Starting a Series of Media Production Drills

Skill equals speed plus accuracy.

A surefire way to maximize skill.

When I was learning to be a farrier, the way I was taught to learn advanced techniques was to drill the most basic techniques with a goal of complete mastery. In other words, we would do each of the most basic tasks in a procedure over and over again for hours or even days. Although it seems very tedious while going through the drills, this is a very quick and efficient way to become - quick and efficient.

This sort of skill building allows for more mental and physical overhead to be put toward the actual goal at hand. If a person doesn't have to think about the basics, that leaves them able to pursue more advanced tasks or concepts.

This is a good time for me to use this principle toward increasing my skills in media production. Producing good content (or anything really) is just breaking down the elements and performing each of those elements as well as possible. Not only will any lackluster part of the production noticeably diminish the overall production, but time is money and how competently we appear to perform out there directly effects our perceived value to clients.

To address this, I'm going to do a series of simple drills over 10 days each - one thing at a time:

Everything is done in Blender and supported with other open source tools.

• 10 Day Daily vlog: I'm looking to create a seamless log of the day. It will start with a head shot with a count and what I expect of the day. I am very uncomfortable with the head shot, which is why I'm doing it. It will be mostly in time lapse mode with occasional clips of something else thrown in. This will force me to keep everything humming all day long and edit daily. I expect to edit in the evening and upload the next morning.
• Motion Graphics: Title animations, object indicators (animated arrows and circles and such), particles and more. Each upload should contain at least one example of each of the above.
• Stabilization, Motion Tracking, and Masks: This will include the above motion graphics and lay the groundwork for real FX work. Each upload should contain at least one example of each of the above.

This is the plan for the first month. I will start filming tomorrow and upload my daily activity here on DTube starting the day after tomorrow.

Wish me luck!