FabuRocks Podcast FabuDad, FabuMom & Fabu

From the moment Fabu started vocalizing, she seemed to have her own language, which sometimes only FabuMom would understand.  Fabu has always been a happy kid and expressed herself by hugging people.  She did not often get frustrated when she was not understood.  When asked a question she did not understand, she would answer in her own way, smile, hug you, and you clueless as to what she had just said.
We thought the delay initially was because we are a bilingual family, which not only did we speak to her in both English and Spanish, but so did her grandparents and extended family.  We believed Fabu was just confused by both languages, and it was just taking her a little longer. 
Fabu had reached her walking milestone at an earlier age than most other children.  Her pediatrician had said that oftentimes when this happens, other milestones such as language take a little longer to develop. 
Fabu did not start attending daycare until she was 3 years old.  Fabu’s grandparents spent most of the day with her while FabuParents were at school and work. We believed this also had to do with the delay in speech because they catered to her every need, and she did not need to say much to obtain what she wanted and more.  All she would need to do is point a finger, and she would get whatever she wanted.   We believed that she would immediately catch up to where she needed to be concerning her speech as soon as she started school. 
Despite her lack of vocabulary and speech, which she did not understand, Fabu always made sure you understood her by her gestures and acting out what she wanted to say.
Fabu was formally diagnosed with speech delay at 4 years old.
She started receiving speech therapy 2 x week. 
We were hopeful that with therapy, she would quickly overcome the delay. We knew that therapy needed to be aggressive and agreed to 2 x week.
Her speech therapist was going to Fabu’s daycare 2 x week.  She would get pulled out of her class for each session.  We were hopeful that Fabu would obtain results quickly. 
Fabu went through 3 different therapists within 2 years.  Each of them had the same feedback:  Fabu was a happy and friendly kid who lacked interest during a session, was normally not engaged, did not pay attention, and rejected participating in therapy overall.  Fabu’s improvement was minimal during this time, and we became increasingly more concerned.  
As the first grade was just around the corner, we became worried about all the possible issues that Fabu could face if she did not significantly improve her speech, such as social issues, behavior issues, anxiety, and depression.  This was when we decided to take matters into our own hands. 
Based on the therapists' feedback, our first task was to look for something that she was interested in, wanted to be a part of, and thought was fun.  It was time to get creative!
We tested her level of interest with many things she liked at that time.  We looked for things she found entertaining and was engaged with for long periods of time.  We found that she enjoyed many things but most did not capture her attention for long enough. 
We discovered that her most captured attention was when she watched several kid-friendly YouTube channels and their content.  She kept bugging us about letting her have her own YouTube channel, something we had never even considered.  In a moment of appearing to entertain her idea, we asked her to use her tablet and record herself and make a video of what she would like for us to put on YouTube.  We never imagined she would actually go and do it.  To our surprise, she made several videos which showed her expressing herself better than we had ever seen or heard her before.  This showed us that she had really focused her attention on making those videos, which was something she was interested in and seemed to provide some hope.
We continued to entertain this idea and keep our promise of creating a YouTube cha

We had a YouTube channel with a channel intro.  Now what?  We knew we needed to integrate her having fun, content she was interested in, and then incorporate therapy. We asked her what she liked the most out of what she was watching on YouTube.  At that time, gummy videos were trending, and Fabu loved watching these, especially those that showed them making gummies. 
She believed these videos were not only fun but wanted us to do these as a family.  We anticipated she would be as engaged as she was previously during the filming of the intro video.  Actually, we were counting on it!
Our gummy-making journey began!  We went all out.  We knew the success of what we were doing depended on setting the stage and creating a magical experience for Fabu.  We went out and got a new 4k video camera, lights, microphone, built a background, and even bought a movie director clapperboard.  As you can see, for us, it was all in!   Mind you, our only experience making videos was shooting clips really quickly on our cell phones.   We had no idea how to use lighting or how to incorporate audio into the camera.  We clearly needed many crash courses on how to make videos for dummies.  YouTube became our academy, and there we found videos that taught us all these things we had no clue how to do.  This may sound like a big investment, but truly knowing what we know today, our initial investment cost us what today we spend in just a single light. 
After going through many YouTube tutorials and receiving all the new equipment, it was time for our first “professional” video.  We were all so excited! We made final decisions about the gummy-making video's content, and we went out and bought all the ingredients so everything would be ready for film day.  Never in our lives had we bought so many packets of gelatin, so much so that we ended up having to go to several different stores to get all the gelatin we needed. It was A LOT!!!
Film day arrived, and we were ready to go!  After all the tutorials we watched, we were pros and knew how to set up everything from the microphone location, the camera's correct angle, where each of the lights needed to be placed to obtain the best lighting and has no shadows.  We felt like true filmmakers.  
And, of course, nothing went as we imagined. Our first video was making a gummy bar-b-que sauce bottle and took forever to make.  Fabu was interested in making the gummy all about 5 min.  She quickly left us in the kitchen making the gummies while she went to watch TV. 
We had written a script for Fabu to use, but she refused to follow the script and instead wanted to use her talking Olaf, a toy that was popular at that time, as her sidekick that she would talk to.  We let her do that so that she would not get upset and lose interest as we were already too far invested in the project and feared she would shut down and not want to participate, as this was her default.
We let her improvise and explain what she was doing and what was going on.  We asked her to express herself as best as she could.  This is where the problems started.  There were certain words unfamiliar to her that took her a long time to learn and remember so she would be able to repeat them.  This triggered her to become frustrated as we would not let her use words that were easy for her to say or things that did not make sense.  We by this point, we're exhausted after working all day and hours spent making several batches of gummies, leaving us with our patience much stretched.  We always tried to keep it fun and turn all of her mistakes into jokes to be a good experience.  The truth was that it was becoming late, we were running low on patience, and neither Fabu nor ourselves could continue, so we ended the filming not knowing if what we had done was a failure or a success.   Not knowing if we would ever do that again. 

