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How to Take Product Shots that Sizzle

By
Peter Biesterfeld
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Product reviews and unboxing have become big business all over YouTube. Here’s how to make your video stand out with amazing product B-roll.

Now that online video has surpassed all other modes of showcasing product, the internet is bursting with advice columns for DIY content creators on how to improve the production values of their videos. We surveyed the digital landscape to save you some click time.

Shooting Space

If you haven’t yet graduated to a professional studio facility, you can still capture high-quality visuals if you can make room for a controlled space in your basement or your garage to set up a dedicated shooting area. A folding table, some white mat board mounted in a sweep, or curve, for a seamless backdrop, perhaps a turntable for your product and a basic light kit will get you started shooting professional looking video of your widgets.

Creating a designated space for shooting B-roll will make your shots look more professional. This DIY lightbox is perfect for small products.

Lighting

You want your product to pop out the frame and dazzle. To do that you’ll want to put it in the best light, as it were. Lighting is the most important element in product shooting. What you don’t want is distracting highlights kicking off the product too harshly. And you want to avoid that amateurish look of multiple, hard shadows cast in all directions.

The best lighting for product illumination is indirect or soft light. Have at least one umbrella in your light kit. Bouncing a light source off the umbrella directed at the product produces a pleasing soft light as well as soft shadows. Soft boxes are a pricier but more effective lighting solution to achieve this. Bouncing light off foam core or white reflector cards mounted out of the camera’s view has a similar softening effect of light and shadow.

For optimal shadow placement, move the main light source around the object and watch where the shadow falls until you’ve got the look you want. Shadow placement gives you a sense of shape of the displayed object. Lighting from the side shows off details and texture. For dramatic shadow placement to create mood, use a single light fixture and place it to one side or about 45 degrees to the rear of the product.

If you want no shadows, raise the lights so that the shadows fall to the table or out of frame. If your background is something other than white, a rim light mounted high behind the object and flagged off to prevent light spilling onto the background will ensure crisp separation of widget from background.

In product video shooting, the basic lighting objectives of visibility, texture, shape, detail and accuracy of colors are particularly important. Most products are either cylindrical or cube shaped. To light these shapes, most of the time you will be using a variation of a three point lighting set-up. Set the white balance on your camera manually for best color results.

Depth of Field

You can control how much of the main attraction you want in focus by setting your aperture or f-stop accordingly. The aperture is the adjustable opening behind the lens that controls how much light it transmits. The smaller the opening — large f-stop number — the sharper the focus.

Using cinematic shallow depth of field provides a dramatic look and can help direct your audience’s attention to specific details.

With a large aperture — small f-stop number — the focus will be critical since the depth of field will be shallow or narrow. This can be a nice look when shooting extreme close-ups of electronic gagetry or jewelry, for example.

To highlight a particular element of a product, manually focus on the featured area with the aperture wide open. The shallow depth of field will render other parts of the object and the background in soft focus.

Another cinematic convention for achieving sharp foregrounds and soft backgrounds is to shoot from a distance. Shooting on a long lens, zooming in and focusing on the product produces a classic selective focus effect.

A smaller aperture produces a look where all planes, foreground, middle and background, are in focus. Heads-up: this huge depth of field, aka the “Citizen Kane” look, needs a lot of light since it requires you to bring the aperture down and restrict the light that makes it to your camera’s sensor.

The opposite will be true for shots with shallower depth of field and larger aperture openings, so you may need to compensate for the extra light in those shots to achieve proper exposure. If your camera has a neutral density filter, switch it on. You can also mount an ND filter on the front of the lens to achieve good exposure at the stop of f/2.8 or lower needed to produce the focus effect you want.

Placing the product on a turntable is an easy way to add motion to your shot for more dynamic results.

Motion

Whether it’s moving the camera or moving the object, motion spices up any shot. Achieving motion for video is not as complicated and expensive as it used to be. Motorized turntables, available for under a hundred dollars at camera stores, allow you to move the product itself to create a variety of looks.

For a super dynamic effect, frame the product on the turntable in a close-up and slowly tilt or pan your camera against the rotation of the product. The result can be stunning as featured elements of the product move subtly in and out of focus as they travel across the frame without you having to touch the focus ring. There is a wide range of affordable aluminum rail and other motion control products on the market that can put the motion in your motion pictures and make your widget stand out from the rest.

Bringing It All Together

Combine these elements and you’ll have all the tools needed to create great-looking B-roll. Experiment with different setups to find the best one for the particular products you want to showcase and instantly up the production value in all of your future videos.

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

5 Reasons the Canon EOS 80D is Made For Vloggers

By
Canon
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This post is brought to you by Canon and the EOS 80D. Learn more at Canon.com.

Vlogging is a popular way to take an idea and turn it into a video on whatever topic a person desires. The one drawback has been the need to be able to shoot the video outside of those situations where subjects and lighting can be controlled, such as in a studio.

The Canon EOS 80D camera possesses an Intelligent Viewfinder with approximately 100% coverage so as to provide for a clear view while taking superlative still photos and shooting Full HD video at 60fps. It is well suited for vlogging, and here are the five reasons why.

1. Focus

A moving subject requires that a camera’s autofocus is able to keep up with their movements and make adjustments “on the fly” as necessary, for example, keeping focus on a person in a crowd or wherever the subject is not stationary. The EOS 80D uses a powerful 24.2 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor and improved Dual Pixel CMOS AF for fast and smooth autofocus that locks in on the subjects with a tap of the touch screen and keeps it there automatically. This allows the camera operator to keep their attention focused on framing what is being shot and not have to worry about the focus.

