- I wanna have a discussion about coming up with stories
and coming up with what you're gonna shoot
before you actually go out and shoot.
Now I've changed my perspective on how I do vlogs
since the initial inception of this channel.
So when I first started making videos on this channel,
I was doing kind of the daily vlog style
and I would just kind of shoot what would happen.
And I would make a video out of it.
Now to me, those videos are great
because they're a little slice in time,
and it's kind of fun to watch.
But when you go back and look at those,
from an outsider's perspective, they're super boring.
There's nothing really to them.
And so storytelling is super important to create a video
that someone is actually going to want to watch.
And the way you make your videos is gonna dictate
your overall strategy for your YouTube channel.
Now, if you're someone
who just wants to make a one-off video,
that's completely different
than talking about YouTube channels as a whole.
And my understanding is that the majority of you out there
are actually trying to build something on your channel
that you can do consistently over time
and not just doing a one-off video.
So that's why I wanted to discuss vlogging and storytelling.
And I wanna show you how I set up this initial story.
So before you even go into how you're gonna tell the story,
you need to think about what's the overall strategy.
So do you want to do your typical vlog channel
where someone is just following you?
Is this vlog something that's just added
into the other content that you're doing on your channel?
Or are you trying to go
around a specific topic or a specific idea?
So for the video that we're talking about here,
I'm making it for my second channel,
and I've completely changed my approach
for that channel versus this channel.
For the most part, vlogs don't work on this channel
because this is a channel around education.
However, if I do find a topic
that really is fitting for this audience,
then I could do it in a vlog format and it'll be appealing.
However, the vast majority of just making a vlog
around a singular idea or just my experience on something
probably isn't gonna work,
whereas on my second channel,
I'm really focused around stories around interesting topics
in the outdoor and adventure space.
And I'm still developing
the complete strategy on that channel,
but I'm pushing more into just unique things
that are out there in the world
that you have to be a little bit adventurous
to go find and explore.
And I came up with this idea for the second channel
after I've enjoyed making
some adventure style vlogs, some stories,
and then just there's different ideas I've wanted to do
but they won't fit here.
So now with that kind of laid out,
what I'm doing for this one video that we're talking about
is creating a story around a giant rock.
Now you might think that's pretty boring,
but there's this giant rock out in the desert
that's been the focal point for UFO enthusiasts.
It's been a meeting spot for native American cultures,
and it just has a weird history.
And this rock is kind of out in the middle of the desert.
I've known about it for a long time,
but I wanted to go explore it
and tell the story of this rock.
So for my approach for this video, for this vlog,
I wanted to do something that was more engaging
to a broader audience.
So I didn't wanna do just your typical travel style vlog
where it's like, "Hey guys,
"today we're going out to the rock."
And then you see all these shots
of me going out to the rock, I'm kind of exploring it,
maybe I'll talk about the history a little bit,
but it's more of my experience.
That kind of video
just isn't gonna reach a broader audience.
It might reach those of you
who are really interested it in my videos
and just wanna hang out and go along for the ride.
However, if you wanna reach a broader audience,
you have to think more in storytelling
and think of if someone doesn't know anything about you,
what happens when they click your video?
Do they just keep watching
or are they like, "Ah, this is another vlog,"
and then they go to the next video?
Some people like that kind of content,
but the vast majority
of the broader audience out there probably don't.
So for this video specifically, what I wanted to do
was craft a story around the history of the giant rock.
And in the process of telling that story,
I'm gonna show you the rock
and actually explore the rock.
So it's a mix of a vlog in the format
of more of a storytelling education piece.
And that's kind of where I am pushing my content
on my second channel,
pushing more into this realm of education,
science, technology in the outdoor space,
but then I'm gonna have these vlog elements tied into it.
And this just comes from my experience building vlogs
on my main channel and kind of evolving this channel
and just seeing how content goes on YouTube
and what strategies work to hit a broad or audience.
So this is a different type of story
than something that you would find if you were going
and like climbing a mountain or something like that.
Those kind of videos have a clear objective and a goal.
And then there's going to be a payoff
at the end of that video,
whereas this is a video where it's more about the history.
So there's still gonna be a payoff at the end of the video
but you do have to have this kind of build
and you have to keep your viewers engaged.
So part one is coming up with all the bullet points
that I wanna tell in the story.
