Aaron Francis

Aaron and Andrew talk about recent experiments in video production including Aaron's upcoming MySQL for Developers course and Andrew's YouTube videos from The Rails SaaS Conference.

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Transcript

Aaron

00:00:00 – 00:00:05

The first time I posted a video on Facebook, the only person that had liked it was my mom.

Andrew

00:00:17 – 00:00:18

Hey, Aaron. How's it going?

Aaron

00:00:19 – 00:00:31

Hello again, Andrew. It is going very well. I've been super busy recently and am leaving tomorrow for Laracon EU. I'm traveling to Lisbon. So all good things.

Aaron

00:00:31 – 00:00:33

Just a lot going on right now.

Andrew

00:00:34 – 00:00:44

I wanted to talk to you about that. I'm excited for your trip to Europe. I hope it goes great. We've got a trip coming up next week as well. We're heading to Japan for 2 weeks for a vacation.

Andrew

00:00:44 – 00:00:54

Looking forward to it. Haven't been there for a few years. But I know you're very busy right now in the lead up to this conference. I know you put a lot of effort into your talks. We've talked about that before.

Andrew

00:00:55 – 00:01:04

But you're also working on a video course that I want to talk about. Do you wanna give us a brief rundown on that?

Aaron

00:01:04 – 00:01:38

Yeah. So I have been working on a course called MySQL for developers. So I'm doing this for my day job at PlanetScale. And so this is going to be a totally free course that basically covers how to use MySQL as an expert, but not how to, like, host it and run it and replicate it and do some more of like the DBA level stuff. And so it's for people like you and I who are not DBAs, but we are like full stack developers.

Aaron

00:01:38 – 00:01:54

And we need to know how to use a database and how indexes work and how to do efficient queries, that sort of thing. It's a whole lot of work. I've been working on it for so long, and my videos need to be done by February 20th. And so I'm running out of time.

Andrew

00:01:55 – 00:02:41

I'm really excited about this course. I love the concept because I love people learning how to program. And I think for most people learning to program, the right toolset to learn is a framework like Laravel, like Rails. The benefit is that you ship real stuff much sooner because of everything that the framework provides for you. And one of those things is an ORM that these days with Eloquent and with ActiveRecord, you can do the basic database persistence stuff without too much insider knowledge of how a relational database works, but it only gets you so far.

Andrew

00:02:41 – 00:03:16

And so I think it's good because people can ship real things real quick, but at a certain point, you gotta take time and learn how a database really works because most of the time, I think most of the performance issues that this is probably true for you, it's definitely been true for me, most of my performance issues have come from the database. That's the bottleneck. And I've heard people that work at PlanetScale like Mike Kudermarsh say the same thing. That was what they were fighting with at GitHub most of the time. So I think it's really exciting that it's like a one two punch.

Andrew

00:03:17 – 00:03:43

It feels like, yes, let's get people educated on how to build web applications with these great frameworks that we've got, but then when the time comes, go do a deep dive with Aaron's course. Like some of these videos I've seen that you've put out, it's like, this is perfect. These little bite sized pieces of information that I think is gonna fill the gaps of knowledge for a lot of people who are learning to program. And I'm learning stuff too, and I've been doing this for a long time.

Aaron

00:03:44 – 00:04:02

Yeah. That is my hope. I feel like there's a huge missing section of content when it comes to databases. I feel like most of the people teaching about databases and how to use them are just at a different level. They're at the DBA level.

Aaron

00:04:03 – 00:04:28

And so they are not hitting things that I think application developers really need to care about and should care about. And I feel like there's almost like an elite thing where DBAs kind of historically have looked down on application developers and been like, oh, app developers are using an ORM. How embarrassing. And I'm like, I love ORMs. I'm not going to tell you not to use the ORM, use the ORM.

Aaron

00:04:29 – 00:04:43

And so I do feel like there's a gap in the middle, kind of the meaty middle of developers who don't want to host their own MySQL, but would like to know how an index works and when they should use it. And so that's the content I'm trying to hit.

Andrew

00:04:44 – 00:05:03

It's really good. So the idea I have for what we could talk about today isn't the course itself. It's video as a medium for educating developers because I think I forget. I think I saw a poll somewhere. How do people prefer to learn?

Andrew

00:05:04 – 00:05:40

And sure, there was a large contingent that responded on that poll and said, Yeah, I like reading the documentation. I have a friend Ken Collins that was one of my Ruby Dads. And he is just an epic reader of documentation. So if he was starting on a project, he would go out and read everything about the thing before he got started. But the other large response in that poll was almost equal, if I remember correctly, was people saying they enjoy learning about development from videos.