2. Vari-angle Touch Screen Monitor

Being able to correctly monitor exactly what is being seen even as the camera’s position changes can sometimes be difficult due to the angle the camera must be held at. But since the EOS 80D’s touch screen is articulating — able to swing out and rotate up to 270 degrees vertically and up to 175 degrees horizontally — it becomes possible to shoot video at varying angles while still seeing it on the screen, even if it is the camera operator who is being filmed. The screen is also coated to help minimize smudges, responds to touch commands and maintains a clear image even in bright light.

3. The ISO range

Vlogging can occur in any kind of light, be that bright or dim, and isn’t confined to only situations where the subject is well lit. The EOS 80D has an ISO range of 100–12800 (expandable to 16000/25600) and its DIGIC 6

Image processor’s noise-reduction technology provides for outstanding performance regardless of light conditions when shooting video.

4. High Dynamic Range

Vlogging requires the ability to shoot anywhere, no matter what the quality of the light is. The EOS 80D takes advantage of High Dynamic Range by employing HDRM movie mode — which captures two HD movie frames at different exposures, one standard and one underexposed, and then recombines them together for playback at up to 30fps. This enables a greater range of highlights and shadow detail to be captured and viewed, especially in contrasty lighting.

5. Wireless Control

Being able to control a camera wirelessly from a smartphone/tablet broadens the opportunities for the camera operator. The EOS 80D incorporates wireless technology right into its compact design for controlling and monitoring using the free Canon Camera Connect app. Besides being able to review images, video can also be uploaded for sharing on social network sites through the CANON iMAGE GATEWAY.

The Canon EOS 80D has built-in NFC (Near Field Communication) for seamlessly connecting to numerous compatible Android smartphones and the Canon Connect Station CS10, and is compatible with most EF lenses. It retails for $1,199.00 (body only).

Learn more about the Canon EOS 80D.

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

In Creative Endeavors, Start With the End in Mind

By
Chris Ace Gates
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An Interview with Tina Alexander from How It Should Have Ended

There are numerous ways for an online content creator to define success. Sometimes success is defined as a number, such as 1.5 billion (and counting) views on YouTube. Some will say it comes in the form of building a worldwide audience, with over 6 million subscribers to your channel. Winning enough accolades and awards to fill a trophy case is another a sign of success. And sometimes, it’s fulfilled through self-employment, when the content you create and distribute is your means of income. If any of these measures define success, the YouTube channel How It Should Have Ended is incredibly successful. They’ve achieved them all.

HISHE
Subscribers: 6,614,384
Uploads: 248
Video Views: 1,522,836,220
Channel Type: film

Before YouTube

How It Should Have Ended, or HISHE, started back in 2005 as the result of a conversation between friends, including HISHE founder Daniel Baxter. They were discussing how often films have necessary plot holes in them to create drama and bring about climatic endings. They found humor in how various scenes in popular movies would play out if the plot holes were logically filled out.

Back in 2005, webcomics were becoming a big thing, and Daniel was struck with the idea of an animated webcomic. It all started with some ideas they had for a parody of “The Matrix Revolutions.” A script was written. Daniel sat down and sketched out the basic art by hand, then followed it up with a voiceover, art scan and some time spent in After Effects. Shortly after its release, Daniel’s friend Tina Alexander joined the fray and How It Should Have Ended was born.

HISHE was not on YouTube at this point. The first couple of animations were shared within a circle of friends. In short time, the team decided to go online, and they launched HowItShouldHaveEnded.com. The early HISHE animations were distributed online using the DIVX format. There were definitely growing pains and lessons to learn in these early stages, but HISHE was starting to find an audience — in fact, the website was regularly crashing from the number of requested downloads. Tina and Daniel were starting to receive positive responses from all over; they knew they were onto something and it drove them to create more.

In 2006 HISHE got a call from California, congratulating them on having the number one video on YouTube. This was great news and the team was delighted, but there was a slight catch — no one from HISHE had uploaded any of their cartoons to YouTube. It was a revelation, and one that would save them from numerous server crashes. In 2007, HISHE launched their YouTube channel.

The Process

The heart of HISHE’s channel is their movie parodies, where they take a blockbuster, and true to their name, explain how it should have ended. It takes the collaborative effort of a small but powerful team to produce each of these shorts. The HISHE team of artist/animator Daniel, producer/writer Tina, and animator Chris Oldenburg work beyond their titles, wearing multiple hats to deliver each cartoon. They’re frequently joined by friends who assist with providing voice talent when needed.

The process to for each HISHE cartoon begins with an initial viewing of the film they’re planning to parody. “We watch it through the first time to enjoy it,” says Tina. However, it’s not just entertainment that they gain from that initial viewing. They get a feel for the style of the film and the identity of the characters. The first impressions they gain from the initial viewing helps the team stay objective as to which scenes will resonate with their own audience.

“The jokes have to work; otherwise we don’t use them,” Says Tina.

The HISHE team will then sit through multiple viewings of the film. They take the time to identify plot holes, character actions and pick up on the nuances of how the film is shot. Tina emphasizes the amount of the detail that Daniel replicates in each parody, down to mimicking the exact camera movement of each shot. It’s part of what makes HISHE work; it’s a detailed parody that mirrors the source material even as it’s scripted to go in its own direction.

After they’ve watched through the film to collect the details they need, Tina and Daniel start writing. It’s a process that takes about one week to complete. “We end up creating a massive script, that’s undoable,” says Tina. Cuts are made from this massive script to get it down to a manageable size, one that can be produced in a month’s time and doesn’t run on for too long.

