10 Steps to Make DIY Science Videos for YouTube

How do you take your ideas for a science video and get the video made and on to YouTube? Many people don’t know where to start or what’s involved, but it’s not that difficult if you follow a few simple steps and have a plan. Based on several years of video making mistakes and experience, agricultural scientist Eric Brennan describes his process that he compares to climbing a mountain where some of the 10 segments or steps of the journey are longer than others, some are steeper and more difficult, but they’re all necessary. Here’s are the 10 steps:
-1. Capture the verbal and visual ingredients and store these in PowerPoint and Word documents. This process can take time but is relatively relaxed.
-2. Write the script of the narrative. This is the most difficult step, that’s a lot like climbing a cliff, but a speech-to-text app can help. You’re often more than 70% done with the video when script is complete.
-3. Record the narrative. A teleprompter can help with this. Try to sound enthusiastic as you read the script.
-4. Edit the recorded narrative in a video editor. This begins the video editing process.
-5. Add the visuals to the recorded narrative in a video editor. This is where you refer back to the visual ideas you captured in step 1.
-6. Output the draft video as an MP4 file.
-7. Show the video to people and get their feedback. If possible, watch people watch the video and observe their reaction.
-8. Revise the video based on the feedback and observations in step 7.
-9. Add accurate closed captions. This is critical because YouTubes automatic captions are often inaccurate.
-10. Upload the video to YouTube and make sure it has a good description and keywords tags so that the video can easily be found in an online search, and an interesting custom thumbnail.
Hopefully this helps you to take all your brilliant ideas all the way to YouTube. See you at the top of the mountain.
This video was first shown as part 4 of a 4 part presentation Dr. Brennan was invited to give in a special session (Science Communication Hacks to Increase Public Engagement - Accessible Tools for Time-Limited Professionals). This session was at the November 2019 annual meeting the American Society of the Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, & Soil Science Society of America in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Brennan is an ag scientist at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Salinas, California where he leads the organic research efforts. During the past decade he has become a passionate advocate of more effective communication of science that can benefit farmers, students, scientists, farm advisors & the general public. His past videos have focused on cover crops, vegetable & strawberry production, long-term research, soil management, weeds, biological control of insect pests, organic versus conventional agriculture, novel tools for sustainable agriculture, & climate-smart farming.