Andrew

00:05:40 – 00:06:14

And so I think this is a valuable topic for all of us who feel like we have something to share. We're used to writing documentation. But, certainly, I've heard from people over the years who have watched videos that I've recorded, really rough ones. And it's just clear that this is a really great way of doing knowledge transfer, and it's, in some ways, I think, much more personal than traditional documentation writing. Maybe on the same level as, like, blog posts, but even more so in a way because you're so present as the presenter in the videos.

Andrew

00:06:15 – 00:06:27

So it just felt like there was a lot to unpack there, both technically on what's going well and also talking on the meta level about it a little bit. But I gotta ask, how tired are you right now?

Aaron

00:06:28 – 00:06:54

I am pretty tired. I spend a lot of my day recording. If I'm not studying and preparing to record, I'm recording. And I don't know if I'm doing it right. I don't know if there's a right way to record video, but the way that I do it is I don't write a script because, one, I think that would just take me so long to write word by word, and then I'll have a teleprompter.

Aaron

00:06:54 – 00:07:05

I don't wanna just read it. It would feel so stilted to me. And so what I do is I do all my study. I make notes. I make, like, a kinda like an outline, and then I just start recording.

Aaron

00:07:05 – 00:07:33

And what that means is I end up doing a bunch of takes as I figure out the best path through the content, like, the right things to say. I end up just doing a ton of takes. And so it takes me a really long time, and it's really tiring. I, at this point, am getting through about 2 to 4 videos a day. And once they're all edited down, I would say each video is between 4 and 6 to 7 minutes.

Aaron

00:07:33 – 00:07:42

And so I'm spending an entire day producing 15 minutes of content. It's like, good grief. So it's very tiring.

Andrew

00:07:42 – 00:07:59

Yeah. I get that. That it sounds exhausting. But, also, I think if you're getting 15 minutes of content out of a day of recording, I feel like that's pretty good. I feel like you're kinda dialed in compared to what my experience has been when I've been doing demo videos and recordings and things like that.

Andrew

00:07:59 – 00:08:13

I try to keep those real short because they're usually getting posted on Twitter or whatever. So you're looking at 2 minutes of content, maybe 5 minutes tops. And I feel like sometimes those take me a whole day. So in some ways, you've got a system.

Aaron

00:08:14 – 00:08:44

I would say for a final product of 5 to 6 minutes, it probably takes me 2 to 3 hours of just recording, which doesn't include the prep and the editing. So it takes me a long time. I have gotten much faster as I've worked through. I've probably got 25 long form videos behind me and probably 10 to 12 short form videos behind me. And as I've done it, I've gotten much faster.

Aaron

00:08:44 – 00:08:54

But, yeah, sometimes I'll do a whole video and then I'll come back the next morning and watch it and just realize, nope, could do that better. Like, I just scrap the entire thing.

Andrew

00:08:55 – 00:09:42

I wanna unpack that a little bit because I feel like I'm a bit of a perfectionist on a lot of these things, on these content pieces, and I think that actually makes it take a lot more time to produce something. And the really dark side of being a perfectionist is when stuff never sees the light of day at all, where you just run out of time. And because you were being so meticulous slash neurotic about certain things, it actually just doesn't get done in the time you have, and then you don't get back to it. And then nobody benefited. You wasted I can do that better, and I wanna do it better.

Andrew

00:09:42 – 00:09:54

So I'm just gonna trash it, do it all over again. On the other hand, like, I watched a video that you posted today that had the little animation of how an index works on a database. Did you find a tool for that?

Aaron

00:09:55 – 00:10:03

I did. Yeah. It was like some research tool from some university published literally 20 years ago, and the animation still works. I thought it was amazing.

Andrew

00:10:04 – 00:10:17

Yes. And yet, I noticed in the video, the way that you put it in the video, it looked looked really pixelated and whatever. And you know what? It was a lesson to me in it because I'm like, this is awesome. This is a very educational video.

Andrew

00:10:17 – 00:10:35

But it's not pixel perfect, but it is doing its job very well despite that. What's the thought process there when you're trying to decide between do it again or take longer to do it a little bit better versus ship it?

Aaron

00:10:36 – 00:11:03

So I think there's a good distinction to be made, first of all, between short form and the course. Because with short form, I feel like it's much more ephemeral and the stakes are much lower with short form. So you can put something out there. It's under a minute long and you can't really explain every nook and cranny of a concept in short form. With the course, however, I feel like the bar is a lot higher for me and I think where I draw the line.