“When we first started, the cartoons lasted about two minutes,” says Tina. She emphasizes that the scripts and animations now run longer, up to four or five minutes, and they have to work hard to contain them. Often, the cut material will show up in separate cartoons or some of the edited jokes will be put on hold and saved for use in future cartoons.

Some films are harder to write for than others. Tina says, “We sometimes get help, especially for series with big fan bases.” HISHE has an intelligent audience that’s in touch with the films they parody. Chris helps to research the various franchises through Reddit and other online communities. It’s how they’re able to play off of various internet conspiracies, like including Darth Jar-Jar in “How The Phantom Menace Should Have Ended” or including comic book references to Captain America as a covert agent of Hydra.

The small HISHE team works together closely to produce each cartoon.

As the script starts to take its final form, Daniel begins to work on the art. The animation technique used for HISHE is a form of digital puppetry. Character art and backgrounds are drawn as separate elements in Adobe Photoshop and then rigged and animated in Adobe After Effects.

A crucial element of the production phase is the audio production. HISHE works with a composer to to score their cartoons with original music, while maintaining the identity of the parody. This is essential for the parody to be true to the tone of the original source while not violating any copyright laws. The vast majority of the voice acting is done by the team and their friends, sometimes enlisting the help of peers from the YouTube community who specialize in impressions. While Daniel accounts for close to seventy-five percent of the voices, Tina has grown quite adept at acting out several of the characters when called upon. “Honestly, it’s not something I ever set out to do,” she states, while she does find the role is fun to take on.

The entire production process takes approximately three to five weeks depending on how intricate the animation is. When Chris joined on in 2014, it helped to make the process more efficient.

There’s a balance to be had when running a YouTube channel. On one side it’s important to put out the absolute best product possible, on the other side is the need to consistently deliver content to the audience on a regular schedule. Tina acknowledges this dichotomy, “Yes, I’m probably more the one to push [the team], ‘we need to get something out.’ While Daniel does a real good job at making sure everything is perfect and how we want it.” It is a balance and she believes it’s most important to give their audience a quality experience. It’s a commitment that HISHE maintains by spending many hours producing their cartoons.

Comic Evolution

Over time, HISHE has developed their own comedic takes on several pop culture icons. The basic premise of the HISHE channel is parody, and the heroes who show up in the Super Café series of shorts have taken on a life of their own. The big blue boy scout isn’t so much the Man of Steel as he is a self-confident do-gooder with a slight phone addiction. On the other hand, the dark knight will take every opportunity to proudly confess, “I’m Batman.” He isn’t the campy embodiment of Adam West’s version of the character; he’s a self-absorbed and insecure twist on Christopher Nolan’s Batman. He’s proud of his identity and well-attached to the useful gadgets of his utility belt.

How It Should Have Ended’s Super Cafe series allows recurring parody characters to grow and develop over time.

Writing comedy and developing parodies involving famous characters on a recurring basis is no easy task. “The jokes have to work; otherwise we don’t use them,” says Tina. HISHE relies on their audience to know the characters, and this gives Tina an opportunity make jokes with the characters that extend beyond their movie incarnations. “Chris read a rumor on Reddit that Captain America might get killed in Civil War, so he appeared ghostlike in the background of our Amazing Spiderman cartoon.” There are deeper references as well, such as the recurrence of the other superheroes teasing Captain America about his theme song from the ‘60’s Captain America cartoon. Their anthology of jokes builds up over time and across cartoons as the characters develop.

Tina and Daniel love attending conventions like Comic-Con International: San Diego, where they can connect with fans and press alike.

Fan Interactions

Like most online content creators, HISHE observes their metrics through the tools built into YouTube. This allows them to evaluate how well they connect with their audience. “Those first 24 hours after we release are critical.” Tina says they still pay attention to total views, although many on YouTube are relying more on view time to evaluate the connection between their videos and their audience. Tina explains that with short format cartoons, views are just as, if not more, important than view time. One of the metrics that Tina feels is a significant indicator of a video’s success is its number of shares. “It’s one thing if somebody likes the video, but if they care enough to share it with others, that really means something.”

Another metric that’s important to HISHE is the number of subscribers they have, which currently sits above 6.5 million. It’s a number they work hard to maintain and grow. Half of their subscribers are outside of the United States. Tina explains how YouTube’s subtitle feature has allowed them to extend their international audience. “Subtitles have been great, where our fans can submit other languages. Within a week or two [of a release], we’ll have ten other languages [available].”

Tina explains how they were disappointed when YouTube changed the channel UI so comments were no longer posted by the subscribers on their front page. “It’s great to see the comments, especially immediately after a release.” However, she does find the top comment feature to be useful. She states, “it’s helpful to see what the audience is responding to and to see what they’re saying about it.” This helps the team to understand what their audience wants, and they use that information to help plan for future animations.

HISHE enjoys the interaction they have with their fans, through YouTube and in person. It’s something they wish they could have more of on other platforms but with such a small team, that produces so much work, the majority of their time is committed to producing HISHE shorts. However, the instant feedback they get from fans on YouTube is one of their greatest indicators of success. “Anytime it gets an overwhelming response, it’s a great feeling. Everytime. Meeting fans who have been around for a long time is amazing and flattering.”

Comic Con is an annual pilgrimage for HISHE where they meet fans and celebrities alike. They’re encouraged whenever they meet fans of their channel, especially those who have been there from the beginning. “We were at a conference once and met a fan who’d been following us for years. We all hung out together throughout the weekend and parted ways like we’d known each other for a long time.”

