Transcripts
1. How to Vlog - Trailer: hello and welcome to my free course on how to block. My name is Jeff Indo V, and I'm gonna be taking you through this entire process from beginning to end. I started blogging about three years ago, and it really took me a long time to figure out what makes a compelling block something that people want to watch. My channel was going so slow for the longest time, and then it just took off. It was because I switched the way I was doing things and I changed my approach when it comes to blogging. So I've broken down the whole idea of logging into a few sections the gear shooting, editing, uploading, sharing and what I've learned from creating my vlogs so that you could have a head start making some really awesome content. Guys, I'm really excited for this journey for you, for you guys to start making some awesome videos. That will be fun, interesting and something that others want to watch. All right, guys, this is your beginner's course on how to block
2. How to Vlog Introduction: Hello and welcome to my free course on how to vlog. My name is Jeff Indo V, and I'm gonna be taking you through this entire process from beginning to end. I started blogging about three years ago and it really took me a long time to figure out what makes a compelling vlog something that people want to watch. My channel was going so slow for the longest time, and then it just took off and was because I switched the way I was doing things. And I changed my approach when it comes to blogging. So I've broken down the whole idea of logging into a few sections the gear shooting, editing, uploading, sharing and what I've learned from creating my vlogs so that you could have a head start in making some really awesome content. Guys, this course is completely free. So make sure that you head over to my YouTube channel. Come find me. I'll put a link down below in the description. And the resource is for this first introduction. Make sure you come over hit that subscribe button. There is a ton of awesome content on my channel about filmmaking, about blogging. Come check out some of my vlogs to you get a sense of who I am as you're taking this course and so you can see a little bit behind the curtain of who? Your instructors. Guys, I'm really excited for this journey. For you, for you guys to start making some awesome videos. That will be fun, interesting. And something that others want. Toe watch. All right, guys, this is your beginner's course on how to vlog.
3. What is Vlogging: so vlogging is a newer style of content that is being produced. Obviously, everyone sees vlogs nowadays. If you're in instagram YouTube, all that, even if you're just watching stories, that is a style of flogging, your basically telling your view of something or showing a little bit about your life to an audience of other people. The term flogging comes from the word blogging. But video blogging because it was a way for people to just talk about themselves, put themselves out there on camera and give their view of the world in a video style format . Now, obviously, blogging has changed over the years of where it started and where it is now. But there still is a huge range of what blogging is and why people do it. So flogging could be like this. Blogging could be with me holding onto a camera running around, and it gives you a window to have a conversation. Even if you're the only one talking to them, there is still a conversation going on, and people feel more engaged to you as a person. Whether you're trying to sell a product or grow of following flogging is a way for you to connect directly with your audience. So it's very important in this day and age to understand what a vlog is and how to flog and vodka come in many forms. It doesn't have to be just a 10 minute YouTube log. It could be a minute video on your instagram. It could be 15 seconds. Blogging is essentially just giving an audience a window into your life and your thoughts and what how you feel about a specific topic or situation.
4. A few more thoughts on Vlogging: so vlogging is kind of an important part of the YouTube culture, and it's actually expanded beyond YouTube. A lot of people, just in general are blogging to connect with the audience. Flogs air. Important part of businesses. Nowadays, it's important part of your brand. So to connect with your audiences of blog's allows you to step into your world and give your audience a kind of behind the scenes. Look at you and your life. Now what that said. Not everyone's gonna be blogging and doing the whole daily flogging thing. I think that's a little bit crazy because it's so much work to do a vlog every day unless you are a specific daily vlog.