Aaron

00:11:03 – 00:11:40

So the things that I have come back and scrapped is not because I made a little typo or I said a word and then, like, audibly corrected myself. I haven't scrapped a video for that. I have scrapped videos because I've come back and watched it and thought the way that I explained that is not clear enough. So it has nothing to do with perfection in terms of a fat fingering while I'm typing some sequel that I don't care about that so much. I do super care when I come back and I watch it and I'm like, man, that didn't make enough sense.

Aaron

00:11:41 – 00:11:46

You can explain it more clearly, and that's when I'll scrap a whole video and start over.

Andrew

00:11:46 – 00:12:09

Yeah. That's great. I do think as well, that's a side effect of what you were talking about before, which I really agreed with, which is when you come in without a script and you kinda are just working through it, doing a bunch of takes, do you end up in that sort of situation where you get a certain portion of it? Like, you start recording, and then you get a good take, and then you're like, sweet. I got a good take.

Andrew

00:12:09 – 00:12:13

And then you move on from there, and you just keep going until the whole thing comes together?

Aaron

00:12:14 – 00:12:40

Yes. It's weird, but I have, like, a almost like a 30 second buffer in my head of the last things that I've said. And so if I make a mistake, I know exactly where to go back to to start over because I know what the cut point is going to be. And I've also gotten really good at staying physically in the same location because I'm going to be on camera. It's a screencast.

Aaron

00:12:41 – 00:13:04

Yes. But I'm in the lower right corner. And so to minimize the amount of jumping around that my face and my hands do, I've gotten really good at when I complete a thought, I basically come back to resting position. And so that way, when I start a new thought, I know that I can cut back to that and I'm basically gonna be in resting position, which will be a little jumpy, but no one will really notice.

Andrew

00:13:04 – 00:13:10

He says to the guy on webcam who, talking about myself here, who's rocking back and forth. Yes. I've had to teach myself here, who's rocking back and forth.

Aaron

00:13:10 – 00:13:21

Yes. I've had to teach myself to stop spinning around like that while I'm talking because that's what comes naturally. But if I spin around like that, the cuts are gonna be just egregious. And so, yeah, it's a real thing.

Andrew

00:13:23 – 00:13:29

That's awesome. So what do you use the short form videos for? Is that social media stuff?

Aaron

00:13:30 – 00:14:12

The short form videos, I use them strictly for social media platforms. So my workflow is such that I can record 1 short form video always under a minute to meet every platform's requirements. And then I can edit it a couple of different ways and I can end up with Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and if I want Facebook, but I don't really put anything out on Facebook. And so I'll take that one video and put it out to all of those different channels in the different formats, each one slightly different, but all stemming from the same source content.

Andrew

00:14:13 – 00:14:17

What do you have against Facebook? You don't wanna teach my mom about database development?

Aaron

00:14:17 – 00:14:37

I would love to teach your mom about database development. I don't want all of her friends to be commenting on my post. Honestly, the first time I posted a video on Facebook for a while, the only person that had liked it was my mom. What am I doing here? I haven't been on Facebook in 10 years, and I just don't wanna build a platform there.

Aaron

00:14:37 – 00:14:39

I don't think so. I don't

Andrew

00:14:39 – 00:14:44

know. You just have to make sacrifices for your own emotional health. Yeah.

Aaron

00:14:45 – 00:14:53

It's weird. There are some big MySQL groups on Facebook. That is why I would go to Facebook is for the groups, not for, like, the main feed. So I've been accepted

Andrew

00:14:53 – 00:14:53

into a few groups, and so I'll

Aaron

00:14:53 – 00:15:14

start publishing the content inside those, optimistic about it. That's some of the short form behind the scenes. Let's talk, like, what am I actually using to record this stuff? So we'll start with short form because we were talking about that. All the production stuff is the same.

Aaron

00:15:14 – 00:15:26

There are a few slight differences, but I have an external microphone. Obviously, it's not fancy. It's a USB mic. It's a good one, but it's still a USB mic. I have a fancy camera.

Aaron

00:15:26 – 00:16:01

I think that is probably the fanciest thing I have, which is a Canon camera and I run it through it like a just a capture card. And so the process, especially for short form, is I have some buttons here on my stream deck that'll change the resolution of my screen. And so I make my resolution just ginormous so that everything looks good when it comes out the other end and not like one window or one web page is too small or something. So I make the resolution ginormous. I hide the dock and the status bar.