There are some fans who come as surprises. James Gunn has shared his approval of what HISHE did with “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and Damon Lindelof found their parody of “Prometheus” to be entertaining. Both are great acknowledgements, but there’s one fan who’s iconic. “Stan Lee says that he wishes he’d come up with the idea for HISHE, which was insanely flattering!” When asked, Tina confirms that Stan the Man is a fan of their work. He even voiced his own cameo in one of their Spiderman parodies.

HISHE works hard to satisfy their audience and keep people watching. That work was rewarded with this cake celebrating one billion views.

Beyond Parody

Movie parodies aren’t all that HISHE does. They’ve gone beyond and started to create their own animated shorts that stay within the realm of cinematic parodies called Hero Swap. It’s a what-if scenario proposition, such as putting Iron Man in Gladiator. There are behind the scenes videos, featuring speed painting screen captures from Photoshop as they develop their characters. It’s a steady stream of content. Tina emphasizes the importance of getting content out on a continual and consistent basis. HISHE has a dedicated and committed audience, and in turn, HISHE is committed to meeting their expectation of new animations on a weekly basis. In the online world, currents move swiftly, and the tide of an audience can turn, finding new sources of entertainment if their subscribed channels don’t deliver.

Fortunately, HISHE has found a way to provide for their audience.
One big move to provide more content was the launch of a new channel, HISHE Kids in January 2015. The goal of HISHE Kids is to provide entertainment for the whole family. An endearing series on the HISHE Kids channel is the Fixed Fairy Tales. It takes the basic HISHE premise and turns it on to familiar children’s stories such as “The Three Little Pigs.” The task of executing original animation on a weekly basis is a challenging task for a small team. Providing for multiple channels is something that would be difficult to achieve, even with Batman’s utility belt. Tina acknowledges the challenges a second channel presents and shares that the HISHE Kids channel is something they’d like to grow in 2017.

“We’d like to grow a lot in the next two years — work with some young college students and artists who want to learn and grow with us. We’d like to get some fresh ideas and fresh talent,” says Tina. One of their goals is to develop an original show that’s not a parody.

Parodies can be challenging, especially when they’re released for the entire world to consume. Copyright laws are established to protect intellectual property but there are stipulations that allow for fair use with parody. “Definitely, we have to know and understand the laws.” HISHE has released over 250 videos in their existence, with almost all containing a multitude of characters from other sources. Only twice have they been challenged legally for their use of parody. In one instance, it was an easier and better choice to change the content. But in their second challenge, they fought it and won. HISHE works with lawyers to make sure they are in the clear. “Our lawyer reviews everything to make sure they’re okay to defend our work. If they are, we go ahead with it.”

Parting Advice

When asked what advice she would give to any up and coming YouTuber, Tina said, “HISHE is rooted in friendships. When you’re passionate about it and pursue it with people you care about, all the better. You need encouragement and people in your life to lift you up and help you along the way.” That’s what makes the product better.

There are numerous ways for an online content creator to define success. Many are measurable, but true success is subjective; it’s something defined by those who work for it. If success is measured by doing what you love, with your friends, while being surrounded by a community you enjoy and care about, then How It Should Have Ended has achieved an incredible wealth of success.

https://medium.com/media/f210dfefce7b28ecbf301fd04179822c/href

Conspiracy Theory: How Online Video Became Our Most Honest Voice

By
Erik Fritts
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YouTube: The Authentic Voice of the People

In these dark and confusing times, it can be hard to find the light of truth. Thankfully, the information age has given us a chance as a defacto voice of the people emerged, a place where everyone can share their authentic self. I’m talking, of course, about YouTube.

YouTube has given people a chance to know what is really going on, through content unfettered by the censorship of Big Media.

Long, long ago, people received their news from the television. Local stations broadcast local stories and the big networks told the news from a national perspective. At one point, this was done for the public good, because a well-informed populace is crucial to a healthy democracy. But things changed. As corporations bought up the networks, television news no longer operated for the benefit of the viewers; instead, it operated for the benefit of the corporation — the news had to make profit.

Newsrooms had to keep sponsors and maximize viewers. Instead of telling people what they needed to hear, the news began to report what people wanted to hear — a subtle but detrimental difference. Sensational stories became the aim. The corporations began shaping content to conform to their own social narrative. Tawdry celebrity gossip replaced investigative reporting on hard hitting issues, and journalists were replaced by commentators. The quality of the news declined rapidly. It wasn’t long before it offered no real information anymore, just ‘infotainment’. Television news became simple indoctrination.

The People were left with no compass in the wilderness, no candle in the night. We had no way of knowing what was really going on out in the world. Finally, when almost all hope had been lost — a light. The information age gave birth to YouTube: a new platform for authentic representation.

In this troubled era, the people yearn for reporting on real issues that affect us every day.

Anyone could create their own video, telling Truth with a capital T, without being beholden to corporate suits, network censors or the public image of advertisers. On YouTube, The Man has no stooges to silence news that could shake things up. You can report on trees changing color in your neighborhood, or you can dig deep to release an exposé on the effects of chemtrails on alien-human hybrid reptillians. The point is, it’s up to you.

Is there any platform that has such a widespread base of content creators? This range of voices is what makes YouTube authentic. Acting as an unfiltered mouthpiece for the people, the platform provides a direct view of daily life in the contemporary world. Historians of the future won’t care what the Action 5 News Team reports this evening; they’ll care about the vloggers who commented on what’s trending.

In this troubled era, the people yearn for reporting on real issues that affect us every day. They need the latest intel on what the reptilians are up to in order to prevent humanity from being enslaved. And there’s nowhere better than YouTube to get that kind of information.

