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Fabulous. Please don't take my comments as other than constructive.
As an educator teaching English as a Foreign Language, let me echo the issues with regard to the voice over. I am accustomed to "interpreting" non-native English and struggled at times. If production values remain an issue, then it might be worthwhile to get a more standard accent for the voice over. Apologies to, I assume, Luis for this point, but if newbs get lost they will tune out. They are your target audience, so...
Second, it was mentioned above as the video being "slow." You don't want to lose the attention of your audience, particularly if a new one. You can cut nearly two minutes off the front of the first one just with the intro. I'd cut it all or make the transitions much, much faster. You can do this whole thing under YouTube's 10 minute limit and avoid having to split the video. I understand the point being made with the graphics of the intro, but think a faster and more effective approach might be the Saudi camel>car>airplane>camel saying quote. Or, perhaps shorten down the graphics display time to a 3 - 5 seconds total and add in the saying to add a more modern twist to the same cycle.
Third, you may want to remove the Google version. I tried that first, but the graphics were too blurry in the larger format. That's a format issue, I assume, so can probably be fixed?
Fourth, there is a point in the first where you give an equation. I suggest you add that slide in. Most won't know the math and and how to write it out, nor do they, even if they do know it, want to be bothered with stopping to grab pen and paper. If it's in the video you can just pause to copy it down. I realize it's in the original, but the KISS principle always applies.
Cheers
Have to agree with ccpo, but just one other thing and that is the music is superfluous and for me was very distracting, none the less a very valuable contribution and I thank you for that.
If you like I can put a broadcast quality voice over together.
I generally agree. This is a very interesting idea.
I'm not sure what resources you have and thus what is (or is not) possible here, but I'll mention one problem in understanding that most people will encounter, and that is that they don't have a clue what "Olduvai" refers to (including me when I first heard this theory). Where is Olduvai Gorge, and why is this theory of Duncan's called "Olduvai" theory? People tend to drop out quickly if there's something seemingly critical to the discussion (like, in the title!) that they don't understand. The name "Olduvai" is prominent, but it is mysterious, unexplained, just appears out of nowhere.
An explanation wouldn't have to be long. Something like this:
(Graphic of a primitive human being) The Olduvai Gorge is commonly referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind." (Picture of Olduvai Gorge, maybe with archeologists poring over bones or something like that) It's an archaeological site located in the eastern Serengeti Plains, which is in northern Tanzania. (Music, Thus Spake Zarathustra intro as in 2001) In the late 20th century Richard Duncan (photo of Duncan?) came up with this theory emphasizing the brevity of industrial civilization and that human history might return to Olduvai Gorge sooner than we think. (Graph of fossil fuel "blip.") The era of fossil fuels and thus all of industrial civilization (picture of buildings, man on moon?) would be all too brief, just about 100 years. He called his theory "Olduvai theory." But is Duncan's "Olduvai theory" correct? (Etc. etc. I'm not sure of the accuracy of the comments about Duncan, this just gives you the kind of thing that a listener would accept as an explanation.)
It doesn't have to be lengthy, but I think you'll increase your audience about 20-30% by explaining this briefly up front, perhaps in lieu of the long introduction where nothing much happens.
Keith
ccpo, I generally agree with your comments. I think you and jokuhl focused most of the problems.
Apart form my eerie accent I had some difficulties capturing the sound of my voice properly. My laptop continuously inserts background noise (besides the dirac) no matter what microphone I use. I was forced to use a noise filter that unfortunately degraded some of my words. With someone speaking conventional English, this might not have happened.
The program I used to normalize the music wasn't that good, in some places the music sounds loud and in others sounds too low.
Hopefully we'll be able to solve all these issues in future.
Hi Luis,
Actually, given your explanation I'd say your accent is not an issue. With all the people willing to chip in on production, I expect the next version or next video to truly exceptional.
Cheers