Aaron

00:16:01 – 00:16:30

All of this is done just with a press of a button. It all, like, goes into recording mode, which is really important for me if I'm gonna be recording a bunch. I have to make the process as smooth as possible because it's hard to get started and I have to eliminate as many barriers as I can. So one press of a button, the studio lights come on in the shed quarters. The background of my screen changes, the status bar and dock go away, the resolution blows up, and I'm ready to record.

Andrew

00:16:31 – 00:16:32

What's behind all of that?

Aaron

00:16:33 – 00:16:34

Like, what's running it?

Andrew

00:16:34 – 00:16:38

Yeah. What's the automation platform that makes it when you hit a button, all this stuff happens?

Aaron

00:16:38 – 00:16:56

It is AppleScript, if you can believe that. So it's the Stream Deck, which is like a little physical button pad. And then I have little AppleScript scripts that are hooked up to different buttons. And then I have one button that's like a multi button. And then so it runs like 6 buttons in a row and everything comes alive.

Andrew

00:16:56 – 00:16:58

One button to rule them all.

Aaron

00:16:59 – 00:17:00

That's exactly right.

Andrew

00:17:01 – 00:17:06

That's great. So have you published those scripts on GitHub?

Aaron

00:17:07 – 00:17:20

No. I haven't. I did share on Twitter that I'm using Apple Scripts to do it. And my tweet was, I forgot that Apple Script was a thing, but it totally rules. And that seemed to resonate with people.

Aaron

00:17:21 – 00:17:48

But it makes everything so consistent. For example, I have a button on here that I can press and it makes the focused window full screen, but it's not totally full screen. It leaves a 20 pixel gutter around the left, top and right. And then it leaves like a 60 pixel gutter at the bottom because that's where the course branding is. So my wallpaper has the course branding, which is MySQL for developers and planet scale.

Aaron

00:17:49 – 00:18:05

And so anytime I'm recording, you're always seeing MySQL for developers brought to you by PlanetScale. It's like baked into every single video. And that way I don't have to, like, futz around with it in editing. It's all in the camera. So that really helps me a whole lot.

Andrew

00:18:05 – 00:18:23

Yeah. It feels like it could become overwhelming. I didn't say this at the beginning, but the quality of the videos is very good, the stuff that you've been putting out. Thanks. I think the only thing I've seen is the short form stuff that's on social media, but very high level of polish.

Andrew

00:18:23 – 00:18:39

Feels like very high production quality. And I think it would potentially be intimidating looking at that and thinking, oh, that's, like, really hard to do. That's a lot of effort. And it is. There's a lot of things that are hard work.

Andrew

00:18:39 – 00:19:00

It's drawing on many years of experience that you have. You're doing research. You've got all of that. But it also seems like it would almost be too difficult if it weren't for finding a bunch of little shortcuts and hacks and tricks that you can stack up Yes. To streamline the production process.

Aaron

00:19:01 – 00:19:27

A 100% agree. I think there's an interesting conversation we can have after this one about video as a content creator, less of a education medium, but, like, video as a content creator. We should have that after this. But to continue, you're absolutely correct because when it comes time to edit so I record everything in ScreenFlow, which is just the best tool ever. ScreenFlow captures my audio, my camera, and my desktop.

Aaron

00:19:28 – 00:20:24

And then when it comes time to edit, I have just a huge collection of presets basically. So ScreenFlow will let you save a preset and that can be a transition, that can be a video effect, which for mine, I do rounded corners and drop shadow. And so I have the workflow in ScreenFlow down now, such that my style, and they're all the ones I do are the same style. My style comes quickly because I know how to edit it and I know how to use the ScreenFlow presets that I have saved so that I can just, like, do command k to do a video action, change the video action to spring preset 2, and then it just looks like one of my videos. And if I hadn't found that workflow or hadn't put time into that workflow, there's no chance that I would be able to pull this off.

Andrew

00:20:24 – 00:21:05

I love that it is a 1 two punch where you had to have the knowledge. You have to have all this experience that you've built up over many years, and there's a new skill that you added to that, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So you have put 2 skills together and with your own powers combined, the net result is something really special. And the beautiful thing about video and the age we live in with data transmission being effectively free and the reach of that, so many people can benefit from it. I love it.

Aaron

00:21:05 – 00:21:20

Yeah. Thanks. It's been surprising to me how much fun it is personally, especially the shorts. The shorts are a lot of fun. I'll have an idea and it probably takes me, we'll say, 5 to 10 minutes to record a 1 minute video.

