Robert's Grip
Member
Yea, my camera sucks (shaky as heck).
Oke, i watched a couple of your videos and i have some idea of why your videos are not doing too well in the YT discovery mechanisms. I think a lot has to do with the quality of your videos. In general I got a pretty good idea of where you were going with a specific video, and those ideas are good. But the execution could be done a lot better.
The thing that bothered me the most was the camera work. The camera work is arguably one of the most important aspects of your video.
What I saw in your videos was shaky camera work. Sometimes too far zoomed in which is uncomfortable to watch. The camera going from left to right, to left, to right, etc. Are you seasick yet? Yes I am
- It need to be steady;
- There needs to be some thought going into what you are showing viewers and why, which is related to the image composition;
- And besides camera work there are other ways of showing things to people, for instance capturing video directly from the computer or creating some custom graphics for your video;
! Sometimes showing things that have nothing to do with the subject of the video. And then there were the shots of the computer screen, using a simple printscreen or some capture software would have been the most efficacious way to show that in my opinion.
The audio, also very important in videos. Lets start by saying that commentating on the fly is very hard to do well. But you don't have to do it on the fly. There is nothing wrong with making a script, shooting the video and then recording the audio or vice versa. Editing it in such a way that it becomes a fluent whole.
The driving noise in your roadtrip videos, not the most attractive sound possible. For me it ruins what might have been a relaxing video with a nice bit of relaxing music or commentary in the background.
It all starts with quality content, and quality content is all about placing yourself in the position of a viewer. It doesn't all have to be perfect, but it is essential that you are thinking about improving: video, angles, frame, lighting, sequences, telling a story, having a script, the best way to convey an idea, etc. For me it's a fascinating process of which I am, like you, still at the beginning.
Hope some of this was helpful to you and i hope i wasn't too critical. Best of luck!
I was very interested in your comment on the road trip video. I was about to delete it due to it being a bit too high of a liability given the 3rd party content involved. I actually uploaded it by accident a couple of months ago (at the time I couldn't figure out how to stop an upload...do now). I left it private thinking that would be for the best until I saw what the content id would do with it...since all hell didn't break loose, I left it on YT as private for a long time. Then I realized that I was at risk private or not, so I decided to publish it a few days ago just to see what a monetized video might do (monetized by YT that is).
But perhaps I could do as you suggest and just use the YT free music and dub over that (although I heard you couldn't download it for editing into your video). But that would probably be a waste of time perhaps.
In any event, I will need a new camera (with true mechanical image stabilization as that one has none). I agree, that the shaky video thing is a message I get all the time from YT, so that could be an SEO factor. The zoom is also an issue for the same reason...bad camera really. I constantly have to switch it into close-up mode, and often forget when pulling in or out...very annoying. Those tiny view screens are also hard for me to see clearly. I know what you are saying about the computer screen thing as well (working on it). I need to get a better editor to do better editing.
One video I was fairly happy with was my "Neodymium Magnet Introduction" video with is a few minutes long. I don't know if you saw that, but it was the most recent attempt to make a more appealing video. I was attempting to improve the overall viewer experience (within a practical extent) in this video.
But at the end of the day, I appreciate your feedback!
