Andy Made A Porno

No, I didn’t, but I made a pretty awesome video, and you know there’s some drama and a life lesson along the way, gosh, who doesn’t enjoy watching a good video?

When I was tasked with making a video presentation for my uni assignment in the last module I had the regular feelings of “UGH! WHY?!”

I’ll tell you why, Andy, because when you’re out in the real world, working for others, it’s a really good skill to have. Presenting, that is. And I have to be honest when I say that I’ve shied away from making video content for social media as part of what I do because of some really old, sticky, unhelpful beliefs. As I work on those, you can assuredly enjoy my musings in Instagram.

Yay.

Anyhow. Back to today’s interesting little anecdote (something one of my early school reports says I have plenty of, and everyone enjoys, so thanks for sticking with me!)

OK. Actually getting to it now.

My first presentation got good marks. I competently got my points across using Powerpoint slides and a little recording of myself in the bottom right corner of Powerpoint. I kept the slides simple, talking around the points, being careful not to just read the slides, and stuck to their maximum slides quota. Yes, we can only use a maximum of five slides for a 10-12 minute talk because everyone has suffered death by Powerpoint at some stage in their life and the course convenor was obviously having none of that, thank you very much!

When the presentation assignment rolled around this time I was itching to do something better, and we’ve just built a studio space, so it seemed like a no-brainer to put together a TV segment style presentation for my assignment on the Freudian approach to counselling.

Seeing my enthusiasm, Chris hunted and gathered a teleprompter so I could give it the full Hungry Beast treatment and slung me his old subscription to Camtasia.

I was like a kid in a lolly shop. All of that training I’d done years ago with Leila Hayes Drama Studio and in my undergraduate degree kicked right in as I integrated those skills in the academic context.

I finished my assignment four days ahead of the deadline.

Two days before deadline I decided to get the reference list together as well as the cover sheet and submit the assignment. I gave the brief one more read-over and… hang on… why is everyone talking in the chat room about role plays? Oh. As I re-read the brief, I realised I had very elegantly missed the brief, which was to create a video that demonstrates a technique, made for a fictional student audience.

Gosh, I didn’t say, as multiple expletive ran through my mind.

OK, OK. I’m going to have to pull Chris in for a mock counselling session because we’re both in isolation due to a visit from Aunty Rona. OK, OK, OK.

Even now, looking at the comprehensive notes I scrawled on a post-it note to demonstrate it wasn’t all that bad. I can see the absolute denial of thinking I could take what I had edited together already and use it in version two. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t. Shhh!

I got Chris into a sterile looking, well ventilated space and played Freudian therapist to his fictional client, coincidentally named Chris, because clearly my creative well was running a little bit dry. I’d run about a seven minute session, top and tail it with some commentary, and voila!

Except the footage I ended up with ran for about 18 minutes. Yikes.

By this stage I’d written an intro that ran for about a minute or so and as I thought about how I was going to approach it, I decided I’d need to get “Chris” back the next day in a follow-up session so I could use a more creative approach, because the brief also encouraged creativity (I get it! You don’t want death by Powerpoint!!)

Chris wasn’t really excited about bringing back “Chris”, but was happy to go along with what I needed.

What I actually needed was to give the project a little rest two days away from deadline and just let my unconscious brain work something out for me. It’s good and reliable like that when I get out of its way. So I packed up and went to bed.

The next morning, the answer was there. I didn’t have to use all of the footage from beginning to end. I’d edit in the relevant points I was making in my presentation (as opposed to trying to cover Freud from start to finish in the first version) and use the fancy features of Camtasia (not a sponsor) to make it pop. I’d also downloaded Doodly (not a sponsor) to add some extra finesse to my original presentation. Alas, all of what I’d made couldn’t be used. It had the wrong tone and I needed to my points quickly.

I salvaged what I could. I also took the advice of some test viewers and changed the colour selection in my slides because as I’ll happily admit, I’ll never make an interior decorator (thank you Canva templates! {not a sponsor}).

I worked all day Saturday on the new version and (what do you MEAN the file’s too big and I have to go and learn how to reduce it? WAHHH!) submitted it on late Saturday afternoon, a day before deadline.

Whew!

It was as I was recounting this non-Jungian tragedy to Louise, she said “you could put it up on a Youtube channel.. it could be part of what you do as you develop as a counsellor.” She’s right, and while version one still has some bits that need improving, in the interest of non-perfectionism, I present the video my tutor will never see: Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory.

Enjoy!

Today’s lessons: 1. Yes, I can. As many times as I need to!

                                    2. Take your time and thoroughly read the bloody brief!!

Have you got a story about when you did a Tammy Faye Bakker and turned lemons into lemonade?

Tell me your interesting anecdote!!