YouTube video ideas
- Thread starter PoseidonWeapons
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Ok, you asked for it.
Keep your face out of the shot. I don't want to see YOU. I want to see the item being reviewed, from all angles/sides/etc.
Do not wave the item around. Take nice steady pics of it.
Have something in the shot to give the item scale. Ruler, another gun, etc. We want to see how large/small it is. On video its difficult to judge size in many instances.
STFU about politics and other personal opinion crap. Just review the said item. I do not care if it doesn't stack up against your unobtanium item you were given by the Apollo astronauts 75yrs ago.
Review an item right out of the box. No special hand picked stuff.
Something us poor schlubs out here in InterWebz World will get when we order one.
If you can do some simple table top fixes to make it better that is fine.
Just don't do some Send it Off To The GunSmith of God that makes it awesomest of all time that takes twelve months and 3x more than the item originally cost silliness.
Keep it short and to the point. 5 minutes or so. It shouldn't take you 20 minutes to review a simple item like a knife.
Keep your face out of the shot. I don't want to see YOU. I want to see the item being reviewed, from all angles/sides/etc.
Do not wave the item around. Take nice steady pics of it.
Have something in the shot to give the item scale. Ruler, another gun, etc. We want to see how large/small it is. On video its difficult to judge size in many instances.
STFU about politics and other personal opinion crap. Just review the said item. I do not care if it doesn't stack up against your unobtanium item you were given by the Apollo astronauts 75yrs ago.
Review an item right out of the box. No special hand picked stuff.
Something us poor schlubs out here in InterWebz World will get when we order one.
If you can do some simple table top fixes to make it better that is fine.
Just don't do some Send it Off To The GunSmith of God that makes it awesomest of all time that takes twelve months and 3x more than the item originally cost silliness.
Keep it short and to the point. 5 minutes or so. It shouldn't take you 20 minutes to review a simple item like a knife.
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BIGPAPIGREG
TGT Addict
Moonpie & Davetex said it perty good
Put whatever it is on a table or bench, lock the camera shot and NARRATE without touching it.
Need a different angle? Move the camera, not the part.
Be descriptive.
Don't say "it", "that", "over there", "other side" ... describe it.
Use decent light. Decent isn't 150W incandescent floods. Indirect sunlight ... outside, near windows or lamps rated at 5000K.
Indirect means bounce it off of white walls, poster board or something.
Know what you are going to say and REHEARSE it.
BUT ... uhs and uhms are a part of normal speech ...
Be articulate ... don't mumble. Spit out your chaw
Lose the 30 second intro music video.
Get to the point and if the finished program is longer than 3 or 4 minutes, you lost me.
Plug what you've already reviewed somehow and tease what you will review next. Keep'em interested.
Did I say I've been producing multimedia training and employee information for a major power company since 1982?
Nope. Big disagreement with Moonpie on....
...since it's my opinion that it shouldn't take 5 minutes to review anything in our world. Plenty of really good automobile reviews have been done for television that last no more than 5 minutes.
Even if it's a complex rifle, much less a knife, a review past 3 minutes is a waste. Longer reviews demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to ruthlessly edit scripts and tightly edit video.
There are lots of smart people on youtube making some insanely stupid videos. When I watch a 40-minute video with less than 90 seconds of content worthy of verbalization, it really pisses me off.
ETA - And what pisses me off even more is how famous some of the worst videomakers have become. Not mentioning names but, geez, if some people actually shut up and pointed the camera in the right place, the length of their videos would be cut by 90%!
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That was the length we were going to go with. Thank you for the awesome feedback!
If you can't script it at least outline it so you can make sure to cover the points.
Don't use abbreviations like FLGR. On another board, a guy thought that meant "Friggin Lousy Gun Rag" instead of full length guide rod. In print abbreviations are okay.
Try not to use pronouns like it, they etc.
If possible, show take down procedure or at least the parts there of.
Separate facts from opinions. If you want to, give a summary at the end and a summary of what you like and dislike about the item there too.
Try to keep backgrounds simple.
Don't use abbreviations like FLGR. On another board, a guy thought that meant "Friggin Lousy Gun Rag" instead of full length guide rod. In print abbreviations are okay.
Try not to use pronouns like it, they etc.
If possible, show take down procedure or at least the parts there of.
Separate facts from opinions. If you want to, give a summary at the end and a summary of what you like and dislike about the item there too.
Try to keep backgrounds simple.
Big time agree on these points. Some reviewers out there come across like they just switch the camera on and start talking. Didn't even think about what they were going to say before they started recording. When I was taking some Canegie training, you'd get the nod to start your talk. When 5 minutes were up your time was up. They'd just cut you off. It taught me to rehearse and time myself BEFORE I had to get up and give my talk. There were other ways of getting it across as well.
And the lengthy intro and outro music bits are annoying. The first time, it might be novel. But some YouTubers have seemingly endless intro bits that are on EVERY video. Some are so bad I don't even watch what they post any longer.
And as far as getting to the point, another thing you learn in public speaking courses is that you have maybe a minute to pull people in. If it takes you longer to get their interest, you've already lost them and you'll NEVER get them back. And if you figure your intro into that minute (some say it's as short as 30 seconds), you had best do something right off the bat to keep people watching. Most gun nuts are mostly the type that doesn't fancy the BS.
Saltyag2010
TGT Addict
I want gear bag reviews. I want to see what you can put in there and how easy it is to get your stuff out. An example would be: full bag, demonstrate how quickly and conveniently you can get your handguns out, then mags, ammo, safety stuff (eyes and ears). Was it easy and quick? Did you need to buy any optional equipment?
On handguns I like videos that show the details of the trigger pull. Is there take up? How much take up? Where is the wall that you have to push through to fire the handgun? Is it a consistent wall and consistent break and consistent take up? Is it a clean predictable break? Show me the take up and dry fire it
On handguns I like videos that show the details of the trigger pull. Is there take up? How much take up? Where is the wall that you have to push through to fire the handgun? Is it a consistent wall and consistent break and consistent take up? Is it a clean predictable break? Show me the take up and dry fire it
One other thing ... a sentence is a Noun and a verb ... subject and action. all the adverbs and prepositional phrases go afterwards.
Nothing more confusing than explaining to me the wonderfulness of something and waiting till the end to tell what is wonderful.
If you have more than one prepositinal phrase in a sentence, stop pontificating.
Don;t repeat yourself. If I missed something, youtube allows me to rewind.
Not everyone has access to a Sennheiser hypercardiod mic. But poor quality audio will lose the audience.
"Hi youtubers ... gunmaiden here ... " uh ... yer handle is right below the video.
If you make annotations, I will permaban you from my view list.
Got links you want me to see? Put it in the description.
Make a mistake? Pull it down, re shoot it and republish.
Don;t make a second video correcting the first.
There are FREE movie editing programs out there. Learn them and use them.
Don;t use the camera's "transition" feature.
Windows Movie Maker does a great job of simple edits and Adobe Premeire Elements is an inexpensive, well featured alternative.
Nothing more confusing than explaining to me the wonderfulness of something and waiting till the end to tell what is wonderful.
If you have more than one prepositinal phrase in a sentence, stop pontificating.
Don;t repeat yourself. If I missed something, youtube allows me to rewind.
Not everyone has access to a Sennheiser hypercardiod mic. But poor quality audio will lose the audience.
"Hi youtubers ... gunmaiden here ... " uh ... yer handle is right below the video.
If you make annotations, I will permaban you from my view list.
Got links you want me to see? Put it in the description.
Make a mistake? Pull it down, re shoot it and republish.
Don;t make a second video correcting the first.
There are FREE movie editing programs out there. Learn them and use them.
Don;t use the camera's "transition" feature.
Windows Movie Maker does a great job of simple edits and Adobe Premeire Elements is an inexpensive, well featured alternative.
Never say "um" or "uh". I'd rather see a jump cut than you trying to collect your thoughts, but jump cuts are also annoying. Back stories can be interesting, but keep them short and to the point. Be overall short and to the point while maintaining a little bit of conversational appeal. Also discretely add T&A as much as possible 
edit to add: There are a couple of people I subscribe to that make terrible videos, but the content is unique and very detailed. If you can outshine everyone with content quality then you can get away with terrible production quality.
edit to add: There are a couple of people I subscribe to that make terrible videos, but the content is unique and very detailed. If you can outshine everyone with content quality then you can get away with terrible production quality.
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Great idea, I think we can get some of those up.
Great advice I have the same issues with YouTube as well.
I am currently using IMovie it seems to work well for this kind of simple editing.
Use a tripod. Don't use the zoom except to set the focal length between shots. Don't use fancy transitions or fades from shot to shot. Fade in at the beginning and fade out at the end is okay though. Pans should be smooth and not jerky. If you must hand hold learn to be steady, especially if you need to walk with the camera or pan with it. If you have background music, make sure it does not compete with the spoken audio or the message of the video.
Remember the KISS principle.....Keep It Simple Simon.
Remember that in Hollywood, for every foot of film shown in a theater, 100 feet are left on the cutting room floor. So do multiple takes if possible and choose the best one. Unless you need to be synchronized with lip movement, voice over recorded later is fine and probably better.
Remember the KISS principle.....Keep It Simple Simon.
Remember that in Hollywood, for every foot of film shown in a theater, 100 feet are left on the cutting room floor. So do multiple takes if possible and choose the best one. Unless you need to be synchronized with lip movement, voice over recorded later is fine and probably better.
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Man, that's tough to do. Really tough.