Aaron

00:21:21 – 00:21:51

And then it takes me I think I've gotten it down to 1 hour to get a final product of 6 different videos for the different platforms because each one has different overlays you have to avoid and caption requirements, that sort of thing. So in an hour and 15 minutes, I can have a new piece of content ready to go. That has been a delight for me. I think the thing that has surprised me more is how much people like it on Twitter primarily. It's database content.

Aaron

00:21:52 – 00:22:09

I kind of refuse to play into, like, the YouTube TikTok game where I'm just going over the top with everything. My fundamental value when creating these things is I want them to be valuable. I don't want them to be gimmicky. I don't want them to be click baity. I don't wanna do the surprised face like, oh my gosh.

Aaron

00:22:09 – 00:22:24

I can't believe my sequel does this. I'm not gonna do that. And having stayed true to that, I'm super pumped that people are enjoying it. Like, it actually resonates with people, and that makes me makes me really happy, and I was kinda surprised by it.

Andrew

00:22:24 – 00:22:40

That's awesome. So you talked a bunch about the equipment that you've got, and you've posted some photos on Twitter and stuff like that. One thing you didn't mention, you've got an interesting display setup. It's a little bit different. I'll post a link to the picture on Twitter so people can see what I'm talking about.

Andrew

00:22:40 – 00:22:47

But you've got kind of this multi display thing that's a little different than normal. Right? Can you explain that? What's that thing for?

Aaron

00:22:48 – 00:22:55

Yeah. So I work on one primary monitor with my laptop closed. Love it. Able to focus. That's awesome for me.

Aaron

00:22:55 – 00:23:08

I do have this goofy thing kind of behind and to the top right of my monitor. That's just a super cheap USB c monitor from Dell. I think it was like maybe a $100 or more.

Andrew

00:23:08 – 00:23:09

How big is it?

Aaron

00:23:09 – 00:23:16

I wanna say 10.80p. So I'm guessing it's maybe 13 inches across. It's really small.

Andrew

00:23:16 – 00:23:17

Right.

Aaron

00:23:17 – 00:23:50

It's not that big. So what I use this for, and this has proved especially useful in the course when I'm trying to maintain a similar physical location on camera, is I put my confidence monitor up there. So it's like a live feed of what my video camera is seeing. So at any point, I can look up there and see like and it also importantly has a grid overlay. So it's a live feed of my video camera with 6 or 8 lines in a grid.

Aaron

00:23:50 – 00:24:23

So I can position I can make sure that my eyes are meeting the 1 third line so that I'm, like, within the right area of the screen. And this is how I get back to my correct cut slash resting position, is I look up there and I'm like, okay, I need to move my head over to this grid and make sure my eyes are on this grid line. And now look at the camera and start talking. And so it's really helpful to, like, be able to see live what the camera is seeing so I don't drift off to the side or lean too far back or something like that. So it's really helpful.

Aaron

00:24:24 – 00:24:32

I started at PlanetScale, and they said, we'll buy you a monitor. It's like, we already have a monitor. What if you buy me this goofy little thing? And it's turned out to be the best thing that I

Andrew

00:24:32 – 00:24:45

have? That's perfect. Just hearing you talk about trying to stay in the same position while you're on camera makes me wanna schedule an appointment with my chiropractor. After a take, do you just have to, like, shake it out or something like that?

Aaron

00:24:46 – 00:25:08

I do. Yeah. And it's been kind of telling to me that I have pretty bad forward head posture because I'm constantly, like, trying to pull my head back and sit up straight to meet my eyes on the correct grid line. And when I get to resting, my head drifts forward like a caveman. And so I'm trying to do exercises to stand up straight like a human adult, but it's kinda difficult.

Andrew

00:25:09 – 00:25:19

Yeah. That's a whole another discussion. That's an entirely different episode on what our health routines are. Okay. So there was the other thing that you wanted to talk about.

Andrew

00:25:19 – 00:25:26

You were saying something about producing content, not on a technical level, but as a content producer. Tell me about

Aaron

00:25:27 – 00:25:55

that. So I think there's a great conversation to be had about the merits of video content for educational purposes, which is super important. There's also another conversation about the merits of video content to grow your brand. And if you want to be known in a community, making video content is a great way to do it. Partially because of what you said earlier about it being personal.

Aaron

00:25:56 – 00:26:24

You can write a really great blog post and people will read it in their own voice. I mean, you have a style of writing that is unique. Everyone does. But when you're on video, it's definitely your voice. People are watching me, and I think they feel like they're getting to know my personality a little bit because my personality obviously comes through in the video probably more than in the written form.

