Nathan Wailes - Blog - GitHub - LinkedIn - Patreon - Reddit - Stack Overflow - Twitter - YouTube
YouTube (as a tool / skill)
- Nathan Wailes
Table of contents
Child pages
Related pages
- ...
Learning resources
- YouTube
Misc ideas
- Keep in mind that giving other people screen time is also giving them power.
- If you look at the videos in the playlist below you can see that this guy started with a clearly visible microphone next to his face like a telemarketer (in the earliest videos he uses the camera's default mic), he had a stationary camera (on a tripod), the room is lit normally, and the videos are longer on average (7-10 minutes). In his later videos he switches to a hidden mic, the room is lit in a blown-out way that makes it look more like a TV show, he has someone holding the camera, and the videos tend to be shorter (2-5 minutes).
- Consider starting your video with a montage to 'hook' people:
Questions
- For Lloyd:
- How does he decide whether to include plates or not? And the other decisions he makes.
- I should figure out how many of the top 50 YouTubers use various techniques.
- How does he decide whether to include plates or not? And the other decisions he makes.
Lessons I've learned from making videos:
- Think of things you want to see in the video, and then string them together. This is how George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came up with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I found a video in which John Cleese of Monty Python says that Python used the exact same method when creating their films:
Quote:Tim Rice:
[re: how they created Life of Brian]
Was it the laughter idea, or the message? Which was the first of the two that--
Cleese:
It's the laughter, we go for the jokes first. The reason it sounded like an interesting territory to go into, to explore--because when you go in there [to write the movie] you really don't know what you're going to write. We usually sit around for about three days discussing theoretically what we're going to write, then we go and write something completely different. And the film actually starts when somebody comes in halfway through the second week and reads something out and we all laugh. And that's the first point on the graph, do you see what I mean? And then we wait another week and then somebody else writes something funny and then we have two points on the graph, and when we've got about six or seven we start writing stuff to join it together. It's really a pretty slow process, because it's sort of democracy-gone-mad.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ni559bHXDg&t=7m
A step-by-step guide to making a good YouTube video
- Generate / collect rough ideas for videos.
- Gradually flesh out an outline for each of those ideas.
- Do any necessary prep.
- Set up the shot.
- Record the footage.
- Gauge whether you need to rerecord the footage.
- Put the final footage in an online storage folder.
- Edit the footage.
- Create the thumbnail.
- Upload the video to YouTube.
Misc ideas to be filed
My two main criticisms of this video are that it is too long for the amount you have to say, and
you yourself seem bored. Your expression hardly ever changes, the pace of your delivery hardly changes, your level of general excitement never changes nor seems to rise to a level that makes me the viewer think that what your saying must be interesting, because you yourself seem so interested in it.
Your eyes spend a lot of time looking to your left, but not at anything in particular. The camera is your audience, and we are flattered that you are so interested in us that you look at us. If you look away a lot, then we feel boring.
People keep watching videos because they wonder what you are going to say next. If you say something that gets an idea across, and then embark on a new section of speech that is predictable and adds nothing, people will lose interest.
Create an outline for the YouTube video
General structure of the video
- State your main idea.
- Do this at the beginning of the video.
- Use your best judgement to order the following:
- Give an explanation of your main idea (if appropriate).
- Give an analogy (if appropriate).
- Give an example (if appropriate).
Topics to include
- Points to be made.
- Examples to be listed.
- Analogies to be used.
- Shots to be shown.
- Jokes to be used.
- Props to be used.
- Any constraints on when / where it can be filmed.
Things to avoid
Don't have long intro sequences and introductory comments in which you basically just restate the title of the video several times
- Examples:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYhTAi6Ci4
- He has an overly-long title sequence
- He also restates the title of the video before the title sequence and then again after the title sequence.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYhTAi6Ci4
Pre-recording preparation
- Gather the necessary equipment to get the footage you need.
- Rehearse to get the speed / emotion of your delivery up.
- Dress appropriately.
- Don't wear clothing that distracts from the point of the video without adding value.
- Lloyd: I read "infer" on your T-shirt many times during the video. Is it relevant? If not, it is a distraction best avoided, I think.
- Don't wear clothing that distracts from the point of the video without adding value.
Setting up the camera / shot
- Optional: Attach the microphone if you're using a lav or mini-shotgun.
- Lav
- Note: The small wire that connects the lav mic receiver to the DSLR is not symmetrical. There is an end that has a female thread at the end, which is meant to screw into the lav mic receiver. If you accidentally put that end into the DSLR, it seems to have a tendency to get easily disconnected. (At least, it happened to me at least twice, on the same occasion.)
