LostTrigger
YTtalk Mad
yep im still around if you still have the time ?
Hi Ashley,
In the process of looking at your new channel, I made the connection with your vlog channel and took a look at that as well. I think it’s cool that you’re keeping them separate, not because one is bad and the other is good, but because they have very different brands. I think letting the ADTV thing stand on its own is a great idea. You clearly have some ideas for some fun quirky stuff you want to try and I think it’s going well so far. Here are a few bullet points that encapsulate my thoughts on your very new channel.
- Have I mentioned that it’s a very new channel? Your videos look good, but your page, as it appears to guests, isn’t great. Right now it’s set to just show all your recent activity including what you’ve been watching and what you like. I’d run, not walk, to a computer and address that right away.
- Which brings me to my next point. ESPECIALLY for a channel with a format like yours, you need an intro video that’s short and that plays automatically. If you can set a great tone with a very tight edit that’s a lot of fun, you’re going to get people to stick around. Without that, they’re more likely to bolt.
- I love the first half of the chili/chocolate video. It was JJ Abram’s mystery box. It’s such a great way to get people to stick around. I know others have done that challenge or things like it, but I thought you set it up really well. I was disappointed in the big reveal though. Some editing and a musical and/or sound effect cue would have really bolstered the effectiveness at that point. You did a great job setting your audience up with this video, but we’re looking for a clear payoff with a video like that. Still, it was a good first effort.
- I’ve seen other non-Americans eat American treats, and I thought yours stacked up well. Good comments, light-hearted, and you were charitable toward our strange junk food tastes. This video also would have been strengthened by a tighter edit.
- I liked the interaction between the two hosts in your jelly bean video. It was fun to see who got what, but would have been more punctuated with a tighter edit, titles to help us keep track of the score, and some cues to let us know who got what. Again, despite these critiques, I still liked it.
- I’m sure you’re catching the theme here, but I’ll repeat it for the sake of clarity: Tighter edits = Better. If you’re doing something informational or dramatic, you can afford to let it flow a little more, but with the format you’ve chosen, I think you need to keep it really tight. Only keep that which is necessary to provide a basic structure to what’s going on and your very funniest, wittiest, sharpest stuff. Ruthlessly ditch everything else. Your viewers will come away with a more positive feeling from a 50 second video where absolutely everything hits, than they will from a 5 minute video with 50 seconds worth of great stuff.
- I dig the fashion choices you’ve made in your videos, but it might be wise to steer clear of the super busy patters for light and aliasing purposes. Your Paris shirt in the jelly bean video is sweet, but it flickers a ton. Part of that might have to do with your shutter speed or your sequence settings regarding frame rate in your editing program. I just screwed this up in my last video and I caught my mistake too late. Resultantly it flickers like crazy.
- I really like the three videos you have up, but I dislike the decision to include music playing in the background of the set. Even in the background like that, you could get flagged for a copyright violation, and on top that it’s just lousy audio that detracts from everything else going on. It comes off like the kid in Call of Duty who puts rap music on and sets the mic next to it.
- I like the depth of field effect you’re going for, and the look of your images in general is good if a little over exposed. When there’s a short distance between your subject and background and you have a degree of depth to your shot (as you do), it becomes easy to have you move out of focus when you lean forward or back. I screw this up constantly. Your stuff looks good, this is just something to be aware of while you film.
In general, I think you’re doing great. I hope you find my suggestions useful, and I hope you can tell that I’m rooting for you. Best of luck moving forward.
Take care,
Matt[DOUBLEPOST=1431292873,1431226282][/DOUBLEPOST]
I haven't seen you around for a while and your site seems to be down, so I'm going to skip over you for now. If you'd still like a review, please let me know.
Thanks,
Matt[DOUBLEPOST=1431325201][/DOUBLEPOST]
Hello Heels to High Tops,
No more shaking in your boots! I had a blast with your channel. Here we go!
You have a wonderful young family and I’m honored that you let me take a look in on your lives. You’ve got a fun, multi-faceted site with a nice touch of production value. I’ll try to give you feedback on some video-specific stuff as well as on some big picture stuff.