Aaron

00:26:24 – 00:26:50

And so, 1, I think that is a great way to, like, forge a connection. But, 2, the other thing you said is that sounds like when I was describing the process, you said that sounds really hard. Turns out it is really hard. And so not very many people are doing it. And I think there's a huge opportunity if you feel like you can do video or if you are comfortable with being uncomfortable being on video.

Aaron

00:26:51 – 00:27:26

If you can just pull the trigger on doing video, you're gonna be competing against basically no one. I mean, me, Wes Bos, there's a TypeScript guy. There's another guy in the Laravel community, Christoph Rempel, who's doing some video now. But like that is for people. There's just not that many people doing short form developer content on Twitter where the hot code tips kinda got saturated pretty quickly because it's a whole lot easier to do a code tip and put it on a pretty background and share it.

Aaron

00:27:27 – 00:27:52

The bar just raised so quickly for that, that now what's left is the final frontier is video. And it turns out that's really hard and it's really scary. It's scary to put yourself and your face out there. And so I think that stops a lot of people. I just think there's a lot of opportunity if you can get over, like, the fear and learn a little bit of tech.

Aaron

00:27:52 – 00:28:00

We all love tech, so why not? And you can start making videos, I say do it. I mean, there's no competition out there.

Andrew

00:28:01 – 00:28:24

Yeah. I think the value in investing in that skill set is twofold. So you can help educate people about the technologies that are already out there. But the other thing is video is an incredibly powerful medium for communicating any type of idea. And so if you're a software developer, you think about the products that we're all building.

Andrew

00:28:25 – 00:29:07

Being able to produce a video that demonstrates the benefit your software library provides or your product provides. It's a very potent medium for that type of thing. And I've run into people that have watched really poorly produced videos that I recorded years ago. I had this video series I did where I used an early version of Bullet Train to build a SaaS application in 9 hours and deploy it to Heroku and do all the domain modeling, all this stuff. I'd like to think that would be shorter now, but it really wasn't because it just covered so much.

Andrew

00:29:07 – 00:29:14

And I remember showing up at MicroConf and having somebody come up to me, and they're like, oh, yeah. I watched all 9 hours of you building

Aaron

00:29:14 – 00:29:15

Holy moly.

Andrew

00:29:15 – 00:29:30

Yeah. They watched the whole thing. And they were like, yeah. Every time I was folding laundry or getting the baby to sleep, I would just throw it on and, like, crush another 30 minutes. And that was my first tip-off that video is kind of a big deal.

Andrew

00:29:30 – 00:30:03

This is an important thing for us. And another thing that I've gotten really great feedback on is feature announcements. So when I'm announcing a feature, something that I've worked on, there's a combination I think of showing people the thing in action, but also being able to bring my own personal excitement for the thing that we've built to the video that really helps. And so I agree with you. I think it is something for developers generally across ecosystems.

Andrew

00:30:04 – 00:30:19

This is something I think will resonate with most audiences and put you above the competition in terms of getting out in front of people and getting them to think about the things that you've created and the value that you're trying to provide.

Aaron

00:30:20 – 00:30:36

Yeah. For a while, you were doing, like, 5 to 10 minute videos on Twitter showing off new bullet train stuff, and you had a pretty slick setup too. I think you were set up in front of a big natural light, and you had a solid camera. And are you still doing any of that?

Andrew

00:30:36 – 00:31:00

I haven't since Real Sass because I needed a bunch of the cables and equipment for Real Sass as part of that production. And so I tore it all down, and then it sat in my garage ever since. It was such a pain in the butt, Aaron, to get that whole setup. It was so finicky. And I think, again, rooted in that perfectionist kind of approach to things.

Andrew

00:31:00 – 00:31:18

But, yeah, definitely wanna get back to it. I do think it is the best way for us to communicate the things that we're producing to try to help people. Yeah. Sure. It's easy to sit down and work on another feature, but we're not really serving the customer and the community that's using bullet train by just shipping features.

Andrew

00:31:19 – 00:31:34

We have to show them how it works and how it can work for them. It was a slick setup. I had 2 ATEM Minis in play, So I was basically mixing and editing the video on the fly while I was doing it. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Andrew

00:31:34 – 00:32:00

So I'd have the one camera angle, and then I'd also have an extra computer was how I did it. So I'd have an extra computer that was wired into it so that I didn't have to mess around getting it set up. I had a computer that was always set up to do a feature demo, didn't have any of my personal information on it, none of my passwords, addresses, nothing. Right? And so I would basically just switch between those two things live.