- Lav
- Center the frame.
- From Lloyd: Again, you gone fop the off-centre framing. This looks nice enough as a still image, but I don't think it helps you engage with the viewer over five minutes.
- Set the focal length to put the background out of focus.
Lloyd: The background is out of focus, which looks pretty, and while it establishes you as being in a real place, with a sense of space, it isn't distracting.
- Check for background noise.
Lloyd: There is some annoying constant noise. Computer cooling fans? Possibly, if you recorded some of that sound on its own, you could remove much of it using something like Audacity.
Check for proper lighting.
Lloyd: The lighting puts one half of your head in deep moody shadow. Possibly this suggests that you are talking about something a bit moodier or darker than you actually are. It gives you head good 'moulding' - that is, the rounded 3D shape is emphasised, which gives you weight and presence. One snag with the lighting is that there are no bright highlights in your eyes. Your eye-sockets are in shadow, and just one tiny bright highlight in each eye would make you look a lot more alive and alert and friendly. If you want the dark eye-socket shadows, then point highlights can be added to your eyes with a small flashlight placed lower and closer in to the angle of the camera. When you lift your head, we can just see the highlights appear for an instant. Have a quick watch of the video, and see how much more alive your eyes look when they have highlights.
Editing
- Edit that footage in an initial pass (in an Adobe Premiere project).
- Create start / end-plates.
- Review the project and make any tweaks you think are necessary.
Intros / Title plates
Modifying the audio
- Remove background noise
- If you've recorded some of that noise on its own, use Audacity to take it out of your dialogue.
- Lloyd: There is some annoying constant noise. Computer cooling fans? Possibly, if you recorded some of that sound on its own, you could remove much of it using something like Audacity.
- If you've recorded some of that noise on its own, use Audacity to take it out of your dialogue.
Which editing software should you use?
What successful YouTubers use
- Pewdiepie uses Adobe Premiere. (Source; @1:10)
After you're finished using the camera for the day
- Take the battery out of the DSLR and charge it! It drains quickly while shooting video.
Creating a "Let's Read" video
- Download the book onto your desktop app so you won't have any lag going from one page to the next.
- Apply make-up to make red spots on your face less distracting.
- Get into a quiet location.
- Set your laptop screen to not turn off for an hour when you don't put any input.
- I had to set the gain on the receiver to -10dB to get it to stop blowing out when I spoke loudly.
- Do tons of tests before you start! Make sure everything is perfect!
- Reading:
- Consider reading more slowly than you would speak it as dialogue.
- Feedback from Joey on Chapter 2 of Reminisences: try talking a little bit slower for the role. I felt your tempo was slightly rushed for this segment.
- Consider reading more slowly than you would speak it as dialogue.
Misc
- check to see what the sound will be like; will there be an echo, or excessive background noise? In the video below the camera's default mic picked up the echo in the room and sounded pretty bad; luckily I had a second microphone recording at the same time.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EGGJ0-XcgQ
- have the mic set up so that you don't have to shout or strain yourself to be heard, as it will sound bad later:
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lwvhm66ZbA
- check the lighting: harsh shadows may not look as nice; in the video below I'm directly in the sun and it looks much worse.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lwvhm66ZbA
Business Insider article - Here Are Ten Tips To Create A Viral Video
http://articles.businessinsider.com/201 ... z1lX7E4XYb
Quote:So I began to look into the videos that had in fact, gone viral, specifically, those that involved a brand. The majority of them fell into what I call the "Hire J.Lo" bucket, i.e., brand hires a celebrity, spends a ton on production and media that a lot of people might see and share this shiny video online--and if they don't, the brand is ready to force you see it as pre roll.
But is this really the desired effect that you're looking to create? It kind of feels like cheating--after all, isn't the appeal of a viral video the warm feeling your brand gets because thousands of people are sharing a fun video about you? In this scenario, thousands of people just can't avoid your video.
The second, and much more elusive effect is when a brand produces a piece of content that people fall in love with and actually want to share with their friends and followers. These usually don't involve huge budgets and just represent a clever bit of storytelling that is purely designed for web audiences. These, I determined were videos that had truly viral elements, which got me thinking, even if there is no magic bullet for creating a viral video, there must be attributes that they share and could be replicated to increase the probability of having your video go viral, and this is what I found:
1) Create lots of videos. Simply put, the more videos you produce, the greater your chances that one of them will go viral. Think of it this way, if you're flipping a coin and are looking for a run of 10 heads in a row, it may happen in your first 50 flips, but if you flipped the coin 1,000 times, there's a far greater chance it'll happen. The same logic applies here.