- I really like the way you and your family come off on camera. You’ve got a ton of energy and you just seem genuinely kind – you come off like a great mom and a great wife. You’re the main character of the channel, and the story is told from your POV, so you being likable is crucial. It’s tough when a friend or acquaintance does a family vlog and comes off as a snarly mom and condescending wife, because it makes her look bad and there’s no good way to tell her that. You convey the exact opposite of those negative traits and it’s relaxing and joyful to watch your family days play out.
- For the most part your production value is good. Here are a few suggestions for improvement:
o Your how-to videos aren’t lit well, and aren’t quite as flattering as they could be just because the lighting in your bathroom isn’t great for video.
o While the hair videos look good enough, you could make them look much better by improving your lighting setup with some simple chicken coop clamp lights for 10 bucks a pop. You need coming from the front left, from the front right, and one up above behind you that lights up your shoulders and hair.
o That third light is very important because you have very dark hair and it’s difficult to appreciate all that you’re doing with it in the absence of that back light. You’ll be amazed at how much better those videos will look if you can find a way to cram the setup I’m describing into your bathroom.
o At times you audio mix is off. You may need to adjust the input gain on whatever mic or external recorder you’re using in order to get a natural sounding recording of your voice which you can then bring forward in your mix. Viewers will turn off a video quickly if you’re talking and they can’t easily make out what you’re saying. Remember, you’re the star of the channel, and therefore hearing you is the most important aspect of your mix.
- You’ve got great taste in music and you do a solid job of picking appropriate music to put over the top of your videos. Nice job working within the boundaries of copyright rules while still having a nice soundtrack.
- Your editing style is generally good, though at times I think you linger a little longer on shots than is necessary. Remember to cut on action, and think of your audience first in choosing what stays and what goes. If you’re trying to grow your channel, you should probably consider cutting much tighter resulting in shorter vlogs. If you’re mostly trying to connect with friends and family so they can see your little guy grow up on YouTube, then I think the way you’re doing it is fine. The kid’s adorable, and I understand why you give him so much screen time J
- I think it would benefit you to adjust the look of your front page with visitors in mind. Right now it’s just a feed of your channel activity, and it would be better if it were organized and had a channel intro video that autoplayed for visitors.
- I love the channel name and art. Very creative and telling. Love it.
I really think you’re doing a great job. You’re a solid communicator who presents herself very well on camera, and you’re production value is well above average. Your husband is a likable good dude, and your child is fun and fully of energy, which means you’ve got interesting characters for people to watch and care about. Your how-to stuff is where you’ll get your views and draw your visitor, but your family vlog stuff is good enough to turn visitors into subscribers.
My family has been looking over my shoulder as I write reviews, and they say hello!
I wish you the best,
Matt
Hi Ashley,
In the process of looking at your new channel, I made the connection with your vlog channel and took a look at that as well. I think it’s cool that you’re keeping them separate, not because one is bad and the other is good, but because they have very different brands. I think letting the ADTV thing stand on its own is a great idea. You clearly have some ideas for some fun quirky stuff you want to try and I think it’s going well so far. Here are a few bullet points that encapsulate my thoughts on your very new channel.
- Have I mentioned that it’s a very new channel? Your videos look good, but your page, as it appears to guests, isn’t great. Right now it’s set to just show all your recent activity including what you’ve been watching and what you like. I’d run, not walk, to a computer and address that right away.
- Which brings me to my next point. ESPECIALLY for a channel with a format like yours, you need an intro video that’s short and that plays automatically. If you can set a great tone with a very tight edit that’s a lot of fun, you’re going to get people to stick around. Without that, they’re more likely to bolt.
- I love the first half of the chili/chocolate video. It was JJ Abram’s mystery box. It’s such a great way to get people to stick around. I know others have done that challenge or things like it, but I thought you set it up really well. I was disappointed in the big reveal though. Some editing and a musical and/or sound effect cue would have really bolstered the effectiveness at that point. You did a great job setting your audience up with this video, but we’re looking for a clear payoff with a video like that. Still, it was a good first effort.