5. The Gear: Okay, let's get into the gear. That is the first section. The tools, these air, the things that you need to create your vlog and its very core. You just need a camera, because if you can tell a compelling story or give someone some insight into you as a person, it doesn't matter the tools you're doing it with, however, you're gonna want to progress your and want get better tools. You're gonna going to get better cameras, microphones all that as you get more and more into flogging. So the essentials are a camera and beyond a camera, a stick or a tripod to hold the camera and a microphone to capture better audio at the very basic that is, the vloggers set up in the that is the essentials that you need now personally depend on the situation. I've had different variations of this. Sometimes I just use a camera by itself. But that's just because of the situation that I'm in. So one camera that's really good for flogging is the GoPro. It's just easy camera have in your pocket and take it wherever you need to go. It's also waterproof shockproof, all that good stuff and it captures a decent image that's wide so you can hold it out out, away from your face, and you can get a good shot. And there's also some extra features on the GoPro, which help out a lot. Another camera, which most of you have in your pocket right now, is your phone, and your phone is an important tool because you have it with you. It's there all the time, and it captures good video captures good audio. So it's a great camera to start with to learn how to vlog and to do all that. But if you want to step it up and you want to actually get better at flogging, you're gonna want to use a bigger camera with a microphone. So, personally, I used the Panasonic GH five. It's an awesome camera. Before this, I was using the GH four have also used Sony a 65 100 a 63 100 I like toe have a smaller camera, something that's not super heavy, but something that can also bring in a microphone into, and the microphone that I use as the road vid Mike Pro. This thing is awesome. It's a great microphone to get good sound out of, you know, doing flogs and doing videos on the go and the last piece is the stick a lot of people use like a Jobe tripod, one of those bendy tripods. I did that for a while. I actually like a smaller footprint, so I found a little mini tripod. It works well. It allows me to set the camera now and still have that tripod shot. But then also, I can hold it as a stick, and it's not as big as the jobe, so links toe. All the equipment that I'm talking about in this video are down in the description. If you want to check out the exact tools that I use and you can get a sense of the cameras I'm using to create my vlogs like it said earlier, at its very core, you just need a camera and then, from there a stick and a microphone, and that is your basic vlogging kit. And one more thing about the camera that you're using. You just got to use the camera that makes sense in the situation that you're filming. So if we're doing something like river rafting, we're gonna be just using the GoPro because it's waterproof. It's easy to have on me. I attach it to my helmet attention to a stick, and then I can pull it off and also vlog with it. So if you're in a situation where you don't want to destroy camera because your water snow , who knows what it is? You're just in a situation where you know holding a bigger camera with a microphone doesn't make sense. It's on big deal. Just use a smaller cameras, something that works for the situation. But if you do have the bigger set up, you're gonna want to use that as much as possible because you want to get the best footage you can possible no matter what situation you're shooting. So if you have a GH five with a microphone and stick, use that as much as possible and then change over to things like the GoPro or the phone, depending on the situation
6. How to Shoot a Vlog: Let's get into shooting. This is the fun part. This is shooting all the content, going and doing the adventure, exploring and capturing it. But there's a lot more to shooting than just going out and just going for it and just shooting every little bit about your day. No one cares about your day. I'm just gonna put it out there. Nobody really cares, because a vlog at its core is not just a follow me along and see what I do in a day. Sometimes those air interesting if you're really interested in the person as an individual , but a lot of times vlogs need to be more than just following someone around when you follow someone around. That's a really boring flog. And that's what a lot of people do when they first started shooting vlogs because they think that that's what a vlog is. A flog is just following someone on their day looked to do due to do. This is so cool. Look, I'm eating breakfast. I'm, you know, shaving my face. I'm going to go down to the store today like that kind of flogging is really boring. Unless you have a big following and a lot of people that are actively engaged with you as a person. If someone likes you, then they're gonna wanna watch your block. But if somebody doesn't know you and they stumble upon that, they're gonna have no interest, they're gonna click off. So to shoot an interesting flog, you're going to need to have a story you're gonna have tohave a journey of some sort or you're gonna be funny or be going to an event like there's got to be some sort of story that goes throughout your day and you got to think of it as a film. As Casey Neistat said when he first started blogging, he's going to make a film every day, not a flog. And that's the whole thing. You've got to treat it as a film. So when you're shooting a film, you have a story. You have a beginning of middle and an end and you tell your story