Andrew

00:32:01 – 00:32:08

I would do multiple takes, and then I would just cut down the video using Dave Ceddia's recut.

Aaron

00:32:08 – 00:32:10

Recut. Amazing tool.

Andrew

00:32:11 – 00:32:18

Right? So, yeah, it was a pretty slick pipeline. I gotta get it set back up. We've got too many new features we gotta share with the world.

Aaron

00:32:19 – 00:32:37

So you tore it down for RailSaaS, and I think video was a pretty huge part of Rail SaaS. And I've seen some of the final product, and it's literally Hollywood quality. So talk to me about, I guess, kind of the setup there and what you've seen the reception be of the final product.

Andrew

00:32:38 – 00:33:01

It has to be said, the reason why we did that was the same as everything that we've been talking about. This is such a good medium. This is a way that people enjoy learning. I think one additional benefit, there are 3 types of presentations that we have at RAIL SaaS. On the schedule, on my own personal calendar, I've got 3 emojis.

Andrew

00:33:02 – 00:33:51

I've got a laptop computer. I've got popcorn, and I've got a thought bubble. And so the popcorn presentations are the ones that, like, are an entrepreneur who has built their business using Rails, talking about that journey. And this is us trying to give people examples of entrepreneurs who have done the thing and the unique benefits that Rails provided for them. And you've got the thought bubble, which is people from our ecosystem who have learned specific lessons that are valuable running a business, starting a business, whatever, who have thoughts that can help change the trajectory of an entrepreneur who's looking to build a business on rails.

Andrew

00:33:52 – 00:34:33

And then the laptop is straight up tech. Hardcore, very technical, maybe a demo, whatever, but talking about the technology specifically. And so with those three things, I think we'll be able to navigate through what I feel like are the major pieces, the stories that I wanna see told, the technologies that I wanna see demonstrated so that we can really have, after a few of these events, a one stop shop. People can come through and find all the pieces that make the case for why Rails is such a great framework for your next business to be started on and to grow with.

Aaron

00:34:34 – 00:34:54

What I saw on Twitter and heard from friends, it sounded like you had more than one live proper camera. And the final product that I've seen so far, the slides are, like, actually animated. So I don't know if the speakers did that or what. But in the final video, it's like motion graphics almost.

Andrew

00:34:55 – 00:35:15

Yeah. That's right. So we both know how much effort it is to put together a talk. I wanted to set up a system where they could bring their story and we would do our part to help tell that story properly. The motion graphics is part of it.

Andrew

00:35:15 – 00:35:38

You could be an incredible entrepreneur or an incredible developer. You shouldn't have to be the best designer as well. That's a different skill set. We should minimize the number of things that you have to be excellent at in order to produce great content. So people could show up with I don't think anybody showed up with terrible slides, but it didn't matter.

Andrew

00:35:38 – 00:36:12

We would take the information from their slides, and we have a motion artist who reconstructed a lot of that content to make it kinda sizzle and be more native YouTube and make the content feel more like, oh, this is being produced specifically for me in my living room. So the motion graphics were a big part of it. And I gotta say, multiple cameras, we had 3 in the room. Wow. We had another one that we were doing interviews with outside the room, but we had 3 cameras in the room.

Andrew

00:36:12 – 00:36:35

And honestly, now that I've done it, I would say the minimum is 2. And the reason why is you know how many takes it takes to get a video right in the shed quarters. You get up in front of a group and there's a lot of stuff, a lot of quirky things that can happen. You can get nervous. You can have ahs.

Andrew

00:36:35 – 00:37:10

You can have umms. You can have just things where you, like, describe it one way and then you describe it another way. And what the multiple cameras allowed us to do in the videos that we've been producing and nobody would really appreciate this watching the final product, but I see them before and after. I see the original take, make some notes, send it to the editor, and then we go back and forth on some drafts before we get to the finished product. And you need those multiple camera angles to be able to cut words out.

Andrew

00:37:10 – 00:37:50

So if somebody has an or they lose their spot or they have to say something again or heaven forbid the makeup artist had to come in and, like, touch up somebody's makeup. That happened a couple of times. You need multiple camera angles so that you can chop from one to another, get the piece that you don't want in there, get it out, and still feel very natural. And, man, I've seen a few of these videos now, and it's just incredible to me watching a presentation thinking, I wonder how good a job we can do on that editing it. And then seeing it come back from the editor, and it's just like, wow.

Andrew

00:37:50 – 00:38:00

We did a real service to that presenter. We made their presentation even better. And that's the deal. That's what we're pitching to people. It's a lot to travel.