- I’ve seen other non-Americans eat American treats, and I thought yours stacked up well. Good comments, light-hearted, and you were charitable toward our strange junk food tastes. This video also would have been strengthened by a tighter edit.
- I liked the interaction between the two hosts in your jelly bean video. It was fun to see who got what, but would have been more punctuated with a tighter edit, titles to help us keep track of the score, and some cues to let us know who got what. Again, despite these critiques, I still liked it.
- I’m sure you’re catching the theme here, but I’ll repeat it for the sake of clarity: Tighter edits = Better. If you’re doing something informational or dramatic, you can afford to let it flow a little more, but with the format you’ve chosen, I think you need to keep it really tight. Only keep that which is necessary to provide a basic structure to what’s going on and your very funniest, wittiest, sharpest stuff. Ruthlessly ditch everything else. Your viewers will come away with a more positive feeling from a 50 second video where absolutely everything hits, than they will from a 5 minute video with 50 seconds worth of great stuff.
- I dig the fashion choices you’ve made in your videos, but it might be wise to steer clear of the super busy patters for light and aliasing purposes. Your Paris shirt in the jelly bean video is sweet, but it flickers a ton. Part of that might have to do with your shutter speed or your sequence settings regarding frame rate in your editing program. I just screwed this up in my last video and I caught my mistake too late. Resultantly it flickers like crazy.
- I really like the three videos you have up, but I dislike the decision to include music playing in the background of the set. Even in the background like that, you could get flagged for a copyright violation, and on top that it’s just lousy audio that detracts from everything else going on. It comes off like the kid in Call of Duty who puts rap music on and sets the mic next to it.
- I like the depth of field effect you’re going for, and the look of your images in general is good if a little over exposed. When there’s a short distance between your subject and background and you have a degree of depth to your shot (as you do), it becomes easy to have you move out of focus when you lean forward or back. I screw this up constantly. Your stuff looks good, this is just something to be aware of while you film.
In general, I think you’re doing great. I hope you find my suggestions useful, and I hope you can tell that I’m rooting for you. Best of luck moving forward.
Take care,
Matt[DOUBLEPOST=1431292873,1431226282][/DOUBLEPOST]
I haven't seen you around for a while and your site seems to be down, so I'm going to skip over you for now. If you'd still like a review, please let me know.
Thanks,
Matt[DOUBLEPOST=1431325201][/DOUBLEPOST]
Hello Heels to High Tops,
No more shaking in your boots! I had a blast with your channel. Here we go!
You have a wonderful young family and I’m honored that you let me take a look in on your lives. You’ve got a fun, multi-faceted site with a nice touch of production value. I’ll try to give you feedback on some video-specific stuff as well as on some big picture stuff.
- I really like the way you and your family come off on camera. You’ve got a ton of energy and you just seem genuinely kind – you come off like a great mom and a great wife. You’re the main character of the channel, and the story is told from your POV, so you being likable is crucial. It’s tough when a friend or acquaintance does a family vlog and comes off as a snarly mom and condescending wife, because it makes her look bad and there’s no good way to tell her that. You convey the exact opposite of those negative traits and it’s relaxing and joyful to watch your family days play out.
- For the most part your production value is good. Here are a few suggestions for improvement:
o Your how-to videos aren’t lit well, and aren’t quite as flattering as they could be just because the lighting in your bathroom isn’t great for video.
o While the hair videos look good enough, you could make them look much better by improving your lighting setup with some simple chicken coop clamp lights for 10 bucks a pop. You need coming from the front left, from the front right, and one up above behind you that lights up your shoulders and hair.
o That third light is very important because you have very dark hair and it’s difficult to appreciate all that you’re doing with it in the absence of that back light. You’ll be amazed at how much better those videos will look if you can find a way to cram the setup I’m describing into your bathroom.
o At times you audio mix is off. You may need to adjust the input gain on whatever mic or external recorder you’re using in order to get a natural sounding recording of your voice which you can then bring forward in your mix. Viewers will turn off a video quickly if you’re talking and they can’t easily make out what you’re saying. Remember, you’re the star of the channel, and therefore hearing you is the most important aspect of your mix.