through us. A plot and a plot could be a hero's journey. It could be a quest. It could be a tragedy like there's different ways to think about story and story structure . When I'm shooting my vlogs a lot of times when we're traveling, I'm just going on a journey. So I'm taking someone along on the journey. And when I'm thinking about it, I'm not gonna vlog unless there is a trajectory from like I'm starting here. I'm ending here. I want to take people on this journey to see what it is them doing. So if I'm in Thailand and I'm going to go see the elephants, my journey is to meet the elephants, do the experience and see the bigger picture of elephants by the end of the entire flock. And that's what I did with the Villagomez in Thailand. I wanted to talk about the bigger issues with elephants as a whole. I want to show a proper interaction. If you are a tourist that is going to Thailand, there is some planning, and there is some thought that goes in before you even start rolling. The cameras use got to think about what it is that you're gonna want to flog about and try to come up with a bigger overall story to fit your daily block. And with that, you're gonna want to be able to have a beginning a middle and end and you're gonna want to do the basics of story that you see in films and you see, in every book out there you don't want, just start shooting and just think that you're gonna have a cool, interesting vlog just by spraying the camera everywhere you go. Okay, a couple more points. Besides, the whole story aspect of shooting a vlog is the main aspect of a vlog is basically engaging with you as a creator. So you're gonna be filming yourself. You're gonna be. That's why you have a stick. And that's why you have a microphone and a camera is pointing at you is you're filming yourself. You're giving your journey your experience to your viewers. So you will turn the camera around and obviously show everything else that's going on. But at its core, you're filming yourself, so you're going to either hold the camera out in front of you or you're going to set the camera down and walk up to the camera and talk to the camera. You just got to find creative ways to talk to the camera and be unengaged creator with your audience. You're having a conversation back and forth, find ways to talk to your audience. And don't just make them a passenger on the train of your journey through the day or whatever it is that you're filming. You want to be actively engaged with them. You want to have conversations and you want to talk to them. All right, So we picked up our friends Autumn and Katie there, back there, Bill saying alone a bit because they want a shower. But she had a little bit of an accident Way flipped a motorcycle like two days ago yesterday. Okay, Another key point about shooting is don't be afraid to flog. If you're out in public, people are gonna look at you. It's just it is what it is. You're holding a camera in front of your face and your planet at yourself. People know what bloggers are nowadays. Like you'll be in situations where people big coats of longer. Just don't be afraid. And that's like a key thing here. When you're being a blogger, you can't be afraid to shoot things. You just got to shoot everything. And if something happens, something happens. If someone tells you to put down the camera, we'll put down the camera. But don't be afraid to put up the camera and shoot to begin with. I've been shut down plenty of times where I've been shooting in situations where, you know, they just didn't want cameras there. So I was in an airport in Belize or Mexico, and I was shooting myself talking to camera. I definitely had security, tapped me on the shoulder and be like, You got to put this away. What are you filming and start questioning me? Get out of here. So sure getting out. So I'm headed over dealer airline a little bit later. City airport all day. But this is that was but it just is what it is. You just got to own it, and you just go for it. Stop caring about what other people think, because as a blogger, you're putting your content out there for other people to look at you. So you're gonna have to just not care at all about other people is really own it. Really believe in what you're doing is something that is entertaining and enjoyable. Toe watch for your viewers. Okay? Some bloggers don't do a lot of this, but I personally think this is a key ingredient and that has captured a ton of B roll and make it cool cinematic B roll. So I've done a ton of videos on my channel about how to get cinematic footage. Watch those if you're looking for ideas on ways to get cinematic footage. But for me, what I do is I capture a ton of slow motion footage to capture a ton of drone shots. A ton of just be role in general, be role is essentially the stuff that ties everything together. So you have your story, you have all your talking bits of you, and now you're gonna want the B roll to make your project more exciting to make your video mawr engaging to see the location that you're at, just make the vlog amore exciting thing toe watch. So lots of b roll shoot a lot of b roll. Just shoot everything that you're doing and shoot b roll around it, come up with new cinematic creative ways to tell the story and not just talking to camera all the time and going along with this is just shoot more than you think. So this is also your story line and also your B roll. Everything. Just shoot more than you think, because when you get into editing, you'll realize that you use a lot more footage than you think to edit a flog. I've shot multiple days and trend it down to a five minute vlog because the storyline Onley fit the five minutes that I actually captured within that those days, even though I shot a ton of footage.