2) Create lots of funny videos. If you've never had to have an uncomfortable night where one of your friends "invites" you to their stand up routine on open mic night, consider yourself spared. I've come to the realization that everyone on this planet has an inner desire to be funny--no matter how inherently un-funny they are. Luckily for us, things like Facebook walls give people the opportunity to entertain with humor, even if they didn't write the material. So, if you can't actually be funny, you can, and will want to, share what's funny.
3) Create videos that automatically seed themselves within communities and fan bases. Hives of enthusiasts for everything from RoboCop to Glass Blowing are everywhere and rabidly engaged--if you give them some content that plays to their fanaticism, either negatively or positively, chances are that they'll be seeding the content and posting it everywhere for you.
4) Exploit parody laws - There's a reason that Weird Al has 7 Platinum Albums on his wall. Your lawyer might not sleep much while this is happening but parodies consistently outperform completely original content. Parodying something popular lets you ride existing popularity and, as a bonus, gives your content long tail shelf life. [EXAMPLE - Twitter/Social Network Parody]
5) Holy s**t--is that real? Creating a discussion as to a piece of media's authenticity can cause a stir and a lot of shares online. Relativity Media did this to great success with the Times Square Billboard Hack Video it created to promote the release of Limitless this spring. Before that, HiTec Sports created some brilliant YouTube slight of hand with this Liquid Mountaineering Video.
6) Showcase techniques such as miniatures, stop motion, time lapse, action figures, and Legos. People love visually compelling content and one way to create it is to experiment with filmmaking techniques to try and show people something they haven't seen before. Videos that are unexpected get people excited and foster a "saw it first" mentality. [EXAMPLE - "Gulp", the world's largest stop motion video by Nokia]
7) Play with memes - they're like the internet's greatest underground hits - but, timing, and the ability to act quickly is crucial - by now, planking might feel as overplayed as Black Dog on FM radio, but if you catch on to something new like the Honey Badger or Chuck Testa and can act quickly to people at the right time, you've got a chance at some resonance.For reference - knowyourmeme.com
8) Push the boundaries of what's comfortable or expected from your brand. If you've got a brand that people associate with one audience or mentality, doing something unexpected will draw attention. For example, if you're Woolite and you hire Rob Zombie to direct a commercial for you, the chatter surrounding the strangeness of that choice will pique people's interest.
9) So bad it's good - The web loves epic failures and anything done so horribly that it's awe-inspiring will create a lot of finger pointing. [EXAMPLE - Preposterously bad VFX reel]
10) Combine these techniques. If you kick it up a notch and combine any of my tips, you're compounding the likelihood of it happening. For example a recent video that was sourced by Duck Tape brand Duct Tape on Tongal combined #7, a meme (Tron Guy), #3 an enormous, geeky fan base (Tron), and #6 a technique (Stop Motion) then debuted (above J. Lo) on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart. [EXAMPLE - DUCK TRON]
About.com - Tips for Making a Viral Video
http://desktopvideo.about.com/od/videoo ... lvideo.htm
Quote:1. Put your viral video everywhere. You should post it on every video sharing site you can find. Services like TubeMogul make this easier by letting you upload your video once and then distributing it for you.
2. Promote your viral video. Email the link to your mom, your cousin, your high school class. Make it easy for everyone to then forward the video to all of their friends.
3. Keep your viral video short. You want this video to be watched as many times as possible, and that’s more likely to happen if people can watch the video quickly. Thirty to sixty seconds is generally a good length for a viral video.
4. Make your viral video funny. Humor can be hard to get right, sometimes, but it’s the surest way to make people want to share your video. Think about all of the viral videos that you’ve seen—most of them have been comedies.
5. Don’t make your viral video an advertisement. Some companies have successfully used viral video to promote a product, but “going viral” is usually a spontaneous byproduct of a great video, not an intentional goal.
6. Content beats quality in a viral video. Most successful viral videos are made by amateurs, so good content is more important than high production quality. If viewers enjoy what they see, they’ll overlook a shaky camera or focus troubles.
7. Don’t use copyrighted content in your viral video. If you hope to have your viral video seen by thousands of people, make sure you’re not using any unlicensed music or images that could get you in trouble with record companies, television networks and their lawyers.
8. Keep trying to make viral videos. Often, it’s completely random videos that go viral, and no one can predict with much accuracy what is going to catch on and become a big hit.
