How to Watch/Read a Tutorial

In my experience as a video producer/vfx engineer, I have watched a lot of tutorials. I still make it a habit to watch/read them, and even re-watch/re-read tutorials that I’ve already finished. I think I will probably always be watching or reading some sort of tutorial; in my opinion there are not many better ways to learn something other than going through a tutorial about it from someone who is already good at whatever you’re trying to learn.

Of course there are good and bad tutorials, one’s that make it easy to learn something and one’s that (usually because of poor recording equipment or the guy who made it just deciding to, for all intents and purposes, wing it) make it extremely difficult. But that being the case, I have come to realize that there are not only good and bad tutorials, but good and bad ways to learn from them. You can go through a fantastic, clear-cut, in-depth tutorial that’s easy to understand (and where the guy never even says “um”), and even if you followed along and ended up with something really cool that you can be proud of, and justifiably so, you still may not have taken advantage of what the tutorial had to offer.

In my experience, the only way a tutorial will benefit you enough to where it really makes the time you spent on it worthwhile, is if you end up with 1 or both of 2 things. They are:

1. A new method, or an improvement on an old method, and

2. A new technique, or an improvement on an old technique.

This may or may not sound obvious at first, but I have found it is very easy to watch/read a tutorial and simply “go through the motions” so to speak, to the point where, while you might be very engaged and getting great results, you are not actually gaining anything from it. So when I find a tutorial on an interesting subject, or search for one when I get stuck in a project, I have to continually remind myself to take the time to dig deep and stay sharp, so that I really benefit from the time spent going through the tutorial. Keeping the two goals of finding a new method or technique (or improvements on either) in mind really helps provide me with a tangible way of getting the most from a tutorial.

I think it might help, in closing, to explain how I define method and technique, and why I think it’s important to differentiate between them.

METHOD

To me, a method is a repeatable action, or series of actions, that can be directly or indirectly applied to a multitude of different practices. For example: I use the software Blender 3D for 3D work that I do at Blueprint. During different processes, their are preset executable commands called modifiers that can be applied to different situations. Knowing how to apply the same modifier to vastly different situations with unrelated needs has more than once been a miracle when it came to saving time and making things easier for myself down the road, especially as certain projects grew in complexity. This knowledge would fall into my method category.

TECHNIQUE

To me, a technique is similar to a method, in that I believe it can and should be beneficial in a variety of different scenarios, but it differs in that, rather than a specific set of actions, it is more of a mindset, or a certain way to approach something, such that your subsequent actions are guided by it. This is important to me because good technique will not only define which methods you use and when you use them, but it will really serve you when you find yourself in a situation where none of your methods are applicable, and you can’t figure out what to do next.

This is because, for me, good technique has a strong foundation in critical thinking. When something doesn’t work the way it did before, or won’t work at all, your approach to that situation will determine it’s outcome. And this is why simply watching tutorials and following along like a robot will never do you any good. You need to stay sharp, dig deep and really work hard to gain something from it. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes, it is more or less a waste of time.

By: John