7. The Importance of B roll: B roll. It's that footage you get kind of like on the side that you get to kind of enhance your story, enhance what it is that you're doing. But the thing is, it's actually one of the most important things that you can do as a filmmaker, which is getting good B roll and getting enough bureau there. So many times I've got back into my edit bay and I've used every single bit of B roll that I shot. It's crazy when you're out there shooting, you think you know you got like, 20 shots or 30 shots and you're like, That is great, That's good. I got a ton of coverage. I'm good to go. But in reality, when you start putting it together and you start splicing, you're like Man, I could I could have used 100 shots. It's insane how much B roll you can end up using on a project and how important that B roll is. So outside of the YouTube world, I have a production company and we shoot a lot of pro mo's. We shoot a lot of commercials and then also I work on reality TV and I shoot documentary work outside of my production company. I am in this world of Go, go, go getting things on the spot, going out there and shooting running, gun style And so be Rule is very important. For example, I shot a show recently called Mr Impossible. It's a sports documentary show following this guy Matt Liston, as he goes around and tries to change things in the sports world. So he does these crazy impossible tasks. And then I film every step of the way, and we cut these little documentaries out. So we've done three of these so far, and I can't tell you how important the role is. So when we're shooting, say, an interview, it's, you know, Matt and its A player and they're having a conversation. Not only am I covering that with three cameras, so one on either person and then I'm doing 1/3 is a wide. But the most important thing that they always ask me for in the Edit Bay from the Editors is that they need cutaways, so they need that B roll footage of, like, hands moving. They need, like some stuff in the environment because there's always situations where you need to cut away. It's crazy. When you start looking at documentary Project and you're looking for a B roll, you'll see things like hands movement. You'll see reactions. You'll see all this different stuff that is not actually the person talking on camera, and a lot of that you get after the fact. So we'll shoot entire interview and then, you know, because we're working with, like, big players, you know? So these famous guys, they don't have a lot of time. We like 15 minutes with him, so we'll shoot the interview, he'll take off. But then what we'll do is we'll keep Matt there and we'll shoot just a ton of extra footage and beer. Oh, and inserts just things that could be used throughout the entire interview but make it seem like it's seamless that make it seem like we captured it at the moment. So outside of the interview sphere, let's say you're making like, a travel fit. I mean, we make a ton of travel videos. B roll is like the number one thing. So, like, you know, I could shoot a vlog and I could be having myself on camera. Just chat chat chat, but it's not really that interesting that that interesting stuff is all that B roll footage . It's all the extra footage. It's this footage that helps tell the story. So you've got to get the insert shots. You got to get the still motion shots. You got to get the drone shots. I mean, all this footage is so important in capturing the place look, and the feel and everything about what it is that you're shooting. You know, just talking to camera. You're not gonna get so beer. Oh, gives you that window into the environment. It gives you more coverage of the subject that you're capturing so that the viewers have a better understanding of what it is that you're shooting. You know, they get a better understanding of your story. They get the entire picture of what it is that you're trying to do, and at the very least, be role is what's gonna help save your project. So let's say that you shot a bunch of interviews and you have a little bit of footage and you're trying to tell a story. Well, if you don't have very much footage than you're, you're film is gonna fall flat. It's just not gonna work because e that b roll to move the story along. You need the bureau to cover things when there's errors. You the beer, old to show the bigger picture so I can't stress it enough. B roll is absolutely important. Anything that's a cut away from your main subject is considered a hero, and that is very, very important. So when you're out shooting a tip that I'm gonna give to you when you think you've capture enough bureau, don't stop. Because here's the thing. There is always more shots that you're gonna need. Like when I'm shooting these documentary projects. I am always just looking and thinking. What else could I capture in this scene and the environment? And it blows me away of how much of this footage actually gets used. There's never too much, and that's something you gotta get out of your head. There's never you're never finished like you could always capture more, because if you have more B roll, then you can paint a better picture. You can use it sculpted in different ways. When you get in the Edit Bay, there is a lot of use for all that extra footage that you're gathering around your subject . Okay, guys, as enough with the preaching on B roll, I hope that was helpful. When you're out there shooting, just think, How can I capture the scene outside of the main chute and go grab some extra footage? The more you shoot in, the more you edit more. You play with your footage in post, you'll realize, Oh, anymore B roll or anymore, that anymore, that so bureau is one of those number one things that you just gotta get and you've got to get a lot of
