Creating My First Course
Harder than expected
As of this past Monday, my first course has launched. I am very excited and proud of this! Yes, because it is a good course, but mainly due to it being harder than I expected.
When I finished my mini-doc, The Gray Area of Remote Work, I knew that I needed to make this class. I wanted to teach others that making a remote film was not a limitation of filmmaking, but a new expression of it. After getting over this hurdle – I will teach my students the entire process of planning, producing, and post-producing a remote film. It’s all-inclusive and not biased to one's knowledge of filmmaking.
There are so many benefits to creating video remotely. You can get a larger and more diverse talent pool due to not needing to worry as much about proximity. You can create something great with a much smaller budget. You can make without producing nearly as much waste or carbon output. Yes, there are the obvious downsides of not being in person for 100% of the production, but I think the trade-off can be worth it for some productions.
One of the main reasons why I created this course was to combat climate change using remote filmmaking.
I planned on creating this course months ago, but due to my film series taking longer than expected to launch I had to push it back. The production of the class took about a month. I researched a lot about how to make a course on Skillshare’s platform, reading tons of docs. I then scripted, deleted, then rescripted the whole course. I filmed a segment of my mini-doc featuring me as the participant so my students have footage to work with. I filmed a few classes, then second-guessed my delivery. So, I then reshot most classes. When having only 4 classes left I had a sudden move thrown into the mix. Then right after finishing my move – I finished filming and editing the 14 part series in one week.
Honestly, the hardest parts were doubt and rewriting. Everything else went fairly smoothly due to the fact that I actually ran a YouTube channel for a few years at one point. This allowed me to be fairly comfortable in front of the camera and knowing the technicalities of filming oneself.
As someone that has created a remote film series and has consulted with companies to help enhance their remote video practices – I can say that I am a remote film subject matter expert. When someone gets to that point, I 100% believe that they should share their knowledge with people. It does not have to be a formal course, it especially does not have to be a video course. Don’t worry about someone copying you or stealing your work. We are all different and special, so if they do copy something they won’t copy you. Share what you know – maybe it’ll help people. I sure hope remote filmmaking helps the environment in any slight way possible.
If you are interested in remote filmmaking to the capacity of creating your own films, podcasts, or even social media content – I’d truly appreciate it if you took my course. Using the link below you will get a 30 day free trial of Skillshare and hopefully learn something interesting!