[00:00:00] Peyton Pocock: Hello everyone. Um, welcome back to our sort of career con interviews. Uh, I'm Peyton, the designer and developer here at Hundo. Um, and I'm joined by Martin Winfield. Hi Martin, could you intro a little bit about who you are and what you do?
[00:00:23] Martin Winfield: Yeah. So, um, my name is Martin. I make a lot of videos. That's what I do when I wake up from when I go to bed.
Uh, it's, it's surrounding, um, content and content creation for businesses. I'm a freelancer, uh, you know, getting into money any way you can really, uh, And the good thing is in this world, you can work from anywhere and yeah, what more could you want?
[00:00:55] Peyton Pocock: Yeah, it's quite a valuable thing. I think myself being able to work remotely, I find, um, I think we're both sort of technical digital creatives and, um, definitely quite an enjoyable path.
Um, could you just sort of go a little bit further into your path, into that role, uh, your journey into becoming a digital creator and sort of, you know, What essential skills, um, have you developed along the way, or would you recommend to others that are looking at getting into something similar?
[00:01:23] Martin Winfield: Yeah, so like I first started out, uh, I didn't have a video camera in the beginning.
I was using a laptop, a laptop webcam, you know, with the, the stupid software that it's got on it. The videos never went anywhere. I still go back to them occasionally and think they, they were first videos. So, you know, they can be a bit bad, but you know, I was, I was recording back then. I've recalled, like I've been recording for a long time, uh, got into.
I got into video editing and YouTubing actually, because I got bored at college, which, I mean, it happens. So, uh, I did game design at college, and Before that I didn't really have a gaming computer. So, I got a gaming computer and I'm like, Oh! Let's play some games! Did that too much. And I just started making YouTube videos.
And editing them. Finding out that I really enjoyed that, rather than game design. Because that industry is It's quite hard, but yeah, no, video, video edit in content creation is just something that I really enjoy. I like it when people can see the content that you make and that you make for brands as well.
Um, yeah, it's, it's fun. I think
[00:02:50] Peyton Pocock: I had quite a similar story, really. Um, I sort of, Was procrastinating maybe My college work in well in college Um, we were told to host our work on a website and I found that Through procrastinating and fiddling with the website quite a bit. Um It was actually that that I really enjoyed so then you sort of set the ball rolling and you go and find Um similar things In that sort of space that you enjoy and work on and you naturally learn more about it on places like youtube um And then obviously at some point you need to go and take that to Make some money inevitably, um, eventually who needs to pay rent or pay mortgage or go on holiday or whatever it is you want to do in your life.
Um, so you might want to start creating a bit of a brand around yourself and what you do. Um, could you share any tips or insights in how other creators might be able to do that, how they can effectively create a brand around themselves, um, and sort of build up their digital presence a little bit?
[00:03:56] Martin Winfield: So when I, when I first went into it, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking, you know, Oh, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm not, I wasn't thinking I'm going to make a brand out of this. I was more thinking, this is fun. I made loads of videos. And then that, that became something that I could show people be like, this is a portfolio. Um, you might not like it, it's gaming content, but it shows what I can do. It shows that I've got the passion for it.
Um, with that, you know, I did some vlogs, you know, getting used to edit in a different ways. And, um, yeah, that, that was, I think that was quite fun because I could really like express myself through video which It's hard for people to express themselves these days. Uh,
[00:04:44] Peyton Pocock: Yeah, I think that's quite strong being personal true to yourself.
I think also telling a story seems to be quite strong as well Um, I love obviously again from a background of websites. I love back websites that as you scroll sort of show a narrative and a stage step by step and I find those quite um You Immersive, I think. And building on from sort of building your personal brand, uh, around what you do and who you are and getting yourself, um, out there, do you have any pointers or tips, uh, for young people who might be a little bit nervous about, um, sort of getting in front of a camera for a first time, or maybe even behind a camera, um, whether it be sort of recording or starting a podcast or starting YouTube videos or anything like that, um, have you got any advice To sort of build young people's confidence.
[00:05:34] Martin Winfield: So I think like a lot of people go into Content creation thinking. Oh, you need a camera. You need microphones. You need all of this phones are good these days Like people aren't gonna care what the video looks like They're just gonna care about what the content is and how you come across if you're talking about something that you really enjoy It comes across in the video and people will take more attention to it.
I think be passionate and And Just film what you enjoy. That's what I can say.
