Ahoj, this is Zdenka. Vlog style
content can be anything.
It can be tutorials, it can be product reviews.
See normally,
I'm filming tutorials in the studio, but today
I optioned for filming
outdoors vlog style and it's a tutorial.
I have whole bunch of tips and tricks.
Vlogging doesn't have to be necessarily about capturing your
day and it should not
be if you are serious about growing your YouTube
channel.
So let's go through a video.
Let's go through audio.
Let's go through a storytelling. How to plan your video and video editing
and all that.
This video is sponsored by
Epidemic Sound.
The beauty about vlogs is that you can
film absolutely anywhere.
It can be in your
house, it can be in nature.
It can be in the park, it can be in a city.
First time when you are going to start vlogging,
you might feel a little bit uncomfortable vlogging
in the public.
Luckily, though, people these days are addicted
to their phones. Everybody has a phone.
You will see people texting, being on social media,
you will see people calling, talking to their friends.
You are not going to stand out. See, I am an introvert.
I don't feel very comfortable in the public
in the first place, in front of a whole bunch of people
so my approach to all of this is to
start somewhere where there is
no one and then
I get a little bit closer. So I see two people in a
distance, but I'm not
really that
close and I slowly work my way up.
I also try to think of the
camera as my shield, which is protecting me
from all those people.
What you can also
do is bring a friend.
The physical
presence of someone very
close can really help.
When you are vlogging, you don't
necessarily have to always walk.
You can be standing in my location.
You can be also sitting down.
One thing you don't want to
do is changing location
every three
minutes. It is going to be disturbing and people are not going
to be able to concentrate on what you are
saying.
Get through a
good chunk of your material and then move on.
Definitely don't change many times location
if you are talking only about the one thing. I have
created so many videos about smartphone filmmaking
tools. The bare minimum
you really need is just your smartphone.
If you have one of the latest smartphones, the good chance is that
it has a very good stabilization,
so all you really need is some sort of a selfie stick for better
grip or you can get gimbal.
Gimbals are very
common these days and they are
quite affordable.
They will certainly help you with
stabilization, but not only that, you don't have
to worry about
framing if you enable tracking.
This year is a breakthrough year.
There is
one gimbal coming out to the international
market which has
the capability of having
tracking in any app, and I will definitely introduce
this so don't forget to subscribe to this channel
if you are not already.
All you have to worry is about your story, which is the most important part.
Most of the people focus
on video on the visual side,
but they really forget about the audio.
It's very common for
people to stop watching videos if they cannot hear you.
If you are explaining something and suddenly you turn away
and you keep explaining, people
cannot hear they're going to stop watching.
Or if your audio is very quiet or if it's too loud, is too distracting,
or if you are standing in the middle of the traffic or
if you have too much echo.
Smartphones these days
have pretty good audio, but you will be really heard
if you use something like this, this wireless microphone.
You should focus on not looking cool because you have some crazy set
up in your hands but you should focus on setup
which is fairly simple but delivers a very
good video and audio
and people will really hear you. The competition is
very high these days and having a good audio and video
Is a must.
One thing you have to be very careful about is if you
are vlogging somewhere and there is a
car driving by with a very loud music, or if you are recording
yourself in a car and you forget to turn down
the radio. If you are going to post a video like that,
you might actually get a copyright strike.
If you are going to use music in your videos,
you have to make sure you use properly licensed music.
And for that I use service
called Epidemic's Sound.
I've been using them
for 4 years now. Their music selection is huge.
Fresh music and sound effects are added all the time.
You can download the whole songs to full songs,
or just stems from their website or also
Epidemic's sound app directly to your smartphone. Use my link
below to get a 30 day free trial. Everything you post during the trial is protected
even if you cancel. Thank you very much Epidemic sound for making this video possible.
If you want to grow your YouTube channel these days,
the amount of subscribers does not really matter.
Even channels with a small amount of subscribers
can get the same amount of views as large channels.
If you are very serious about this and want to grow it into something bigger,
perhaps full time job or full time career, then you need
to concentrate on two different
types of content both based on search. Google and
YouTube search engine. Not what is going to be
suggested by YouTube, but what people are actually going to
search for. YouTube suggested videos
can certainly help but it's only for a short period.
Time sensitive videos such as product reviews
of latest gear will give you a lot of views
when the product has been launched, but eventually
the video is going to die out over the time.
The other type of videos are timeless.
Timeless can be tutorials which will be searched for
many, many years to come.
I made that mistake when I was starting out
not to create enough of timeless videos, so don't make that mistake as well.
Now that the algorithm has changed,
channels which have a lot of timeless content, are not being as much affected.
If you will be just creating a vlog
about doing groceries or as you are walking a dog, people are really
not going to watch it unless
you are someone very known and they
really care about your ordinary life.
People are really not going to type into a
search engine woman walking a dog.
But they might type in
how to stop dog from pulling on the leash, which is a very
common timeless video.
There are always going to be people who are going to get a dog
and they will have that problem, so naturally
there will be always people looking for the tutorial on how to stop the
dog from pulling on the leash.
That is a searchable timeless
video and these types of videos
don't rely on ever changing algorithm.
Those videos will be found and seen through search engines
and that
is a goal to long term growth.
Solve people's problems and do it
in a very detailed way.
If you are very good at helping people
and you can explain yourself clearly, you'll be okay.
There are more types of
videos which can do very well and that is entertaining or is operational
but you have to be very good at that.
It has to be very top notch content
and you have to know how to maintain
such a level and sometimes it's quite difficult.
Let's talk about storyboard. What
problem you are going to solve?
Is there an obstacle? Is there a challenge?
How are you going to make
people stay and watch throughout most of the video
so you have a good watch time.
If you are going to
make a video about a purchase of a car,
giving tips and showing
the actual car purchase in the video is very good topic.