Or maybe that’s just what The Man wants you to think.

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

The Ethics of Clickbait

By
Rhiannon McGavin
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You’ll never believe how emotionally manipulative clickbait can be! Read on for a breakdown of the top 5 (or something) most annoying and arguably harmful ways that audiences can be exploited for that sweet, sweet click.

Scrolling through the front page of YouTube, it seems that my screen is covered with shiny, flashing, tantalizing fishing lures. Clickbait is most known in relation to journalism, but video creators aren’t above using attention-grabbing tactics to draw viewers in. The most pure form of clickbait can be found in those ads that pop up when someone (not me) tries to illegally stream a tv show.

Titillating pictures! Illuminati-level use of numbers! ALL CAPS!!!! These ads exist solely to draw your attention, and then you click on them, and then Putin gets your bank info and you still don’t know that one weird anti-aging trick a local mom discovered.

A Working Definition

Nilay Patel from The Verge defines clickbait as “a promise of value that isn’t met,” meaning the reader’s expectations are higher than what the media truly contains. Like a fishing lure, the clickbait uses a false premise to draw you in. I would add that clickbait entails an inherently negative experience, like being a fish with a hook through the jaw. Cats are popular, and there’s attention-grabbing videos involving cute cats having a nice time, but watching that will doubtlessly make you feel better than watching the following videos.

I’m not suggesting that content creators who employ clickbait techniques want to disembowel you for a fillet. Probably. I would argue that the videos I discuss do deliver on the promise of value, in that they are just as awkward or bigoted as the thumbnail says they are. In essence, clickbait is media that relies on some form of bias to grab attention, combined with more obvious ploys.

Headlines

A Brazilian study in 2015 found that articles with “an extreme sentiment” in the headline were clicked on more often than “neutral” articles. Specifically, articles containing the most “negative news” were read more than articles with positive or neutral news. This is why so many YouTube titles are EXTREMELY NEGATIVE! And usually in all capital letters, so even if the words themselves don’t intrigue you, the presentation will draw you in. Exclamation marks also serve as flags, and question marks automatically draw the reader in. The language itself tends to posit the creator as having valuable, life-saving knowledge that the reader doesn’t have access to, prompting interest while boosting the authority of the creator.

Thumbnails

Even before you read the title, you’ll see the thumbnail. There are often layers of emoji stickers and primary colors that typically fall under two categories: sex or fear.

A fun combo!

It’s very common to see women’s bodies displayed in the thumbnail, to attract a presumably male audience. The PG version of this would be using a popular female celebrity to draw attention to the video. The psychology is pretty simple here: she’s hot, click on the video to see her be hot.

Fear can present itself in blunt ways: scary clown, blood, got it.

But creators can also use institutionalized fear to attract viewers. There’s a whole genre of prank videos where white guys go out on the street and “pretend” to call black people the n-word (discussed further by Nathan Zed here). These videos rely on the assumption that black people are scary and violent, and the racism is further revealed by the creator’s tags.

Tags

Tags are used to make finding videos easier by relating them to other content and optimizing the search engine results. If I Google “cats dressed as cupcakes”, that is exactly what pops up. I’ve noticed two tactics heavily used by clickbait creators to maximize their reach. They tag their videos with the names of more popular subjects, like other creators (using Shane Dawson, specifically, is another tasty can of worms) or even news events.

Or, they tag their videos so that people who would be outraged by the content can find it more easily to argue about it and thus generate ad revenue. For instance, Nicole Arbour tags her rants with actual genres, alongside a clever variety of slurs. For her “Dear Black People” video, she tagged it as “Black (Ethnicity)” and “Caribbean (Region)”, so people who presumably have a positive interest in those subjects would find her video. She did the same with “Dear Fat People”, tagging the video as “Nutrition (Medical Specialty)”, an objective lie. Remember, even hate-watching generates ad revenue!

Of course, we all want people to watch the videos we make. But there’s a difference between honest content and content especially designed to manipulate. These tactics range from being irritating to actively harmful, and creators can definitely reach viewers without using cheap tricks. Put down the lure! Watch a cat video!

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

Why Your YouTube Channel Needs an Offline Presence, Stat

By
breebrouwer
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Instead of relying solely on digital platforms for building brands, content creators need to expand beyond these online outlets into the real world if they hope to build a sustainable, profitable business and turn their video creation efforts into long-term careers.

In the last issue of YouTuber, editor Mike Wilhelm wrote about the problem of overreliance on YouTube ad revenue as a sole income stream. He pointed out how content creators should do their best to have audiences across multiple digital platforms.

However, I’d like to take this a step farther and argue that relying on any digital platform is a dangerous game to play in your video career — especially if you want it to be you full-time business. In fact, some of the best ways to earn a living as a content creator are actually offline.

To understand the issue with depending on digital platforms, let’s take a moment to look at Vine. Twitter’s recent announcement about shutting down or selling the six-second video platform came as quite the surprise to some video creators. But it shouldn’t have. When any business is struggling to pull in revenue, it either has to make some major changes or shut down, no matter who was relying on its platform or services.

This situation proves why relying only on digital platforms to maintain your creative career is unwise. You never know when a platform might implement more restrictive rules, be bought by another company or shut down entirely.

When you don’t own and operate your own platforms, you run the risk of losing the impact and presence of your brand, both online and off.

As such, looking outside the digital realm to improve your revenue is a wise business decision. This move will not only diversify your income options, but also improve the chances your business will remain stable should a digital platform decide to shutter its doors on you.