[00:06:08] Peyton Pocock: Absolutely. I think videos come across quite often a lot more engaging when you can tell it's someone that loves what they're doing. Um, and then they tend to be, it might sound a little bit of a silly thing to say, but tend to be better at it as well and better at explaining things and will know the intricacies of those things.
I would probably say also, um, just practice. Um, I think particularly for me, uh, I've always hated being in front of the camera and recording, but it's only through trial and error. And. Failing really that you get better at it and slightly more comfortable at doing it As you were with any skill really Um, so I think that would be quite a valuable pointer, especially if you're just starting out Um, obviously as we said a lot of it's online collaborative now Um, and there's all sorts of different tools to link these things together.
Um, are there any key tools and software in your day to day life that as a creator, um, sort of contributed quite valuably to your workflow or your creation process? Um, and then I might add a few more of my own as well.
[00:07:16] Martin Winfield: Yeah, yeah. Um, so at the very beginning, when I was at college and uni, I was using the Adobe suite.
Adobe suite is good, but the problem you have is, you know, money. When you leave uni, you can't use the student one anymore and it's expensive. So one day, uh, I got a message from my granddad being like, have you heard of DaVinci resolve? And I'm like, and he's like, they use it in films. And I'm like, all right, uh, it's free.
And I'm like, So, uh, when leaving uni, uh, didn't have a job for, for around a year and I was just editing, I was just making videos. Cause it's what I enjoyed doing. So I learned DaVinci resolve and that's, that's what I use now, which is really, it takes like aspects that Adobe has and just makes them better.
So. You know, you've got, it's got like after effects built in and it's just like, why do I have to go to a separate app to do this thing and then put it back? It's, it's crazy. It does
[00:08:25] Peyton Pocock: feel like it sometimes with the Adobe Sphere thing. Sometimes I love hate relationship. It's got everything, but at the expense of a little bit of clunkiness almost.
Um, any other sort of collab tools that you use day to day? I mean, obviously there's a lot.
[00:08:42] Martin Winfield: I mean, uh, yeah, yeah. I was going to say like Google drive. I use that to send videos out to clients and things like that. Google docs is great for writing up things. Yeah, no, sort of in general,
[00:08:58] Peyton Pocock: keeping things on the cloud is also for me, super valuable.
Um, Google drive has been a lifesaver so many times when I've not been able to access a document, like a device or something. If my phone runs out of charge or laptop or whatever, um, that is insanely valuable for me. Um, I guess also things like Miro, Figma, um, they're quite good colab design tools.
Obviously that's a little bit more in the graphics space. Um, I don't know if there's any, like, video feedback colab tools. I've not really looked into that at all. Don't know if you know any. Maybe, maybe there are. Maybe there are. I
[00:09:37] Martin Winfield: think there is, but like, I just use YouTube. Yeah. Because you can upload a video to YouTube, make it unlisted, and send it to a client.
They can just give you the timestamps. You don't need to pay for something. That just exists is It
[00:09:52] Peyton Pocock: seems simple and accessible.
[00:09:54] Martin Winfield: Yeah, like who doesn't have a google account? You can you can just send the video to without hassle on their end. It just it just works
[00:10:04] Peyton Pocock: lovely and um, we were talking about this just a minute ago before the um, before our interview, but um martin and I both did a Um sort of kickstart work experience placement.
Um with a couple companies Um Before probably getting into. Sort of industry roles and, um, working full time. Um, could you just sort of share a little bit about your experience with work experience and why that might be so important for young people, uh, looking to get into work?
[00:10:36] Martin Winfield: Yeah. So work experience in this light area is it's, it's quite annoying because on one hand you need a portfolio.
And on the other hand, you're probably not going to get paid for it. So, when you're starting out, you know, you should just, like what I did when I started, you know, I was making videos, personal videos, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't beholden to some company, but that is also a benefit sometimes because you can say, Oh, I've worked with these companies.
If you've got on a website, if you've got on the end of your videos, you know, you look, you look pretty good. That's what I think.
[00:11:15] Peyton Pocock: Yeah, I think it's valuable, um, sort of to be able to find things that you might not have thought of in a academic scenario, there's lots of communication bits I've picked up, um, that otherwise I might not have been taught, um, In, in college or university or something.
Um, again, a lot of those Colab tools, um, and being able to be familiar with those and effectively use them and communicate, um, things like this. And I suppose also talking to, um, external people and what learning about how business works and, um, the different parts of the business and the team as well. Um, I think sort of making design decisions.
That come back to how does this help the overall business strategy and Um, obviously at the end of the day you need to be paid and how does it help bring in money for the business? And align with other partners and things like this Um, so I think all of those things have Also, I think my experience has been quite valuable that aren't necessarily always taught in a academic curriculum.