Good YouTube Videos
5-minute videos of people talking to the camera, with minor props and post-processing
Scooby
Lindybeige
The Secret Life of a Viral Video
http://bradblogspeed.com/the-secret-lif ... iral-video
Funny Videos
Little Kid does worlds best Batman Spoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgCM46CSwd8
- note that the video/sound quality isn't great, but it doesn't make a difference (or may actually be better for that reason)
- trying to figure out how they created it: it seems to just be a collection of a couple different ideas around a central theme; they just cut from one idea to another, so my guess is that they started w/ a single idea (little kid in a batman costume has the same deep voice as batman), and then built off that idea by coming up w/ funny situations that such a kid might get into.
1. justice for dinner
2. interrogating the dog
3. eating w/ a fork
4. another food interaction w/ mom
5. random lip thing (not sure if that's a reference to something)
6. friend w/ a joker costume]
I'm reminded of the way I heard that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark: they started with a general idea (recreate the action/adventure serials they'd watched as a kid), and then came up with individual scenes they wanted to see (eg Lucas wanted a little monkey giving the Nazi salute), and then created a plot that would stitch these different scenes together. At least that's my understanding of their process at the moment.
DiranLyons uses "Adobe Premiere (and on rare occasions After Effects)" to make his mashups.
Successful YouTubers
Lindybeige
About
- Legal name: "Nikolas Lloyd", he goes by "Lloyd".
- He's 6'3". (Source)
- In some of his earliest videos he opens by saying "Hello everyone on YouTube" and ends them by saying, "Bye!" (Example), without a suggestion to watch any of his other videos. Now he ends with a funny comment on a "plate" and links to other videos to watch. I think that was a good change.
- He seems to have gotten his first big rush of subscribers from having a single video of his posted on Reddit:
This was my viral video. In June 2013 someone mentioned this on Reddit and in one day I got more subscribers than in the first four years of my channel combined.
- I remember that the first video I saw of his was his "Early D&D was rubbish" video. That was a series of videos, so I ended up watching the full series, and then I started watching his videos on other topics.
- I think I may have gotten the link to that video from Notch's Twitter feed, but I'm not sure. I remember seeing a link to that video on Notch's Twitter feed.
An interesting comparison of Lloyd and another guy each making a video in front of the same tank at the Tank Museum
- The two videos:
- Differences I see:
- Lloyd's video is 10:44, TTM's is 16:09. Buy Lloyd's videos can run up to 30 minutes, so I'm not convinced that this is a significant difference.
- The camera Lloyd uses isn't as good as the one used for David's video.
- TTM's video appears to be using two different cameras: a close-up and a wide shot that shows the entire tank.
- I think the biggest difference is that Lloyd's voice / delivery is much more energetic than David's. Lloyd keeps the pitch of his voice up, kind of like some kinds of sports announcers. Lloyd's rate of speech also seems to be much higher than David's. Lloyd also throws in little lighthearted asides, like at 3:38, "The Germans are very proud of their welding".
- David's speech seems to be much more prepared and goes into more depth about the history of the tank, while Lloyd's seems to be based more on his existing knowledge of the Panzer 3, where he's just commenting on features of the tank that you can see.
- Lloyd emphasizes words, eg 7:58, "The drive-wheel is getting an awful lot more gunk on it."
How does he edit his videos?
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1pgDFqJTlE
- In the description he reveals that he was using Sony Vegas to edit his videos in 2013.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkjyNjiUpz4
- In this video he says:
- This was the first and will quite possibly be the last video I edited using Adobe Premiere. It was not a pleasant experience, but perhaps I will give it another chance one day. I now have Avid Liquid/Pinnacle 17, so I'm hoping that once I've learned to use that, my problems will diminish. In the last few months I tried four editing packages on my new computer and none has been great. I suspect that if I could get some twenty year-old professional software, it would prove much better. I notice that in common with Sony Vegas Studio, it has screwed up the colours of the title plates, which is very annoying.
Mark Rober
- iPad2 Halloween Costume- Gaping hole in torso
- This is the original video that went viral and had him develop a following.
Roman Atwood
- http://www.columbusalive.com/content/stories/2013/11/28/qa-prankster-roman-atwood.html
I actually learned to make videos so I could edit them. I love the creative control of editing, so I started filming videos so I would have something to edit. The editor has all the power. I have taken some crappy videos and made them into goldmines with my editing skills.