Here are four proven, timeless ways you can expand your brand beyond digital platforms:

Speaking Opportunities

While you can speak for free to build credibility and network within your chosen niche, paid speaking gigs are another way to pull in some extra cash while also establishing yourself as an expert. YouTube sex educator Laci Green, for example, is routinely hired by schools and universities to teach their students about safe sex, rape culture and gender issues.

Consulting/Services

Similar to speaking opportunities, you can build up your expertise in your industry by offering consulting or services to your own clients. If you are a content creator who focuses on creating how-to videos for car repairs and upgrades, you could market these same services to attract paying customers in real life.

Gumroad and other similar services can help you sell physical merchandise to help support your creative work.

Merchandising

Selling products related to your videos or brand is a relatively easy way to create another income stream with little effort and upkeep. Partner merchandising with live events and you have an even better opportunity to earn more money offline as a content creator.

Live events

Speaking of live events, no one’s holding you back from setting up an in-person appearance where you charge tickets for attendance or different levels of VIP experience. If your brand is strong, a good portion of your audience will likely pay to meet you in real life — really, it’s no wonder events like DigiTour and Fullscreen Live are becoming more prolific.

With all of these income streams, you’ll likely have some digital element involved. For example, you might go through a service like Gumroad or RedBubble to sell physical products. Or you may need to have some sort of website set up to show when you’ll be doing live events.

For the most part, however, these offline opportunities don’t depend on a digital platform you don’t own. Expanding beyond these platforms gives you more control over your business, your income and your career trajectory. And isn’t that ultimately what you want, anyway?

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

Why YouTube?

By
Mike Wilhelm
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We start YouTube channels for a variety of reasons: to share ideas, to become rich and famous, to entertain and to educate.

Still, YouTube has its share of problems. We’ve all struggled against an overly-aggressive copyright-detection algorithm. Without constant work cultivating a healthy community, our comments sections quickly devolve into dumpster fires. To top it off, when you compare YouTube to other video platforms like Facebook, Instagram or even the late, great Vine, growing a sizable audience on YouTube is a slow process that requires a lot more work. Why then is starting and maintaining a YouTube channel such an attractive idea?

First, YouTube is the only video platform that directly rewards content creators financially. There are a few other platforms that can be sources of passive income, most notably Twitch.tv, but none are as content-agnostic as YouTube. Earning money making video on any other platform involves becoming at least a part-time ad-sales representative — work most of us aren’t interested in doing.

The second reason YouTube remains the only? viable platform for many video creators is that it’s the only major platform known for its long-form video content that’s easy to access for both creators and viewers. This likely stems from YouTube’s unrivaled search functionality. Finding good video content using Faceboook’s search is a nightmare — never mind tracking down a specific video. Instagram is worse. Because of this distinct advantage, YouTube has established itself as the reliable resource for viewers.

Finally, YouTube is still in some ways the wild-west. The few rules it has are frequently broken and rarely enforced. That has its drawbacks in that it can foster a toxic community of trolls and cyberbullies, but it also means YouTube has virtually no barrier to entry. Any ambitious person with a smartphone can start a channel and achieve success.

YouTube is appealing because it offers money and eyeballs to anyone who can make a video, regardless of the nature of the content or its production quality. If you want to make tutorial videos about how to crush Dr. Pepper cans with a two by four, no one’s stopping you. On YouTube, good video content is easy to find, content creators are paid and anyone can participate. Until another platform can say the same, YouTube is our best and only choice.

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

Conspiracy Theory: Democratized Distribution or Dystopian Nightmare?

By
Erik Fritts
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The Machiavellian Manipulation of Online Culture by our Corporate Overlords

Do you ever feel like you’re not getting the recognition you deserve for your videos? Does it seem as though, no matter how hard you try, you’re just not gaining any traction online? Perhaps you have been recognizing the signs that dark and sinister forces are conspiring to prevent you — clearly the next Orson Wells — from being discovered. If the struggle for online engagement often seems like you’re playing against a stacked deck, maybe, just maybe… you are.

Who are these faceless men in expensive suits who meet in dark, smoke filled rooms to decide your fate? Some would speculate it’s none other than those behind the scenes at YouTube.

When YouTube went live in 2005, it seemed like a utopian platform of democratized distribution for a new generation of content creators. And, for some, it was. But quickly, big corporate business interests found ways to market their products through this pinnacle of new media, and a dark age began.

On the exterior, we saw advertisements embedded anywhere they could fit. To some extent, this is expected; television and radio are both monetized through commercials that pay for the programming we enjoy. But once we scratch beneath the surface, we find much more ominous going-ons behind the digital curtain.

Time and time again, when we examine what’s trending on YouTube, it’s clear there’s some back room deals going on to promote certain, content that favors, shall we say… The Man?

On any given day, you’re likely to find the trending content on YouTube to be almost exclusively created by big studios. On the day this was written, we find Pokemon, The Late Show, The Tonight Show, NFL and Last Week Tonight. These shows and the networks and studios that produce them have controlled the airwaves and cable for years, if not decades! Why must our new, supposedly democratized distribution also be overrun by them?

I don’t go to YouTube to see content that was live on TV last night. I don’t have enough of a life to need that! I watch it live, like an adult with responsibilities and just a few hours of quiet time in the evening to blissfully zone out. I go to YouTube to see the weird stuff being made by independent creators. I go to see the work of the visionaries who don’t have access to the tools or distribution deals that would allow me to find them anywhere else.

