I grew up in the video production sphere. My dad started his own video production company in 1998, so I got to watch him and help out with the editing process even from a very young age.

When I was around sixteen, I helped with a documentary he was filming. It was about Adolph Ronning, a local inventor that revolutionized the agricultural industry with over 400 patents. Riveting stuff, I know. (At least for me, a local history dweeb.)

We were set up in Ronning’s farm office, interviewing his daughter, Adair Kelly. The office itself probably hadn’t seen much action in a few decades, and showed its age. Cobwebs graced most of the shelves, and the distinct musty smell you’d only find in an old farmhouse hung in the air.

Dad framed the shot to focus on Adair, sitting at her father’s desk. For the sake of the shot, nothing else in the room mattered, so we focused only on cleaning that corner of the office. We gave everything a good dusting, down to the beaks of the taxidermied snipes that lived on the desk.

Interviews aren’t the quickest process. Dad would film multiple takes for the same questions, in case Adair misspoke or wanted to reword what she had said. What took a full afternoon of filming was whittled down into mere minutes of final footage.

When I started doing video work for myself, I approached the production process much the same way. I thought I had to be super polished, and follow a script to the letter. Even if it took dozens of takes and hours of editing, everything had to be structured just so, or it wasn’t worth putting out into the world. At least, that’s what my inner perfectionist told me. I’ve had flip a switch in my brain and ditch that mentality.

Making digital content is much more conversational than making a documentary. I’ve had to learn this, not just for the sake of making videos, but for life in general. Real conversations don’t go through any editing or revision process. There’s no take two; what you get is what you get. I can spend all the time in the world formulating what to say in my head, but living in the moment, it’s all too easy to go off script.

That’s the true beauty of it. Life happens as it happens, and you’ve got to learn to roll with the punches. Not everything is going to go according to plan, not everything is going to be as I pictured it in my head, and that’s just something that I’ve had to learn to accept. If I wait until things are going to line up and be perfect before I call “action!” and go, I’m never going to get the footage, the experience, the dream I want. I can try to have everything mapped out, but I’m not the writer or director when it comes to how my life is going to go.

I used to want to play director so bad, though. All people saw of my life was what I wanted to show. The nice clean desk with dust-free snipes, not the full cobweb-covered office. We can get so caught up in what we think we ought to show that we miss the bigger picture.

Life isn’t just one static angle. It’s a panorama, a whole 360º video. It’s meant to be a full-immersion experience. Don’t let perfect wording and precise angles keep you from fulling expressing what needs to be expressed. Jump in, all in.