[00:12:25] Martin Winfield: Well, I I found that like some companies have really interesting ways of doing things Like you would do something in one way, but it wouldn't they don't see it as a good thing Whereas like, I've seen it a lot on like Instagram now where like viral memes have been like a lot more prominent, which I really enjoy because it's actually like fun to watch rather than watching some boring documentary somewhere.
Or a long form video that no one really is going to pay attention to or get the information from. You know, you make something short, you make something like enjoyable to watch, people are going to enjoy it, watch it more, retain the information. It's.
[00:13:06] Peyton Pocock: Yeah, it's true. There's been quite a lot of diversification of, um, communication for, especially marketing materials from companies.
I think, um, a lot of experimentation as well, um, and trying to connect with young people. I think there's some quite exciting things, um, which sort of nicely leads me onto the final question, um, which is just sort of, how do we stay up to date or. Maybe some advice for young people on how to stay up to date with, um, design and digital trends and changes in the landscape.
Um, are there any particular social medias or apps that are good for that or platforms? Um, especially in a sort of ever evolving, very quickly evolving tech space.
[00:13:50] Martin Winfield: Well, um, most of, well, pretty much all of the content I consume is just YouTube because it's convenient. It's there. If you need to know the answer to something like, um, if I need to know something in DaVinci Resolve, I will go to YouTube, Google it.
Or whatever, find a video on it, it's just there and then, you know, the algorithm in the future might be like, oh, this is cool. Have you seen that you can do this effect? And then you're like, oh, I can use that in my next video. It's the, the algorithms at the minute are pretty good. Uh, to some extent, um, you, you can disagree, but yeah, no, um, I, I think people can learn a lot, like really easily now, which is actually great.
Um, watching YouTube videos, if you want to get into content creation, finding out what people are doing, like behind the scenes of the stuff that they're creating is, is how I learn. It's, it's a good way to peek behind the veil and try and make that work for yourself.
[00:15:00] Peyton Pocock: Yeah, I would echo that. I think there's so much valuable stuff that you can find online.
Um, especially places like YouTube. Um, I learned, uh, loads of what I use in, um, sort of software related skills from YouTube, things like I use Webflow a lot. Um, and coding, maybe some HTML, CSS, things like that, quite particular solutions, um, are really, really valuable to be learned from YouTube, I think. Um, and then obviously something like work experience might be really valuable to learn how to implement those into a sort of workspace environment.
Um, I've got another sort of quick curveball question for you. Um, in the digital landscape as a whole. What excites you the most about the future of design creation? Uh, is there anything that's maybe a little bit scary or exciting for you?
[00:16:01] Martin Winfield: I mean, a lot of people are saying like AI is going to be a problem.
I don't think it is like some of the tools that are out there right now, uh, like help people do the job better. It's like, um, I, I know someone who was like working for Microsoft and trying to incorporate like a sense of ethics to AI, like he would go into businesses and be like, look, you can use AI. But don't get rid of the staff, just allow them to do more with the tools, which I think is, is a good way to think about it.
And I think more people should think about it that way, but as, as a video editor, primarily, like some of the tools that we're getting in like Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve now, uh, they're quite good. I mean, I remember back in the day you had to like type up all of your subtitles. It takes a long time now you press one button and you know, you do need to tweak it, but in the future, maybe not, you can just, it will just work.
So yeah, I think accessibility, um, is going to be a big thing.
[00:17:18] Peyton Pocock: I think that's a sensible, um, solution. Yeah, definitely. I think using AI as a tool and neural network bits as a tool rather than a replacement seems. reasonable. Um, on your subtitle comment, I think, uh, there was another program we use a lot, um, internally called Descript, which is absolutely phenomenal.
I can, I probably recommend that to anyone looking to get into the video creation sort of space. Um, and increasingly it's been learning from Uh, the feedback that you give it in the app when you correct the subtitles, it learns for next time, which I thought was really quite impressive bit of tech. Well, thank you very much, Martin.
Uh, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Um, is there any way that people can sort of connect with you and learn a little bit more about what you do and stay up to date?
[00:18:15] Martin Winfield: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, just Martin Winfield, my name, I post quite a lot of my stuff there. I've also got a website. Uh, yeah.
[00:18:27] Peyton Pocock: Oh lovely stuff, um, thank you everyone for watching and hopefully you enjoy the rest of uh your day today uh watching our other CareerCon videos, take care!