So, why would the people at YouTube be hell-bent on selling out the little guy in favor of international corporate interests with deep pockets? What could big, multi-billion dollar businesses have to give a profit driven company that you or I can’t offer? What would be the draw of a titan of media production with a steady stream of new content and a large, paying, audience, over me, a relative nobody?

I’m not entirely sure, but I’m guessing the heads of the big studios learned a special handshake while in Skull and Bones with Mr. YouTube.

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

A Day in the Life of YouTuber Tanner Patrick

By
Ricky Anderson II
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We spoke with singer-songwriter, Tanner Patrick and he gives us a glimpse of a day and the life of a single person online video channel.

Tanner Patrick: New Music Every Week

Tanner Patrick is a musician who has delighted audiences across the globe. Starting his YouTube channel in 2011, he has garnered the attention of over 1 million subscribers and earned over 100 million video views.

Start of the Day

Maintaining a successful YouTube channel begins with research. Tanner shares that his morning begins with keeping up to date with current trends. He states, “I wake up, and I usually check the charts on iTunes. I always like to know what’s going on, especially with music and the music world, to see if there are any new releases or songs that I would cover. So I’m always looking at the outside first to see what’s going on with the rest of the world. Then I usually just start producing.”

He continues, “If there’s’ not a cover song that needs to be done immediately, I usually just start writing and producing original stuff. But it doesn’t ever stop (chuckles), which is kind of a blessing, but it’s a ton of work. I do just nonstop work from the moment I get up; I’m either working on a song of my own, a cover song, producing a video or editing a video.”

Performance Days

On his performance days — days when he is singing — Tanner says, “…It’s a lot of what you would expect when you go into a studio to record a song. It’s a lot of warming up, and it’s a lot of me banging my head against the wall trying to get the right takes. Because I’m kind of a perfectionist, sometimes I’ll record the whole song and then start over because I didn’t like the way it sounded. So those days are really hard, and sometimes I’ll sing for five or six hours until I like it.”

After that, Tanner jumps right into mixing the song the same day that he records. He expresses that, “I record it, and I just work as fast as I can on it. Until I crash and fall asleep, then wake up the next day, keep producing.” Once the song is mixed and mastered, Tanner gets some rest then goes into video production phase. “I kind of restart the whole process by performing the video.”

Production Days

Tanner has a very run-and-gun approach to producing his videos. His crew is made up of him and one other person, which is a formula he found, “…just works.” He continues in saying, “We just work together to come up with the right shots and usually go very on-the-fly. Like, sometimes it’s like driving around, ‘oh that looks like a cool spot’, then we just pull over and start recording… There’s very little pre pro into this.”

Adding on to his run-and-gun process, Tanner shares “…we do have a shot list, but it’s never written down; we just do a mental check as we’re going. It’s like, ‘did we do the wide one? Did we do the face one?’ We just call it what it is, you know? I would say it’s usually about 20 different shots of the whole song. I perform the song 20 times and about roughly 40GB on the card every time.”

In addition to the video shoot, Tanner will have a photo shoot: “We always make the iTunes & Spotify cover art, so we’ll do a photoshoot at the end of the video, and we usually take about 30 photos — sometimes up to 100 photos — and then pick one of those to be the album artwork. And sometimes it also ends up being the same for [the YouTube thumbnail].”

Post-production Days

At the conclusion of a video shoot, Tanner goes right into post-production. Because his background is in music and not video, editing didn’t come as easy to him at first. “It used to take a really long time to edit a video, mostly because I was trying to use iMovie and it was very difficult. So the first year on my channel, it took me like a week to edit a video.” He continues enthusiastically, “I’m a huge fan of post now. That’s like my favorite thing. And I think it’s because I can, like, get behind computer again, which is where I did a lot of the music production.”

While describing his workflow, Tanner explains, “I’m very anal about, like, my organization, so all my clips have to be, like, perfectly colored, numbered, and labeled. Then I just get to work.” While editing Tanner seeks to, “…find all of the moments in the video that match, not just match the music from a technical standpoint, but emotionally.”

Tanner summarizes that it usually takes two days to edit a video before he posts it to his YouTube Channel, which he says makes the whole process worth it.

“Part of the reward is creating something.” Tanner says excitedly, “You just created and go ‘yeah like I did that, and I’m proud of that!’ Then sharing with other people, [it’s] like the icing on the cake. I just give it to people, so it feels nice.”

Memorable Videos

One of the most recent projects Tanner was a part of as of this writing was a project called “Everybody Loves Disney” produced through his MCN Maker Studio. Tanner collaborated with another producer on a song from “Alice in Wonderland” called “A World of My Own.”

https://ohmy.disney.com/music/2016/03/25/everybody-loves-disney/

“It was just so fun to create something that was totally different!” He describes how he wanted to create something that felt like he was in a world of his own. “We went deep into these woods where there was nothing and no one, nothing around. We just filmed me playing in the woods, and I felt like I was like six years old again.”

As satisfying as creating a video from conception to completion is, there are challenges that come along with the process.

Biggest Challenges

Working as a mostly one person team comes with a lot of self-criticism. “The worst part of what I do is self-doubt,” Tanner states. “The worst part is creating something and wondering ‘are people going to like this, or am I wasting my time just creating something that only I like?’” Additionally, Tanner shares that, because he does so much by himself, his social life has been strained. “Social life kind of goes out the window and you become a slave to the work, but you love the work, so it’s tough.” However, the doubt and sacrifices are worth it for him.