After having a rough first day of shooting and not knowing if it was a humungous fail, it was time to look at the footage we had.  FabuDad had never edited a video in his life.  After many tutorials which taught him everything from intro to outro, transitions, overlays, lower thirds, and everything needed for a video to look good, his goal was to create something as cool and fun as what Fabu was already watching on other channels.  He wanted her to feel proud and happy with the results when she saw herself, hoping this would encourage her to make videos.  Not know if this would be the first and only video he would edit after the semi-chaotic first day of shooting.  
FabuDad took several days to edit the first video on our home PC, not a PC designed for editing.  He struggled with rendering the 4k video, so he did as best as he could cut it to the final render.  A 6 min and 42-sec video took nearly all day to render.  Needless to say, FabuDad was beyond frustrated but remain hopeful and somehow proud of what we had just done.
The moment arrived to premiere our first video. We left early from work that day and picked up Fabu from school, rushing home to watch the video.  We sat down as a family to watch our first video together.  We were excited and afraid to watch at the same time.  We were unsure of our results. Unsure of our method and if we had to find alternative methods which would work.  Nevertheless, we were hopeful and determined to help Fabu no matter what.
FabuMom’s reaction – After watching the video, I absolutely loved it.  I was impressed with the quality of the work.  I could not believe FabuDad could make a video so well put together from all the filming we had done.  All the scene transitions looked so cool, and how he incorporated the snapchats for dramatic purpose.  I laughed, seeing myself stirring the gummies remembering how Fabu had totally left us alone in the whole gummy-making process.  The bloopers were so funny.  I loved how the bloopers highlighted Fabu’s fun personality, and you could tell how much fun she was having while filming. 
FabuDad’s reaction – As I went through all the raw footage, I found that Fabu was unable to say many things correctly and often unable to put more than 2 words together.  This made the editing process that much harder.  My goal was to make a 5-minute video, but I did not think I could do it by editing one word here and there.  I quickly noticed that we had plenty of what we called “bloopers” of her goofing around and not saying things correctly.  I decided to add those bloopers because, in reality, it was just her being herself and having fun.  My goal was for Fabu to feel it was a funny and entertaining video enough for her to want to continue doing it again.
Fabu loved the video as well.  We noticed that as she watched, she was correcting herself.  She could say words and phrases after seeing herself in the video that she had been previously unable to.  We could not believe what we were seeing and hearing.  Right before our eyes, she could pronounce, remember and correctly repeat what she was watching. 
The AHA moment realized that the therapy was never in the video's filming; it was in reality after creating the video, her watching herself and then being able to repeat what she had said without skipping a beat correctly. 
Who would have thought the bloopers would be the main factor in Fabu’s therapy.  This is where all her mistakes were highlighted and being presented funnily.  Fabu knew and recognized how to say whatever she had previously been unable to correct.  
Overall, we felt happy and more hopeful than ever now, knowing that we had a bigger success than we ever expected.  We fully embraced doing more late-night gummies for the sake of Fabu’s progress. 