8. How to Edit a Vlog: So now let's get into editing and let's talk about how you edit a vlog. Sizemore impactful and so that your viewers want to watch it. You shot all those awesome content. You have a idea at a storyline that you want to put together creative log for your viewers . So the key to start any edit process with a vlog or a film or anything that your doing in general is that you just need to know your footage. So before you even start cutting, bring all your footage into your software. I use final cut X, And what I do is I scrub through all my footage just to see what I've shot, to see all the things that have captured throughout my day or throughout my week, whatever it is that I'm blogging about, just so I know all the footage I have. So if there is major gaps, if there is something that even remember that I shot, I know about it. So when I start editing, it makes it a lot easier to be like, Yes, I have that. I'm gonna put that in the edit or I gotta figure out a creative way to jump from this to this. And now that goes into the second part, which is editing and editing is fairly easy. Most flogs are beginning to end in the way you shoot is in the way you edit, so you're starting at the beginning of your day and your ending at the end of your day. So it's very easy to edit of Log Me when I use Final Cut Because of the magnetic timeline, I'll take all the footage and literally drop it into the timeline and just start beginning and work my way through. And that's because everything is basically time. A day starts the beginning and it ends at the end, like I was saying. So I'm able to just drop it on the timeline and just start working through and cutting it all up. It makes it go really fast, and I can cut my vlogs in, like, an hour, two hours, depending on what the situation was. Obviously, some vlogs take a lot more effort, but some of the more basic ones I can chop them up super quick by just dropping all the footage into the timeline and just going for it. An important thing to realize when you're editing your footage is this concept I learned way back in college. One of my professors taught me this. He said, Kill your babys, which is a really horrible thing to say. It's one of things that will destroy a project because people spend all this time and effort to get these awesome shots. Well, if they don't fit the story, if they don't fit the vlog, then you just need to take him out. And one of those things because you're shooting, editing and doing everything. You can't put weight on shots just because of how long or how complex the shop was when you were on set shooting or out in your day shooting. You have to think about the project from a different standpoint, and when you're editing, you just need to look at the footage objectively. And that's the key is if that shot maybe took two hours to do this cool time lapse that houses movement. But it doesn't fit the video at all. You're going to just have to take it out, and you're gonna have to get emotional about it. And that's one of things about filmmaking that's tough, and one of the hardest things when you're shooting and editing your own content is that you are removing a ton of stuff that you put time and effort into, and you know that this shot is so epic and so cool. But if it doesn't fit this storyline, if it doesn't fit the overall thing that you're doing with your vlog, then you just gotta cut it out completely. And it's tough. But it's something that you just got to do. And then one last tip when you're editing just always be on the lookout for a hook and a hook is basically a really interesting, you know, 10 to 15 2nd peace within your entire vlog that will get your viewers attentions to keep watching and that hook you'll put at the beginning of your vlog, whether it's a sentence that someone said, or an action where, like you're falling off a cliff into a water, something where people are like, I want to know more that what's gonna happen, what's going on. You're basically setting up the video so that people are like, I want to see what happened. With that, you're gonna take that chicken possibly you could get us closest possible Closer, closer, closer so it could be somewhere anywhere in your flog. It's basically just a moment or an idea that captures your viewers attention. And that is an important part of a vlog because it gets the people in. Then they watch your vlog. You have your beginning middle and you tell your story, and that's how you keep people on your channel and get them to subscribe.