Biggest Rewards

“Being able to create as an artist and being able to have it appreciated by people and those people being affected by it in a positive way is the best part,” Tanner explains. “It is just so great when I can create something that other people enjoy as much as I enjoyed creating it. It feels like they [created] it with me or something.” He goes on to say, “People have encouraged me to keep going on. I don’t think they knew how much they were encouraging me. [I’m sure they thought] that they were just telling me how they felt about something, but it was so important for me to see that positive review.”

Conclusion

Operating an online video channel takes more work than just turning on a camera. It takes planning, support and a lot of time and sacrifice. From Tanner’s experience, persistence is the key. He shares, “I’ve found certain videos will really catch fire, but not all of them do. So if you don’t continue you might not see. If your first five-six videos don’t catch fire, they’re not like getting a lot of love, that doesn’t mean that the eighth won’t. It’s a journey, you just gotta keep telling yourself that you can do it, and someone is going to like it.”

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

Multi-Platform Strategies

By
Peter Zunitch
-

Why it’s essential to make platform-specific edits and how to optimize them.

Socializing Your Social Media Edits

Social media is a great way to spread the word for that all-essential message you need to get out to the public. However, not all services are created equal, nor should they be treated as such. If you’re distributing the same video across all systems, you’re not only going to miss your audience, you might even drive them away.

There are two hurdles to mass social media distribution. The first is wildly different technical requirements for video on each platform. The second is the style and trends expected by the audience of each service. Between the two, it’s all but impossible make just one video that optimally achieves all your goals. Yet, no one wants to waste time editing 10 different productions on the same campaign.

Fortunately there’s a logical workflow you can follow that will not only make your life easier, but will actually make your brand stronger and more cohesive. A logical creative progression is the key to balancing efficiency with maximizing your video’s social media penetration.

YouTube

Faithful Youtube is the starting point where you can post your long-form message. Even unverified accounts can post videos up to 15 minutes, and that’s just the start, so go all out. YouTube viewers tend to search out content that they’re interested in, so it’s a great base of operations for all the other sites to lead back to. Be sure to present the core purpose of your video within the first 30 seconds to hook your audience. Use the rest of the video to go into the finer details.

Because there’s a common, quality encoding standard between them (1080p, h.264), you can and probably should post this video as-is to Dailymotion as well, however you won’t be able to rely on all the extra features. Vimeo is another consideration as long as you’re under the file size limit for posting.

Facebook

Facebook is up next with small tweaks. Research shows that up to 85% of social media video is played silently, and Facebook mutes video by default. Consider revising the beginning of your original video to rely less on dialog and use text splash screens for the most important points.

Don’t overdo it though. Long bouts of text should be saved for the description.

Facebook’s advice is that videos that are brief and aligned with current trends do best in the News Feed. Your first five seconds should be entrancing both with and without audio. If people are interested, they will most certainly turn the sound on and start over.

Consider shortening your video as well. Users have a lot of ground to cover in Facebook and will lose attention quickly. It’s not where they want to research in depth, so shorter videos often get more views.

Twitter

From here, you should isolate the best, most compelling moments of your video to make a version approximately one minute long. Because you’ve paired down your essential content into such a small package, it should be you’re most enticing introduction to your topic. This is perfect for Twitter. Why? Again, it’s all down to how people use the platform.

Twitter has stated that the majority of users discover the content they watch in their feed. It’s rare that people seek out specific content. Your video here should be a gateway for a user to find and engage with your content. If they like what you’re pushing, they’ll seek out more information. Odds are, though, it won’t be via Twitter.

Instagram

Now take your one minute masterpiece and shave off another thirty seconds. With a thirty second spot, you can create your Instagram experience.

There are two considerations here. Instagram viewers tend to avoid text, so take as much out as you can. Concentrate instead on striking, quality imagery. Sell yourself though visual stimuli.

You have up to a minute with this service, but keep in mind that the get in late, get out early rules still apply, and longer video is not always better. For Instagram your video should be all about visual quality over quantity.

Tech Specs

Along the way you’re going to have technical considerations to deal with. Careful research will yield some specs you can consider universal — h.264, audio sample rate, progressive scan — but at some point you may want to crop your video from 16:9 to 1:1, so keep text within the center square of your screen. You’ll also have to scale down your resolution and bitrate as you go. Set up batch encoding presets that will adhere to each format and these hurdles are easily crossed.

Social media platforms afford an unprecedented modern means of promoting your message or brand, but if you’re concentrating on only a few of them, or failing to cater to the abilities of each platform, you’re severely missing the mark.

Take advantage of the unique features — like playlists, overlays, video loops and thumbnails of each site — to get creative with your brand. Just because they’re all different doesn’t mean you can’t work smart and progress all your edits towards a common goal.

Fool-Proof Formats

Using these three formats as starting points should satisfy all requirements for virtually every social media site. Specifications for these sites are constantly in flux, so check for updates often and adapt your plan as necessary.

MP4, H.264, 1920×1080, 16×9, Progressive, High Profile, VBR 2-pass @ ~4mbps, source framerate ~<60fps (constant), AAC-LC stereo @ 48khz stereo, 320kbps, < 15 min, < 2GB [500mb for basic Vimeo]

MP4, H.264, 1920×1080, 16×9, Progressive, High Profile, VBR 2-pass @ ~4mbps, Source framerate ~<40fps, (constant), AAC-LC @44.1khz mono, 128kbps, <140 sec., <512Mb

Mp4, h.264, 1080×1080, 1:1, Progressive, VBR 2-pass @ ~3.5mbps, 30fps (constant), AAC-LC Stereo @ 44.1khz mono, 128kbps, < 60 sec., < 1Gb

YouTuber Magazine is a digital periodical. Subscribe here to have the next full issue delivered for free.

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