The BSidesDFW 2020 Experiment

On November 7th, I spoke at BSidesDFW 2020, and the talk was called “Your Phone Hates You”. The conference was virtual, and instead of recording my part with the usual talking-head-using-slides-with-bullet-points scenario using whatever the conference organizers were recording things with, I asked if I could produce my own recording. I’ve been asking for this scenario at other virtual conferences since the COVID-19 pandemic has started. BSidesDFW was the first to say yes and was all “that sounds cool” and simply left it up to me.

This was major. I was going to get to experiment with the whole conference talk format.

Past Experiments

I’ve done experiments before. I’ve done talks with music soundtracks, wild art with a single word for a slide, animation of text to highlight certain points, minimal use of words with white text on black backgrounds for better context (and less eye strain on early morning attendees with hangovers), even a completely blank slide when I wanted to switch focus to what I was saying vs. what was up on the screen. Basically anything to get away from slides with bullet points.

It’s been rough, as I’ve had people come up and ask why I presented like that or tell me it lacked memes (I don't use memes and try to be funny on my own). However most of those critics were conference organizers - I’ve been told time and time again from attendees that they appreciated simple changes in format as it held their attention a bit better.

So I was looking for a win with this one, and decided to go YouTube style.

The Specifics

I shot it on a Sony CyberShot RX100, not my phone. I used "b-roll" that I shot myself as well as free clips from Pexel. I would use my iPad as more of a near-camera script holder as opposed to a full out teleprompter. I rehearsed my talk like I normally do - recording it on video and playing it back to see what worked and what didn't.

All video, including b-roll, was loaded onto my System76 Galago Pro, and edited together using kdenlive. When I finally got all of the bits together, rendering the video into a high definition MP4 took a whopping 3 and a half hours. After each render I would watch the entire 49:37 video for mistakes that I could not live with. I only had to re-render the entire thing twice - I watched it in chunks inside of kdenlive.

This was a good first run as the topic was not deeply technical. I did some experiments with style, filming the bulk of it in my server room, with some field work filmed in the car. It wasn't 100% perfect as far as I was concerned, but it seemed to work. So far the response has been mostly positive, which is great for any conference talk.

Moving Forward

I do expect to do more on YouTube as I really began to enjoy using kdenlive. Previously I used Vegas Pro, but I was unwilling to upgrade to the new version for $800, but now I can crank something out that's halfway decent with free and open source software.

If I can convince conferences into letting me do this again, I will. I'd love to tackle a more in-depth subject - do a deep dive with a highly technical subject.

What do you think? If you saw the conference video and had a favorite part section, saw some that worked or fell short, let me know.