I am a perfectionist.
That doesn’t mean I’m perfect and my body of work is a testament to that fact. Of course, realizing I’m not perfect and never will be doesn’t stop me from spending a ton of extra time on little details that probably wouldn’t make a difference to anyone but me.
Let me tell you a story.
After reviewing the two-and-a-half minute edit of my latest video for the final time (that’s my project timeline in the picture), I decided I was happy with it and started rendering. This process varies depending on video length and how complicated the images are but in this case, it took a little less than 10 minutes. When it was done, I watched the fully rendered video and noticed a slight and ultimately inconsequential punctuation error in the credits. The very end of the video links out to two other videos of mine:
Exclusive Games:
Wii U Wins the War
Third Party Games On NX
A Humble Request From Nintendo Gamers
Can you spot the problem?
There should be a colon after “NX” in the second video title. Darn it! Oh well, at least I caught the boo-boo before I uploaded it to YouTube.
So, I added the colon, spotchecked the video and seeing no more gaffes, rendered it again. When it was done, I proofed it again. It looked good so I set it to upload to YouTube. While it was uploading, I entered all the title info, the video description, the tags, the thumbnail image, the category and enabled monetization. When it was done processing (about 20 minutes later), I added annotations then started timing the subtitle script to the video.
It was then that I noticed I had flubbed one of my lines. Here’s what I said:
“Link has always been fairly androgynous and this iteration is no different. As most fans are aware, Link is a different person in nearly every game. While each iteration has thus far been male…”
Here’s what I was supposed to say:
“Link has always been fairly androgynous and this iteration is no different. As most fans are aware, Link is a different person in nearly every game. While each incarnation has thus far been male…”
Yep, I had said “iteration” instead of “incarnation.” Technically, the word works but I had already used it two sentences earlier. It’s unlikely many viewers would notice or care but it drove me nuts and I just couldn’t bring myself to publish the video with that mistake.
Crap! Would I have to reshoot part of the video?
I combed through my raw footage to see if I had blown that line in every take. Luckily, I hadn’t! I found a suitable take with the correct dialog, edited it into the video and made all the various tweaks and adjustments necessary so that it fit seamlessly in the final edit.
Then I proofed the video again.
Then I rendered the video again.
Then I proofed the video again.
Then I uploaded the video again and re-entered all the text for the title, description, tags and everything else.
When it was done processing I redid the annotations.
Then I timed the subtitles.
Then, watching it one final time, I published it. You can watch it below but be warned…
It isn’t perfect.
I’m an incomplete completionist. I end up getting paralyzed/bored with some games, because I don’t want to miss out on things, so I stop to try to find/gather/kill/whatever 100%, but ultimately end up getting tired of that and never finishing the game at all.