They say you need to be prepared when you make your first video, because no matter what, it’s going to suck. Even if you get a great start, it’s still going to look terrible compared to what you can do later on. This is true, although, modesty aside, I think this is a pretty impressive achievement for a first-timer. I’ve made some changes in how I work since this video, however:

• The Wizard Of Oz was shot using my iPad 2 and edited using the iOS version of iMovie. At the time, the iPad was brand new and significantly faster than my aging desktop computer; I’ve since upgraded to a much faster Mac Mini with Final Cut Pro and tons of added RAM. I also now use an HD camcorder to film; however, the iPad is still part of the production, but now it exclusively handles the audio with a boom mic and Bossjock.
• This first video was scripted very precisely and with much rewriting: the eventual script was ten pages long, not counting the excerpts from the book itself! However, since then I’ve found that many peoples’ favorite moments from my videos were improvised; now I just write out an outline of things I want to touch on for a long video, and for a short video I may even fly blind and improvise the whole thing.
• This video is forty-five minutes long. What was I thinking?? I try to keep long-format videos under twenty minutes these days, unless it’s something very special that I need a lot of time for.