I posted a video on Youtube every week for a year before I got any real traction. I started out posting comedy sketches, but they didn’t really get that much attention. I started to post pranks on my channel and I’d get more views on one of those than I would on all my sketches combined. After a while, it got to a point where my subscribers only wanted to watch pranks. I couldn’t even post a sketch video without them saying, “I didn’t sign up for that! You suck! Post a prank!” So, I decided to turn it into a full-blown prank channel.
The turning point for my Youtube channel was the pee prank I pulled on the cops. On that video alone we got, like, 2 million views in a week. That cop video sky-rocketed us from 40,000 subscribers to 180,000. To my knowledge, I’m one of the only people who has pranked the cops legally and filmed it. Apparently they sent out a districtwide email about me. One time, a UPS guy told me he was delivering stuff to a state building, and he saw my picture hanging on the wall, and underneath it said, “Attention law enforcement: Roman Atwood preys on unsuspecting police officers.” If that is true, I need to steal that picture.
When it comes to pranking, I like to keep things original and simple. The simpler a prank is, the better. People like when you mess with their minds more so than pull off some intricate prank. I remember one video we had, I got some of those mailbox stickers of the letter “B” and would stick them on people’s backs. Then another guy would go up to them and say “Hold still! You have a ‘B’ on you!” The people would freak out and rip off clothes. Then the guy would pull it off and show them the letter. It’s so simple but it’s so funny.
Consistency is key. I think I gained such a following on Youtube because my pranks are original and I post them consistently. I never take two weeks off. My subscribers know that every week there will be a new prank. I work extremely hard.
Pewdiepie
Feedback on my YouTube videos
From Lloyd (lindybeige)
- Distributed workforces seem to be the future
- Organized advice:
- Before recording the video:
- Consider doing more research before each video.
- You say "twenty offices - something like that", which ... suggests that there was research that you could have done but didn't bother to
- Consider putting more thought into your clothing / appearance.
- The woolly hat seemed a bit out of place indoors. Was it very cold in there? Your green top has a hole in it. Scruffiness need not matter (hell - I'm often scruffy as we both know), but some people will find it distracting. If you can sell it as part of your screen character, so that it adds value to the video, then that's fine.
- Consider trying to get to the point more quickly / avoiding superfluous topics.
- Pretty quickly I got the idea of what you were saying, and so some of the things you said later came across as superfluous.
- I'm putting this in 'before recording the video' because I think it will be fixed in the 'prep' phase.
- Consider doing more research before each video.
- While setting up:
- Consider not using a 4:3 frame.
- Most people watching on YouTube will perhaps not like it.
- With a simple face-talking-to-camera, though, I think it can work.
- Consider not using a 4:3 frame.
- While recording the video:
- Consider talking more quickly.
- You still talk a bit slowly
- Consider trying to appear happier / more interested / more enthusiastic.
- Sounding happier, more sure of yourself, and more interested in what you are talking about will all help.
- It is near the end when your eyes light up for the first time, when you talk of "cool things" to come. It is probably too late by then.
- Consider trying to appear more sure of yourself.
- Sounding (...) more sure of yourself (...) will (...) help.
- Consider not having gaps where you're thinking / not speaking. Keep up the momentum in the video.
- Several times we see you thinking. (...) We the audience lose you for a bit, and so you risk losing us. Keep the momentum. If you don't have the knack of keeping it going during a take, then do a bit more prep (script?), or change the style and make an edited video with different shots of you speaking different bits, or do what many YouTubers do and jump-cut your way through the video.
- Consider stating your claim in stronger terms to help generate debate.
- YouTube and other internetty sites thrive on disagreement and controversy, and rage. If you don't say anything with which people can disagree, then the video is unlikely to take off in fame/infamy. Saying that this future is going to be good or bad is something with which people can disagree, and start an argument on-line, or celebrate by sharing, or get scared by and make fearful comments upon. 'Some people are already doing this mild thing and I think it may become more common' will not get your audience fired up. You don't have to tell lies to create fake controversy, you just have to inject a bit of opinion into it, to get people talking. You could even say that it could be good because of XYZ, or bad because of PQR, and show your optimism at war with your fears.
- Consider talking more quickly.
- After recording the video:
- Consider editing out pauses in your speech.
- Several times we see you thinking. (...) We the audience lose you for a bit, and so you risk losing us. Keep the momentum. If you don't have the knack of keeping it going during a take, then do a bit more prep (script?), or change the style and make an edited video with different shots of you speaking different bits, or do what many YouTubers do and jump-cut your way through the video.
- Consider editing out pauses in your speech.
- Before recording the video: