Getting Better at this Youtube Thing

In this week’s post, I wanted to share some info with my fellow beginners in youtube. It hasn’t been long since I’ve started and I definitely don’t know all there is to know about making good youtube videos, but I know just how hard it can be to finally start recording and posting your own videos, let alone start speaking to your camera face to face… or face to lens. This definitely won’t make your channel blow up or instantly get you 1,000,000 subscribers so if you think you’re going to find any deep hidden secrets by reading this written by me, someone who just started like 6 months ago, then you should probably just click away haha. But if you want to get some insight and pick up some things I’ve learned along the way that may help you for when you do decide to start making videos, then I hope I can help! I started making videos continously in December though I had been wanting to make videos prior to that for a whole year. Man, I really wish I would’ve started when I initally wanted to since that means I would’ve been that much more experienced with youtube, making videos, and everything that comes with it, but better late than never am I right? But anyways, before I start rambling off again, I hope you get some motivation to start your own channel and I hope this can help make it easier for you.

So the first thing I want to talk about is this shortcut that I actually got from watching Faizal Westcott and his workflow. This helped me SO MUCH in terms of saving time from having to create a new project every time I want to make a new video. When you want to create a new video, you can just copy and paste this file and just like that, you are all ready to go. You don’t have to create a new project and make all the events again and whatnot. You save all that time just by having a preset sort of folder on your computer or SSD and just copy and paste that whenever you want to create a new video. I actually have two folders for that: one for these talking head kind of youtube videos and one for more suited towards actually videography and travel type videos. This also helps with organizing all my files and clips I’d have after shooting a video. I can easily separate my A-Roll from my B-Roll and everything else that I might need for a video including music, photos I’d use in the video and so on. So by doing this, when I am working on a new video, I can easily access the files I need and drag them into the project, saving the time wasted on trying to find a certain B-Roll file or picture or whatever I may need. I have everything in one location, ready to be accessed.

For the next topic, I want to actually show off this product that has helped me save a lot of time when recording videos. It’s the parrot teleprompter from podcaster. Now I know this has been getting some traction lately and people have been talking about it on youtube a lot recently, sponsored or not. But for me, I spent my own money on this and I can honestly tell you that I have really enjoyed it and even recommend it. I’ve had it since late January or so and the amount of time I’ve saved by using it is insane. I remember the first video I did for this channel. It took me like 2-3 hours to try and record that whole thing, even with a script and bullet points on my iPad right next to the camera. It was a mixture of me messing up a lot because I tried memorizing portions of my script and also just me trying to not make it too obvious that I was looking at a script. And editing the video to be smooth and getting rid of the umms and uhhs that I say quite a bit took even longer than that. But with the parrot teleprompter, I really don’t have to worry about that anymore. I just put my script or bullet points on there, and I can scroll up and down with my remote controller to read comfortably, which lets me focus on finishing the video and not rambling on which I tend to do without a script (aka the nomadic update video I put up last week). For me, the price is easily justifiable. Oh also, I don’t want to make this a parrot teleprompter review, but just a really quick side note about it. You can’t use it if you use a wide angle lens as you start getting the hood of the teleprompter in your frame. For me, I use my 24 mm GM and just put my camera into APSC mode and crop in. This will zoom in enough to crop out the hood. This also isn’t too far from the teleprompter as well so I can still comfortably see my script.

Moving on to the next bit, another piece of technology that has helped is ChatGPT. I don’t think there are many people that don’t know what ChatGPT is at this point, but for those that don’t, it’s basically an AI chatbot that you can use for a variety of uses. For me, I like to use it to help write my scripts. When I think of a topic that I want to talk about, I’ll first see if I can even use ChatGPT to help me. Obviously, if it’s something personal like how I pack for trips when I travel or for this video/post, I’ll opt to just write it from scratch. But for the more generic type videos such as tip videos or comparison videos, I can easily input a topic into ChatGPT and feed it more information to get something that resembles a script that I like. Then from there, I personalize it further and make it into something I’d actually say and agree with, or for the informational type videos, make sure the information is correct. This really has helped me workflow and made it easier to start writing scripts for my videos. It’s always hard for me to begin writing, but once I get an idea and direction of where I want to go, then I can take it from there. ChatGPT has made it easier to start the process and because I know I can take it from there once I launch, it just speeds up my workflow significantly. The main point is using it as a starting point and not just copying and spewing out whatever ChatGPT says. Because at the end of the day, it’s still an AI chatbot. It doesn’t have the human emotion and personality we have nor does it get everything right since there are some things that it tends to me wrong with, as it says in the limitations section. Again, it’s a tool we can use to help make our lives easier, not a tool to replace us.

These next two bits I want to go over aren’t really any shortcuts or pieces of technology that can physically help you, but they’re just my bits of advice for you. The first is, try to keep a upload schedule for youtube AND MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW IT, NO IFS OR BUTS. If you say you want to release a video every week, then do it. If you want to release a video every month, then do it. But make sure you follow your schedule. It’s easy when you first start because you have the excitement and momentum of doing something new. But eventually, you’ll start experiencing the days of sub 100 view videos, sub 50 view videos, hell even sub 10 view videos. But continue to put out videos. Even if it may not seem like anyone is watching your videos, just keep making them and enjoy the process. The process of learning how to make youtube videos or editing itself. There were many things I learned how to do in Final Cut Pro that I probably wouldn’t have learned if it weren’t for making youtube videos. The process has been fun and even though I end up getting sub 100 views for like 99% of my videos, the skills I walk away with is something I can take and go to the next video with and grow like that. Also, I forgot where I read this from, but it helped me as well when I thought about the number of views as not just a number, but if I were in the same room as the people watching my videos. For example, if I get 20 views for a video, most probably would think like man, this isn’t a lot and be discouraged. But if I were to meet 20 people and they all told me they had seen my photos, videos, or looked at something I had created, I’d be ecstatic! And the same goes for anything social media related. So just a simple change in your viewpoint can have a drastic effect.

The last tip might be pretty obvious, but I had never thought about it until it was brought to my attention which is: record multiple videos at once. Try coming up with 2 or 3 video ideas and have the scripts/bullet points/topic you want to talk about ready to go. Whenever you have 2 or 3 hours where you are free during the week, get your script, sit in from the camera, and just knock out all your videos within that time. Then whenever you have free time again, use that to do anything else you need for the video whether that’s B-Roll, some screen recordings, finding music, etc. Then when you have more free time later, that’s when you can edit your video. We are all busy in life with jobs/school/etc. I know how hard it is to consistently dedicate time to youtube and making videos. So by recording many videos all at once, if something ends up coming up at the last minute and you really can’t make a video, you’ll hopefully have had enough videos made to where you can miss out on a week or two. The more time efficient we can be, the more consistent we can be with making videos and uploading, allowing us to refine our skills even more and keep true to our upload schedule..

With what I’ve learned about youtube and the ways I can be more efficient with making videos, it lets me spend more time doing the things I enjoy like going out and taking photos and researching new places to travel to. I’m hoping as time goes on, I can learn even more ways to make my videos better and more entertaining by my own standards.