- You’ve got great taste in music and you do a solid job of picking appropriate music to put over the top of your videos. Nice job working within the boundaries of copyright rules while still having a nice soundtrack.
- Your editing style is generally good, though at times I think you linger a little longer on shots than is necessary. Remember to cut on action, and think of your audience first in choosing what stays and what goes. If you’re trying to grow your channel, you should probably consider cutting much tighter resulting in shorter vlogs. If you’re mostly trying to connect with friends and family so they can see your little guy grow up on YouTube, then I think the way you’re doing it is fine. The kid’s adorable, and I understand why you give him so much screen time J
- I think it would benefit you to adjust the look of your front page with visitors in mind. Right now it’s just a feed of your channel activity, and it would be better if it were organized and had a channel intro video that autoplayed for visitors.
- I love the channel name and art. Very creative and telling. Love it.
I really think you’re doing a great job. You’re a solid communicator who presents herself very well on camera, and you’re production value is well above average. Your husband is a likable good dude, and your child is fun and fully of energy, which means you’ve got interesting characters for people to watch and care about. Your how-to stuff is where you’ll get your views and draw your visitor, but your family vlog stuff is good enough to turn visitors into subscribers.
My family has been looking over my shoulder as I write reviews, and they say hello!
I wish you the best,
Matt
Hi Johnny,Could you review my channel too?Point out things I can improve?
Hey Kelkschiz,The constant high quality of your reviews are one of the highlights for me on this forum. Although I don't have a lot of time to spend on YT at the moment, for some reason I do find the time to read through this review thread because I find it rewarding in several ways. Not in the least part to find things to improve on my own channel some day. It's also nice to see someone writing an elegant balanced review; I am intrigued by the whole feedback process.
Although you don't call yourself a youtube expert, your experience level is obviously way above the average youtuber, both on the technical side as well as on the creative side. I can imagine at some point doing these reviews will become less rewarding to you. If that should ever happen, I would like to ask you to think about making a comprehensive work that harnesses and expands on the numerous topics you discussed in your reviews.
In any case I would like to thank you for your ongoing work here.
Hi Johnny,
Thanks for giving me a crack at reviewing your channel. I watched several videos and I do have some thoughts. I’m going to be honest from the get-go: This is going to be a pretty negative review. I think there’s a lot wrong with your channel and I think that’s why potential viewers have steered clear. You’ve been up and running for a year, and you’re not getting views or subscribers beyond the expected circle-of-friends-subscription numbers that everyone should be able to get. I hope you’ll read through what I have to say, because I take no pleasure and have no interest in just trashing someone’s work. Rather, I want to tell you what I think is going wrong and then offer some suggestions that I believe could help. All my criticism is offered in a spirit of honesty and constructiveness. I want to be helpful. That said, I thank you in advance for considering my remarks.
Here’s what I think is working:
- You edit many of your videos instead of just uploading an eternity of footage. I can tell you’re trying to highlight your best stuff, and you’re trying not to waste your viewers’ time. I wish more gaming channels would follow your example on this point.
- You offer consistent commentary. That’s much better than silently observing video game footage. I do have some strong criticisms of the nature of that commentary, but I like that you’re making an effort to add some interest to what’s going on.
- I like that you’re high-energy in your delivery.
- You’re persistent. You’ve been posting for a year despite very limited returns.
- You’re making an effort to communicate with your audience especially of late.
Here’s what I think isn’t working:
- Your channel art or lack thereof hurts your credibility before a viewer even loads the first video.
- You’re still using the default channel layout after a year on YouTube. This tells viewers you don’t care much about their convenience as the default layout is worthless for first time visitors.
- There’s nothing immediately apparent to visitors that tells them what the channel is about, who you are, or what you’re going for.
- There’s no channel intro video.
