“You’ve been doing this wrong for years.”
“This is the right way to organise your projects.”
“The only way you should be editing…”
Spend enough time looking for software tutorials on YouTube and you’ll come across plenty of statements like these. Some of it is just the nature of online content. A definitive answer makes for a better title than “here’s one perfectly reasonable way of doing this that may or may not suit you”.
But there’s a bigger problem with it… Creative software isn’t usually that prescriptive.
There might be five different ways to achieve essentially the same result in Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro or another application. The best one depends on what you’re making, how you like to work and what you already know.
I don’t even use Final Cut Pro in exactly the same way on every project. My workflow can change depending on the type of video I’m making or the client I’m working with.
That’s one of the biggest differences between recorded learning and personalised training. A recording has to teach a way. One-to-one training can help you find your way.
That doesn’t mean I think everyone should book a trainer. Far from it.
I use recorded training too
I’m a trainer, but I’m also a big believer in learning from videos, documentation and other recorded material.
When I studied for my Final Cut Pro training certification, I used a combination of video tutorials, manuals and hands-on training. Even now, if I’m exploring something unfamiliar, I’ll look things up and seek guidance when I need it.
I’ve also started creating tutorial content myself. One of the first tutorials I recorded explains how to install Final Cut Pro templates. I could charge someone to sit with me while I walk them through that process, but I don’t think that would usually be a particularly good use of one-to-one training.
The process is relatively fixed. I can explain it clearly once, put that information out there for free and let people come back to it whenever they need it. If someone watches the tutorial and still wants me to go through it with them, of course I can. But for most people, a recording is a perfectly good tool for that particular job.
There are lots of things like this. If you have a clearly defined question, find a tutorial pitched at the right level and can confidently apply what you’ve seen, you may not need anything else.
The difficulty comes when one of those conditions isn’t true.
Every tutorial has to make assumptions about you
Imagine you want to learn how to create synced subtitles. You find a tutorial that explains exactly that. The person making it knows the software inside out, their instructions are accurate and they explain the process clearly. But five minutes in, they do something you’ve never seen before.
They’re assuming you already understand part of the application that you don’t. The tutorial isn’t bad. You’re not bad at learning. There’s simply a mismatch between the knowledge the tutorial assumes and the knowledge you actually have.
You could argue that the answer is to stop, go back and learn all of the fundamentals first. Sometimes I’d agree, but that isn’t always practical.
If you run a business and need to finish a video this week, or you’re starting a YouTube channel and want to publish something, “come back when you’ve completed the beginner course” isn’t necessarily very helpful.
When this happens in a training session, I’ll normally explain the options. We can jump straight into the thing you came to learn. But if I can see that there are a couple of fundamentals missing, I’ll tell you. Often I’ll recommend spending ten minutes getting those foundations in place first.
That small detour can make everything that follows considerably easier. More importantly, if something later deviates from the exact steps we followed, you have a better chance of understanding what’s happening rather than suddenly finding yourself in unfamiliar territory.
Sometimes you don’t need to know how. You need to know why.
Organisation is probably the most common example of this that I encounter in Final Cut Pro training. I’ve had several people start a session by proudly showing me the folder structure they’ve created in Finder. They’ve built folders and subfolders and configured Final Cut Pro to put cache files, render files and other media in particular places.
I’ll ask why they chose that structure. How does it help them? What problem is it solving?
Very often, they don’t know. They watched a YouTube video and were told that this was the way to organise Final Cut Pro, so they copied it. That workflow may make complete sense for the person who made the video. It might be ideal for the type of editing they do.
For most of the people I teach, though, it isn’t necessarily the best system at all. That’s where I think the language of “the right way” becomes unhelpful. A workflow is only useful if you understand what problem it solves.
If you create one personal video every few months, your organisational needs are very different from someone editing several client projects every week. Someone working alone has different considerations from a team. A person who needs to archive projects for years may need to think differently again.
A recording can show you an organisational system.
A conversation can start with: What are you actually trying to organise?
That can lead to a very different answer.
Doing is different from watching
This is probably the biggest reason I believe in hands-on training. I’ve learned every major piece of software I use by getting into it and doing things. I open it. I press buttons. I poke around. I make mistakes. And when I reach something I don’t understand, I look for guidance. Recorded learning has absolutely been part of that process, but the learning that sticks best for me has always happened when I’m actively using the software. That heavily influences the way I teach.
