My first YouTube video, because COVID

In the beginning…

YouTubeA couple of summers ago, I was supposed to read the Scripture for our online church service. My daughter recorded me on her phone, but we were having a difficult time. The reading was only about a minute long. My daughter could only record about 30 seconds at a time. I wouldn’t even try it on my irritating device at that time. Fortunately, Dwight, the tech magician for the church, could piece the snippets together.

Then in the fall, one of my pastors asked me to read Genesis 1:1-2:4 for the Sunday school class that was starting online. It wasn’t a traditional reading, but rather a piece from something called Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible. The book was edited by Elizabeth F. Caldwell and Carol A. Wehrheim.

Clearly, I needed a different way to record the new video. The reading is nearly three minutes long. Hey, wait! My free ZOOM account allows for recording, doesn’t it? The button along the bottom suggests it does.

I tried a couple of test runs. First, I needed to actually FIND where the video resided. Here’s a YouTube video for that. Ah, the file is an MP4.

Nuts. The sun from behind the blinds kept changing in intensity. On the finished product, my head looks shiny on the top, as it often does. My eye contact with the camera was only so-so. The video, though, was more than adequate for the purpose, I was told.

Channel THAT

Hmm. I think I have a YouTube channel, somehow tied to my Google account. Indeed I do. It has links to other people’s videos I would watch if there were 48 hours in a day. I download the file. Voila, I have my first YouTube video.

I suppose you thought I was going to link to it. Nah. I just wanted to share the fact that because of the pandemic, I did a new thing.

Sigh. OK. Here it is. My favorite is the test video because I REALLY didn’t know what I was doing.  

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

One thought on “My first YouTube video, because COVID”

  1. Nice! You have a good delivery for that material, and you don’t sound like someone who is obviously reading. Ever listen to someone read the Gospel and you can hear the line breaks? You sound natural. Well done!

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