- I appreciate that you’ve made an effort to make some thumbnails, but they’re bad. Your best thumbs are the ones that are unique, but those are overshadowed by the throngs of Dust 514 images. It’s absolutely overwhelming to visitors to see dozens of videos that look exactly the same at first glance. No one will ever wade through all that unless they know you or totally love Dust 514 footage.
- Your gamer persona is obnoxious to me, and based on your results I’d guess it’s obnoxious to most potential viewers. You come off like exactly the kind of person everyone mutes. You yell and cuss and complain too much. In your face to camera videos you don’t come off like this; rather you come off as likable and basically cool. I looked at some of the channels you subscribe to, and they too are small and obnoxious. What I’m driving at is this: I think you might be taking your cues from the wrong people. There’s almost no audience for this kind of gaming channel, but I think there is an audience for the normal you that you present on the webcam updates.
- I’m a firm believer that every word in the English language is useful; even the most offensive ones, but expletives are like a fine spice that slightly accents the actual food. When people use them too much they lose their effectiveness and become a huge turnoff quickly. You use them too much for most audience members.
- If you’re committed to that style of commentary, you would still benefit from adjusting your microphone position and levels. When you get loud it clips out and sounds just awful. Viewers don’t appreciate loud, horrible sounding things blasting through their speakers without warning.
- The channel lacks variety. It’s a wall of the same stuff again and again. Only the most devoted fans will watch when it’s like that.
If you think I’ve got a point, and you’re interested in where to go from here, I’ve got a few suggestions. If you feel like you’re achieving what you’re going for already and that I’m a guy on the Internet who just doesn’t get it, you’re welcome to simply move on.
Some suggestions:
- Grab a new mic and even out your delivery. You’ve got a good sounding voice, and you could make that more of a highlight of your material.
- Play a wider variety of games.
- Offer content other than just gameplay. You’re clearly sharp, and you could offer value to your viewers by doing some commentary bits, reviews, or informative pieces to complement your game footage videos.
- The channel needs channel art and a layout that look better.
- Be the gamer who people want to play with and root for if you want more viewers. People subscribe to channels with likable hosts, but that affection has to be earned.
- Blaze your own trail. Find a way to entice viewers to want to be a part of the experience you offer using your personality and by considering their needs and interests.
As I said earlier, it could just be that you’re going for something very different than what I’m into. This is all a question of taste I suppose. You obviously have the dedication and interest needed to succeed if that’s something you want. If you’re interested in posting videos for a small group of friends, you may already be right where you want to be, but if you’re interested in connecting with a larger audience, it may be worth your time to consider some of what I’ve thrown out here.
Either way, I sincerely wish you the best.
Take care,
Thanks for getting back to me Johnny, and thanks for the gracious response to my thoughts. I'm a subscriber and I'll swing by from time to time to see how things are going.K thank you for your feedback
Ya the channel art was something that I've been kind of thinking about lately and same with the layout.
I agree about the thumbnail thing too. I think some of the later ones look fine one at a time, but even then, they get lost when all the other ones look the same.
I've been trying to tone down the swearingI don't like swearing much in the mornings, but even some of the morning vids have a bit of swearing =/ I think I just gotta get more descriptive about things I say.
A part of me just wants to make League vids, cause that's my favorite game right now
Thank you for the feedback thomeans a lot
I'll take any feedback you got. Thanks in advance.We're all trying to get better at what we're doing, and I know how much I appreciate it when anyone takes the time to meaningfully interact with my Ten Minute Bible Hour channel or with my short films. I'm no expert at anything, but I'd be willing to look at what you're doing and offer some honest, friendly, for-what-they're-worth thoughts.
Thanks manThanks for getting back to me Johnny, and thanks for the gracious response to my thoughts. I'm a subscriber and I'll swing by from time to time to see how things are going.
I think a lot of people are pretty interested in League right now, in addition to game play vids, you might be able to make some hay by doing reviews or instructionals about new updates and happenings in the world of League. If you can stay right on the cutting edge of those types of things, you'll rack up views.
I hope you succeed wildly amigo.
Best of luck.