9. Music for vlogging - ArtList: music is kind of the underlying driving force of everything that you do. If you don't have good, solid music than your piece is gonna fall flat, no matter what you do. So music is important. It really sets the emotional tone for the entire piece, and it gives your viewers an instant feeling of what the content is and kind of the emotions behind it. - There's so much that goes into picking the right music for the scene or for the Phil, and you see this all the time done wrong when people put music behind a piece and it just doesn't fit, you can tell right away if something is way too dramatic for the content that you're watching. So I get asked all the time, Where do I get my music? When I first started production company, the way we got music was very different than how we get it now. So back then we had to find composers or we had to buy individual tracks to fit our pieces , and it becomes very expensive. There's projects that I've done that have been upwards of $20,000 just for one video, which is absolutely nuts. But That's what happens when you pay a composer to write an original piece of music for your content. However, nowadays it's so much easier. There's actually sites online that give you access to an entire library for one cost. And there's one site that stands out among all the rest, and that is art list. So essentially, what art list is is you pay a yearly fee of $200 you basically have access to all of their content, and you can use it for anything so you can use it for your YouTube videos. You can use it for your clients. You could use it for your instagram. You can use it for any video project that comes your way as long as you remember. And if you decide to cancel your membership, anything you made during that membership can still be used. So all the music that's on my videos now, even if I decided to cancel down the road, the music would still be licensed for those videos, and this is really changing the game for music because now we don't to worry about spending crazy amounts of money on music, and we have access to a full library to really use to craft our videos the way we want to craft him. So how it works is you consort the library by type or style, or what it is that you're actually shooting, and you could put a few filters to find the music that you want to find. Then you just go through and search track by track, listeningto all the tracks, and when you find something you like, you check out and then you can download it right away. And this music will always live in your library that you've downloaded, so you could always go back to it if you need to find it. It's a super simple process, and you get some awesome music really quickly. Art List has a huge library that they're expanding every day. I keep getting emails with new artist new songs, so it's something I highly suggest if you are looking for a solution to music for your videos. When I first started YouTube, I was just using these YouTube channels that were froy Alte Free songs. But the issue is, unless you have like a paid service like art list, there's no telling when a song might go from royalty free to paid for, and all of sudden your videos get de monetized or someone else is getting the money from it . So if you just go to one of these YouTube channels that's promoting free tracks for bloggers, you don't necessarily know the rights issues, and you don't know if it's gonna change down the road. When you go with the service like art list, you know that these songs are always gonna be royalty free, and you can always use them for anything while you're a subscriber of their service. So it's a safe way to get your music so that your videos don't have issues down the road. Now when you're picking music, there is a few things you got to think about. You got to think of the tone of your piece, and you got to think of what it is that you're producing. When I'm producing some of my vlogs, I want something that's a little more cheery. I want something that's a little more like tropical house. That's style I love using for my flogs. It just fits that adventure travel kind of feeling. However, when I go for my short films, like my trip to Orizaba. I want something more dramatic. So I spend a lot of time digging through artless library trying to find songs that are more dramatic, more cinematic, because the videos that I'm producing have more of that dramatic tone. So the way that I go about figuring out what music I'm gonna use is two ways. Sometimes I will figure out the music before even start shooting. So there's a lot of times where I'll just be scrolling through art list and finding songs that I like. If I like certain songs, I'm gonna download them and I'm gonna put him on my phone so I could listen to him. This is a huge driving force when you're out shooting. If you're listening to the beat of a song, you can start thinking about how you're gonna cut a sequence. So a lot of times when I'm cutting my bureau sequences, I have a certain pacing in mine, and the music is what drives that pacing. So if you're listening to a song, you kind of get a sense of how that song makes you feel and it's sculpts how you're going to shoot a sequence. So that's one way that I go about using music. The other is after I have a mountain of footage and I'm cutting my video. I go into art list and I look for tracks that work for what I'm cut it. What I'll do is I'll cut some sequences. They were not gonna be obviously locked in, But I put some shots together, kind of get a feeling of how the footage is that I shot. And then I dig through the artless library, looking for something cinematic dramatic. Then I download a bunch of options and play him in and out and re cut to the music. It's kind of like a dance back and forth, so there's no right way to use music when you're shooting your projects. Use have to have access to good music so that you're not being stuck using the same track over and over, or you're not using stuff that doesn't fit your tracks. So, guys, I'll put a link down below toe art list. I highly suggest to go check it out. You can click around their site, listen to all their tracks. You don't have to subscribe right away. But if you use the link of my description and decide to sign up, you get an extra two months free on top of your year subscriptions. So it's a really awesome deal to get you 14 months of awesome music for super cheap. You could easily pay for one or two tracks for the same price that you're gonna pay for our list for the entire year. This online service is changing the way that music works for video producers, because now we don't have to worry so much about rights. And we don't have to worry so much about Price. We can figure out our music before we go out and start shooting, which helps us drive the peace and helps us be more creative, especially for everyone out there creating YouTube content. Social media content Music is now more accessible so that you're not getting worried about rights, and you're not having issues of getting your videos flagged wherever you're posting them.