People sometimes ask me to demonstrate something for them. I can, and sometimes it’s the right thing to do, but it’s rarely my first choice. Where possible, I want the person learning to have control.
There’s an analogy I use quite often. Imagine using a satnav to drive somewhere you’ve never been before. You follow every instruction perfectly and arrive at your destination. Could you make exactly the same journey tomorrow without the satnav? Probably not.
You reached the destination, but you weren’t really learning the route. You were likely just passively doing as you were told. Now imagine making the same journey using road signs or a map.
You have to think much more actively. You’re looking at where you are, working out where you need to go next and building a mental picture of the journey as you travel. There’s a much better chance that you’ll remember the route tomorrow.
Software can be similar.
Watching me perform a task can make complete sense while I’m doing it. Actually taking control yourself exposes all the little questions that watching can hide:
Where was that setting again?
Why did we choose this option?
What happens if my project looks slightly different?
What have I just clicked that made everything disappear?
Those moments aren’t interruptions to the learning. Often, they are the learning.
My role is less about driving the car for you and more about helping you navigate while you drive it yourself.
This matters even more with complex workflows
Some software features are relatively easy to copy from a tutorial. Others require you to change how you think about the application. Multicam editing in Final Cut Pro is a good example.
There are decisions you can make early in the process that affect what happens much later. If you don’t understand what the software is doing, it’s possible to travel quite a long way down the wrong road before you realise something has gone wrong.
A video can demonstrate the correct process. What it can’t do is notice that you have taken the wrong turn. That feedback loop is one of the most useful parts of live training.
One-to-one training isn’t necessarily a course
There can also be an assumption that booking a trainer means committing to weeks of lessons. It doesn’t have to.
I work with some people who are extremely capable and technically confident. They might come to me with one particularly awkward question, spend a session working through it and then disappear for months. Sometimes I never hear from them again.
Other people start with very little experience and might work with me over ten or fifteen sessions. Neither is doing it the “right” way. The amount of training somebody needs depends on the person, what they want to achieve and how quickly they become comfortable doing it themselves.
That flexibility is part of the point.
Sometimes what you need is support, not more information
There is an enormous amount of software information available online. The problem is rarely a complete lack of information. Sometimes what people actually need is somebody they can talk to.
They want to be able to explain what they’re trying to achieve. They want to ask whether an approach makes sense. They want to stop halfway through and say, “I don’t understand why we did that.” Sometimes they simply want reassurance that they haven’t made a complete mess of something.
That starts to blur the line between training and consultation. Rather than simply transferring information, a trainer can help someone make decisions around their particular project and workflow.
For some people that isn’t necessary at all. For others, it can be the difference between watching another five tutorials and finally understanding what they’re doing.
So which should you choose?
If you pick things up quickly, enjoy experimenting and have found a tutorial or course pitched at roughly the right level, recorded learning can be brilliant.
It’s inexpensive (sometimes free), flexible and you can revisit the material whenever you want.
It may be particularly well suited if:
- The process you need to learn is relatively fixed.
- You want broad foundational knowledge and aren’t in a hurry.
- You’re comfortable filling in gaps yourself when a tutorial doesn’t quite match your situation.
- You learn effectively by watching something and then experimenting with it independently.
One-to-one training starts to make more sense when:
- You’ve already watched tutorials and still can’t make sense of something.
- You have a very specific goal or project.
- The material you find seems to assume knowledge you don’t have.
- You need help working out the best workflow rather than simply learning which buttons to press.
- You want someone to spot mistakes or misunderstandings while they’re happening.
- You learn better by doing something yourself with guidance.
- You want someone you can question, consult and bounce decisions off as you work.
And there’s no reason you have to choose only one. In my own learning, I’ve used books, manuals, recorded tutorials, formal training, experimentation and other people’s expertise. They all have a place.
The aim is to stop needing me
Ultimately, this is how I judge whether training has worked. I want someone to understand the software well enough that they can increasingly solve problems without me. That might happen after one session. It might happen after fifteen.
Admittedly, helping clients reach the point where they no longer need to pay me may not sound like the perfect recurring-revenue business model. But it’s the right outcome, because the point of good training shouldn’t be to make you dependent on the trainer — it should be to help you become confident enough to find your own way.