creative ideas. It's honestly not easy. Especially if your life is simply boring...

I hear creatives saying that all the time. They don't know which stories to tell, because there's not much happening in their lives. Every day seems to be the same routine, nothing special is happening.

But you know what? I don't think that's the reality. All our lives are at least to some degree interesting to someone. And there are more stories to tell than we think. We just have to find them.

And there's one interesting approach that I recently found in Matthew Dicks book Storyworthy. He calls it "Homework for life". It's quite simple.

Every day you summarize the most interesting thing that happened to you in one sentence. Only one sentence, not more. You don't need to write an entire story.

Create a simple spreadsheet where you add each date and short summary. If you do this consistently you'll find out that there's more happening in your life than you think.

It's honestly a great way to find new ideas and stories to tell. And at the same time, it works like a journal, summarizing the most important things in your life.

Final Frame

Key Takeaway: The $3.7 million USD budget movie "Flow" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

For those who have followed the Oscar Nominations, there were a few interesting ones this year. I personally thought "The Wild Robot" would get the award for the Best Animated Feature, but turned out to be wrong. The award went to Flow, which can be summarized as follows.

"Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences."

More notable is even that Flow was made on a USD 3.7 million budget, compared to other movies in this category like Inside Out 2 with a 200 million USD budget. That's a huge difference! Even more impressive, Flow was entirely made with the free software Blender.

Flow has fairly simple animations, but the storyline is excellent. I think this shows again that it's not a matter of expensive equipment or a massive crew, but rather comes down to storytelling.

Thank you for reading The Weekly Frame. See you in the next one! Markus Galli

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