10. Upload & Share: All right, let's go over the final touches and this is the upload process. Now you have a awesome vlog. Everything's done with it. You're, like, ready to share this. Personally, I put all my vlogs on YouTube. Other people will use other social media outlets, but we're talking YouTube here. What you're gonna want to do is create a compelling title and a companion thumbnail so that people want to click it because people, if they don't even have that compelling element of a thumb now, any title they're not gonna click on your video. So a good way to do this is look at a bunch of loggers and just look at the different styles in which they do their thumb now. And they do their titles and think of ways that you could do your title in your thumb now so that someone will click on your video. But on the other side of it, you don't want to click bait where you have some obnoxious thumbnail or obnoxious title that someone clicks on, and the video has nothing to do with what that is. You got to be engaging, but you can't be click baby. So another good tool that I use is to buddy. It's a chrome extension, and it allows you give a lot of analytics and a lot of different things when you're uploading your video. So it's a great tool to use for sure, and I put a link in the description below, so you can check that out. But I used all the time to figure out key words titles to just get a general sense of how my past titles in my past icons and things like that are working so that as I move forward and shoot Maura vlogs, I can create more engaging thumbnails and titles and key words and tags and descriptions so that people click on my videos and stay actively engaged and become a subscriber and someone who actually follows my content on the regular. One more thing is that once you post, you don't want to just let your video di you want to share it. If you have other social networks that could get more eyeballs on the video. So if you just posted on YouTube, you don't want just let it die there. You want to reach out to your instagram followers or your Facebook followers and say, Hey, check out my video. Just getting more eyeballs on your video as a whole is gonna help get it more attention and hopefully make the algorithm put your video in other places. And that's what's happened with some of my videos in the past. You know, I've posted them in different places. I've posted things on Reddit or Facebook groups for stuff that makes sense, and people will actively engage with that. Have driven a lot of followers from, say, a reddit post, where it fits with whatever reddit that I'm posting it in. So think of different ways that you could get more eyeballs on your video that are outside of where you posted.