So there was some aspect
about native American cultures using it as a meeting point.
There was a man who decided to build
a apartment underneath the rock.
There was also another man who over after that person died
and he believed in aliens and UFOs.
And then there was this aspect that this man
was building a time travel rejuvenation machine
out in the desert.
And this is a place that you can go explore right now.
So there's this kind of wide range of history
of all these bolt points that I wanted to hit.
And it's a lot in a short form video.
I'm aiming this video to be like five or six minutes.
I don't want a super long video.
And so as I'm writing out all these bullet points,
I'm just looking through the history
and finding where's the interesting story in all of this
and how does it all tie together?
And so for me, the most interesting aspect that I found
about this whole story is this whole aspect of the aliens
and the time travel machine
that was gonna help recharge human bodies.
Now it's a weird story, yes.
But that's kind of where I want to build to,
is that aspect of the story,
and then what happened
with this whole machine that he built.
And so now I'm gonna take all these information bits
and put it into the format of a story.
First is a hook.
So I wanna introduce the concept of what the big rock is
and then preview what is coming in the video
and add a element of mystery
because there is this weird history around this story.
And then from there, I think about the ending of the video.
So what is the payoff going to be?
And the end of the story for me is that when this man died,
we lost the plans on how he was gonna finish this machine
because he was about 90% done and then he had a heart attack
and he never wrote them down.
So it's one of those mysteries
that's pretty much never gonna be solved
because we don't know what his actual intention was
to finish this structure.
But that's not the only payoff, because from there,
you wanna have a takeaway for the audience.
And so you wanna think
through, well, what is the takeaway from this story?
And so when I'm creating these kind of stories
I'm always thinking, well, what's the bigger picture here,
and what's something that connects all of us?
And so this is what I wrote down
to kind of come up with this concept.
I said, "There's things in this world
"that we don't fully understand and probably never will--
Visiting these places like this
allow us to stretch our imagination
and think about the what if,
and we also get an opportunity
to stand next to the giant rock
and see if we actually feel something too.
So I came up with a couple sentences
that are more about the bigger picture
about these stories of just weird and mysterious things.
And that's something that they can take away from this
and think about in their own lives,
and then maybe inspire someone to go out
and explore some places like this themselves,
if not go and check out the giant rock.
And so I've written down an intro,
I've written down kind of an ending takeaway,
and I have all of these bullet points.
And so the next process for me
is to literally just write out a script
for a story like this.
This isn't gonna be a vlog
where I just kind of tell my experience as I go.
I'm trying to hit a bunch of different story beats
so I could actually write out the majority
of this kind of script
before I actually get to the location.
And so I just do it all on my phone.
I have it all written out,
and I break it down into different paragraphs.
And when I break it down in these paragraphs,
it helps me start forming the story
and also gives me an idea of how I'm gonna break it up
for shooting when I'm out at the location.
Now for a story like this, I write out a script,
line for line what I'm gonna say.
But when I actually get out
and I'm shooting these kind of videos,
I look at a paragraph and then I regurgitate that
in a different format and something that feels more natural.
And so this is just something that takes practice.
Some people will feel much more comfortable
just reading off a script,
especially when something as specific as this story,
but as you get more experienced,
you'll find that, yeah, it might make more sense
just to ad lib a lot of these sections
and so that it feels much more natural
and it just has more emotion.
And so I use just a basic storytelling format,
intro, kind of a history backstory.
For me in story,
it's gonna be just getting to the location.
So I just want a few shots showing us
actually getting to the big rock,
and then really diving into what the big rock is all about.
I don't want my beginning part of this video
to be super long,
I want it to be short, snappy,
and get people interested to watch the rest of the video.
And the climax and kind of the ending point
is the fact that this guy died
before he was able to build this machine.
And then the takeaway
is what we were talking about a little bit ago.
That's that takeaway that I wrote down
and I'm gonna expand on that a little bit.
And so I've put together
a simple story on arc for this video
for something that's like a quick vlog.
And it's kind of like your just experience in the location.
Now, some of you might think that, well, this isn't a vlog
because it's not in this format
where you're just kind of experiencing things as you go.
But I see vlogs in a few different ways,
and I'll include a link down below description
where I really break down some different vlogs structures
and some different things that are working on YouTube.