After 6 gummy videos, we found that making YouTube videos was no joke!  They were taking a really long time from start to finish; between setting things up, filming, editing, rendering, and uploading so Fabu could see herself later, each video was taking way more time and energy than we ever imagined.
However, the results were great.  Fabu was even more engaged with each new video we made. 
We knew we were getting closer to making some tough family decisions quickly!   The amount of time and effort was taking a toll on us in our daily life.  We were scared to fail because we were not putting in the amount of time needed to succeed. We needed more time, more time to overall get the results we wanted.
FabuMom – At that time, I worked in the social services field and started preparing to open a targeted case management company here in Miami. This was taking up a lot of my time and resources to achieve this goal. 
FabuDad – At that time, he had a private lending company that provided business loans to Hispanic companies in Miami. 
As a family, we were doing well, going on vacations for at least 4 x years.  We had many plans and goals which had nothing to do with making YouTube videos.
We knew, though, that we needed to make some drastic decisions if we were going to have a shot at having great success with Fabu’s therapy. 
So, we did what every family does.  We had a family meeting over dinner and discussed the best decision for Fabu, knowing that each of us needed to compromise.
Filming, editing, rendering, and uploading was what was taking the most time.   Not to mention all the time it took preparing to film.  There were not enough hours in a day for FabuDad to successfully run a private lending business and do all of what we were doing at home with Fabu.  We just needed more time. It was decided for FabuMom to stop pursuing the Case Management agency's opening as we knew that focusing on opening and building a second business would take all the time away from helping Fabu.  She instead found a job that allowed her to work from home, giving her more flexibility and time to dedicate to Fabu. FabuDad would, for liability reasons, close down the business and dedicate his time to helping Fabu. 
We knew these hard decisions needed to be made to help Fabu successfully, but we also knew that our lifestyle would change completely moving forward from that moment.  No more vacations and bootstrapping mode were enabled.
We were certain that the best investment we were making was investing in our daughter and her future. 

After making tough family decisions, we decided we were more than all in. 
We now needed to equip ourselves with the proper equipment.  After much research, we quickly found out we had less than the basics.  You may ask, what are the basics?  Well, we had a cheap camera (HD camera), a couple of offices all in one PC and a lot of enthusiasm! 
After watching several channels about making YouTube videos for beginners, we quickly learned that we were in desperate need of a bunch of equipment we had no clue about.  We needed a better quality camera, lights (who knew our home lights would not be enough), a microphone, a recorder (to record the audio from the microphone), a green screen if you want to be more creative, and new a computer that would allow us to edit and render a video on time properly.   Can you believe our all-in-one office PC took 21 hours to render a 6 min video?  Talk about frustrating. 
Some of the strategies we took to get the items we needed was:
Looking for the best deal - I went to Best Buy and shopped the open box section.  Found a 4k video camera with a considerable discount.  Mind you, at that time; a 4k video camera was as inexpensive as it is today.  5 years ago, 4k was the latest technology out. Let’s not forget back in the day; our cell phones only recorded in HD.  We needed to educate ourselves with the items we were purchasing - We went to Sam Ash looking for a microphone and recorder.  We went into the store asking for the best microphone and recorder for making videos.  The sales associate asked us if we needed “a dynamic microphone, with phantom power.”  This was when we realized we had no idea what we were doing.  This associate gave us a 2-hour tutorial on the differences between microphones, recorders and which one would most suit our needs. Building our own PC – We found that building our own PC would not only be less expensive but would build it using parts that we could upgrade in the future when needed. Lights and Green Screen – Even though we had no idea how to use the lights and green screen yet, we bought these as these would allow us to get creative to keep making it interesting for Fabu. We even bought a Green Suit that would make Fabu invisible after editing.  Our home office, little by little, became a mini recording studio. 

We now have all the equipment we needed to start, but we missed the software required to edit videos and create graphics for videos and thumbnails properly.  Let’s not forget, our background has nothing to do with graphic design or videography, and we could not afford to pay someone to edit the videos and make the thumbnail art for us.  We ended up doing what we did best… go to YouTube and find videos to educate ourselves on the best video editing and graphic designing software available. 
Our research determined that Sony Vega and Adobe Premier were the best and most complete programs to use.  FabuDad ended up choosing Sony Vega as it was the more user-friendly of them.
For creating thumbnail art, FabuDad found he liked using Photoshop and PicMonkey the best.  He liked how PicMonkey, although not as sophisticated as Photoshop, was very user-friendly and allowed us to make art quickly. 
Little did we know that making and rendering 4k videos were too large for YouTube and needed to be compressed.  We needed to find a program that would compress those videos, which you don’t need now.
Even though we did not know how to do anything, our level of determination was high, and this helped us get through the tons of tutorials that taught us how to do things, so we were able to accomplish our goal.   The bottom line is if we can do it, so can you.