Only make a video about one topic.
Don't shoot whole bunch of stuff.
Don't just shoot random stuff.
If you have a family channel,
don't just film your kids
playing in sand for 5 minutes or
screaming in a car for 5 minutes. You are
for sure going to get click away.
But turn it into a very helpful video.
There are many parents, new parents, which are looking for information
and they are looking for help.
They need to solve their problems. Be resourceful
as much as you can be. Prepare outlines,
write down outlines or the whole script.
See, I have a script for today's video and it is really helpful
for many things.
Sometimes I forget what I want to say
so I quickly look back and I'm saving a lot of time.
But also it is full of information to give you
the most out of today's video.
So create a hook, explain what you need.
Explain the process, give tips and
advice, show the actual outcome.
Here you have your story. On this channel
I have many videos about creating a cinematic B-roll.
These are cinematic sequences, not
really a B-roll.
We all use that word in video titles because people are specifically
looking for this term
in search engines for these types of videos.
If I put how to film a cinematic sequence in a title,
I will get no clicks.
Nobody is going to click on that.
Somehow they got fixed on this word
whoever started this.
What is a B-roll and how can you use it in your vlogs?
Well, A-roll is a video talking head. You're
watching me right now talking to you. This is A-roll.
B-roll is a clip you place on top of this, which is
your resource to what you are talking about.
So if I'm talking about this little town,
which is called Port Perry, I might be showing you sunrise clip.
And I filmed a few months ago.
It's absolutely beautiful here.
Or I might show you this horse carriage
behind me.
And that's the reference. I'm talking about
this horse carriage so definitely I'm going to show
you just that.
When you are going to be working with sponsors,
they will review the integration and specifically
they will be looking for B-roll clips
to ensure that you are actually showing what you are talking about.
If you are filming a tutorial where you show how to fix something,
don't just talk about it.
Show how to actually fix it.
As that is number one reason
why people are actually looking for video tutorials on YouTube.
Otherwise they could just Google it up
and they could read an article.
Keep in mind that even though you might be a master in
your field, there are many beginners who are just starting out.
So don't rush,
take it slow, speak slowly, show everything, explain everything.
And that's one of the things I also need to keep in mind.
I've been reminded that from other
people as well, especially if
I am creating tutorials where I'm explaining how
to use a certain software.
If you want to show off the
place where you are at...
I know you might be all
excited because it's beautiful
and you just want to show a whole bunch of different clips.
You want to keep them long.
It might not be good idea because those people
don't have any relationship to that place.
They don't have the same feelings as you do and they will get bored.
They will click away.
Keep the clips short, make sure it goes with the flow of the video.
If you are creating a travel video specifically about that place
which is meant to
show off that place, then yes, you can certainly show a whole bunch
of different things.
Don't forget. The pacing of the video must
be a right for people to keep watching.
B-roll can be used for hiding certain things
when you are editing your videos. There
can be many irritating things
for viewers which can stop them from watching your videos.
So learning about video editing
inside out, it's really important.
First one is sound.
Don't make music way louder
than the rest of the video.
Look at the audio meter and make sure it's all in the same level.
If you are using music as a background for your spoken word,
keep it very quiet.
It's hard to concentrate on what you are talking about
if the background music
is just disturbing. Use filters for echo, outside traffic
sound, wind sound, but don't overdo it so
you don't sound distorted.
Another very common thing
I see when it comes to new YouTubers, but also YouTubers
who've done it for a long time
are Morse code cuts.
It's not an official title for those cuts.
I made it up. I just call it that way.
The Morse cuts.
So you are recording yourself,
you are recording vlog.
You didn't prepare for the video, so you're rumbling.
You are just talking a few different things.
You are just talking, talking, talking.
And then you get home and you are trying
to glue bits and pieces of the video together
so it actually makes sense.
The Morse cuts. It doesn't look good.
It looks something like this
and everybody will know that you are just trying to glue bits and
pieces together so it actually makes sense.
That is why scripts and outlines are so important.
There are two ways you can hide this.
Either you place a B-roll as I explained earlier
over the troubled area of the video, or if you have only
one or two cuts, but it bothers you
that it is visible that you made a cut because you, your body
position and head position has changed,
just zoom in one clip slightly.
It will be less noticeable.
Just like right now.
I just slightly zoomed in on this clip.
Once you have your idea for a video and you are working on your script
or outlines, don't forget the title, keywords and thumbnail.
In fact title you should have already ready before
you even start writing the script.
And the title should contain all important
keywords people will be typing in search
engine to find your video.
You can do a research for the keywords, for the best fitting keywords
in VidIQ or Tube buddy.
When it comes to thumbnail
I've got a very easy hack for you. Using a remote, timer, setting up for photos
is very time consuming, so this is what I do.
I get myself into a position which
I think would work well as
a thumbnail and I record a video
and simply make some small changes as I am posing for the thumbnail.
Then I import the clip to editing software and choose
the frame I like and export that frame as JPEG photo.
I usually export a few photos and then later decide which one is better.
The thumbnail should be very bold, very simple.
Keep in mind that it looks tiny on the smartphone,
so make sure the message stands out. This is wrong thumbnail
and this is a good thumbnail. Not too much text and not
small text and make sure the text is not
covered by the time at the right bottom corner.
Another thing you should keep in mind is
that people read the same way thumbnail as book.
From the left to the right.
So if you can create some sort of an action in a thumbnail,
if you can explain what the video is all about, good.
You're good to go.
Give it a thumbs up if you find this video helpful
and don't forget to subscribe for more. If you need to learn how to film
with your smartphone I have a course on that,
I'll link it below. Questions, Comments,
feel free to leave them in the comments section and I'll see you in the next video.
Cau... Ahoj...