Andrew

00:38:00 – 00:38:12

It's a lot to prepare a presentation. It's a big commitment. And the people that we're trying to get to present, in some cases, they're very successful. They're very busy. Their time is very valuable.

Andrew

00:38:13 – 00:38:40

Everybody's time is valuable, but it's really hard for people who are operating businesses at scale to find time. And so it feels like that effort that we're putting into it with the production and then the post production, it feels like that's what we need to do to make this worth people's while so that we can tell their story in the best possible light, put them in the best possible light as a presenter, and help as many people as possible.

Aaron

00:38:40 – 00:38:59

Yeah. I think having that artifact or having these artifacts from this year is gonna make your job next year super easy to get even more people to come talk. This year, you're kind of pitching them on a promise. We're gonna put in a lot of effort and you're gonna get a video out of the other end. It's like, okay.

Aaron

00:38:59 – 00:39:20

Yeah. I get it. I guess that's valuable. But now having seen the production quality that does come out of the other end, it doesn't bother me that 90 people were there at the conference because I'm going to have this durable artifact that can be shown to thousands of people forever. And heck, yeah, I'm going to put in 40 hours of work to prepare my talk and then I'm going to fly out to L.

Aaron

00:39:20 – 00:39:40

A. And that makes a lot of sense to me. And I think this year was a pretty important year for you because you basically are just operating on goodwill and your reputation. But now you're operating on, look, this is what we actually did last year, and this is what you could have too. That's pretty cool.

Aaron

00:39:40 – 00:39:44

I'm very impressed with your vision and and the fact that you pulled it all off. That's pretty cool.

Andrew

00:39:45 – 00:39:51

Thanks, man. That means a lot. Yeah. And it didn't go perfectly. There were definitely things in the pipeline.

Andrew

00:39:51 – 00:40:13

And because it's a live production, if it didn't go well, like, you have to make do with what you got. And so there were definitely hiccups that came up. And the editing process was something that we needed to nail down, but I feel like we've got it now. But all of that was part of the process. I knew it was gonna be an investment of time, my own time managing all of that content production and getting everything set up.

Andrew

00:40:13 – 00:40:58

But it felt like if we can do this right, we can set up a system. If I can get this process nailed down, not only can we do it again, we can do it even better. I'm really glad that I didn't let that perfectionist sort of instinct get in the way of just doing what we could because that's what really validated that, hey, there's something here. And so I think there's probably a lesson in that too, which is get started, do the best version of it that you can, and then let it see the light of day, which is something we've talked about before and you've written about. Get it out there, get feedback, and then do a better version of it next time and just develop the skill, improve it, and get better and better.

Andrew

00:40:58 – 00:41:01

So hopefully that's what we'll do at the conference as well. Yeah.

Aaron

00:41:01 – 00:41:32

I think that is a very important takeaway. The first several short videos I did, I was changing stuff in between each one, and I knew putting out the first one, like, I had a thought in my head. This is not as good as it could be, but I honestly, I really don't know what to do to make it better. And so I'm gonna put it out there and listen to feedback, and it's changed over time and they've gotten better and better. But I can't look at West Boss's final product and decide that's going to be my starting product.

Aaron

00:41:32 – 00:41:51

I would never get started. And so I look at his final product and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do as close to that as I can. And as time goes, I'll get better and I'll develop my own style. And maybe someday it'll be in the same ballpark as his. But if if you hold yourself to that bar in the beginning, you'll never get it out there, and that's not worth it.

Aaron

00:41:51 – 00:41:52

You gotta get it out there and learn from it.

Andrew

00:41:53 – 00:42:12

Alright, man. Fun chat. Thanks for sharing all of those insider sort of tips with everybody, and I hope everything continues to go smoothly while you're producing the course. And I hope you have a safe and enjoyable trip to Europe, and I hope your talk goes over awesome.

Aaron

00:42:13 – 00:42:21

Thanks. Me too. I'm excited for it. I'm gonna get to meet some coworkers in person and meet all of my European Laravel friends in person, so I am super excited.

Andrew

00:42:22 – 00:42:29

Alright. Talk to you again soon, Aaron. Bye. Bye. Framework Friends is edited by Paul Barr at Peachtree Sound.

Aaron

00:42:30 – 00:42:32

Our intro music was created by Corey Griffin.

Andrew

00:42:32 – 00:42:41

You can find us at frameworkfriends.com. Andrew's on Twitter at Andrew Culver. And Aaron is on Twitter at Aaron Francis.

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