11. What I've Learned from 2 years of Vlogging: okay, and let's go over my final thoughts. So I've done almost 200 vlogs Up until now. I started out doing daily vlogs because I thought I wanted to do the whole daily flogging thing. And the daily blogging thing is tough and hard. And like I said, unless you can come up with a unique film every day, daily blogging does not make sense at all, and it's really hard to do, and it puts a strain on everything in your life. You look at some of these big daily vloggers, and they only do it for so long before they crack before something major happens before they do something that's just really ridiculous and dumb, and they just completely are oblivious to it because they're so wrapped in this world of daily flogging. However, I think that all of us as filmmakers Kenbrell if it from doing a period of daily flogging, because putting that pressure on yourself to create a film every day gets you to be more creative and gets you ways to create new stories out of basically nothing. As a filmmaker as a youtuber, I think everyone should try daily blogging for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and just go for it and see how you can create compelling stories when you're pressured to do it day in and day out. And that practice is what gives you the knowledge so that when you're creating flogs in the future, you create interesting vlogs and not ones that are just boring and dumb. Now I've definitely created my fair share of boring vlogs. In the past, I've shut 200 which, you know, in the grand scheme of things, there's other bloggers out there have done thousands for me. It started out doing the daily thing I start doing, then just travel, and now I'm realizing more and more that it's events. It's specific things that I'm gonna capture, and that's when I'm in a vlog. I'm not gonna vlog all the time. There's just no reason to flog all the time. It just doesn't make sense for me. But if I'm doing something really cool, like for example, I was just in New Zealand and me and Rachel did some really awesome hikes. Well, I'm gonna vlog the experience of that hike so someone can come on that journey with me as I take on a mountain, and that's a really interesting flog, and there obviously is a lot more story that goes into it. The main story is obviously the journey from the bottom of the hill to the top, but there's more that goes into it. So you have your micro stories that go within each flock, and that's one last thing I want to talk about and touch on is that you're gonna have your big overall story, what it is that you're blogging about. If you're a comedy of longer, it might just be that you're you know, you're just showing a bunch of different little skits or things like that different things within the vlog itself. If you're like me and your travel blogger, you're gonna be doing an experience, and that is your overall story. But within every flogged, you're gonna have little mini stories. So, for example, when I was m pleased with my buddy, bigger overall picture of the flog was about scuba diving, and learning has scuba dive. But there were these micro stories that I told within it, and one of them was about, you know, the taco stand we found behind our hotel, and it was like awesome locals talk of stand and I made a little mini story out of it and all of your stories. No matter if they're the big, overarching story or there than micro story within, they need to have a beginning, a middle and an end. And to do that, you just need to be more vocal and explain things on camera. And so a lot of times, what I'll do is before I go into a situation, I'll explain everything that's going on like Okay, so one of the guys in our told us that there's some fabulous tacos right down the street. We're on talk a run Ze s war, his what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I expect to happen. Just talk about it. I'll do the experience. That's your middle. And then at the end, I wrap it up and kind of sum it up and talk about my experience or, you know, find some way to wrap it up, what it is that I just did. So these tacos are amazing. Zs. What's your verdict? Definitely when you travel, it's all about eating locally eating from the local taco stand is much better than, you know, eating tacos from the overpriced restaurant. Now, you're not always going to use this footage, but always having something before and something after the event that it is that you're doing gives you the ability in your post production to be able to cut a beginning Miller end if there's not another way to cut it. So I always set up stories and always end. Um, even if I'm not gonna use that footage in the edit, So something to think about when you're going into situations just set things up, do your vlog do whatever and then wrap it up at the end of days. I always do this. I always try to sit down and have a conversation with you guys as the viewers about what just happened. Wrap up the day, say goodbye, do all that stuff and you do that with each situation that happens within your vlog. That could be a story and a key element to something that's going on, and we are back in L. A. What is up? So I'm sure you're wondering what happened with the drone because that's where it last left you off in Nicaragua. But we got the drone back and ended up being a bigger hassle than expected. You might use the footage you might not, but it's always good toe. Have more footage than to have less. Alright, guys, that was a lot of information. This is everything that I've learned over the past couple of years of shooting flogs, and I hope that this information will help you become a better vlogger in your future flogging journey.
12. Thanks for Watching! : All right, So what you guys think about my course on how to flock? There's obviously so much more that we can go in depth with flogging. But I want to give you guys an overview, some things to think about and some ways to be successful when you go out and start flogging. If you haven't already, make sure you head over to YouTube. Come find my channel. Hit that subscribe button because I make these free courses completely for you guys so that you can learn and that you could be successful and make sure that you share your channel with me so that I can come check out your videos so I can see some of your blog's and see what you're producing. Alright, guys, that is it for your beginner's introduction toe blogging. I hope it helps you make some awesome content, and I hope you find success with YouTube.
Jeven Dovey, Filmmaker & YouTuber
