How I Record YouTube Videos
Now that I have camera lighting I have the options to other things on my YouTube channel! I made a How-To video, on How I Record My YouTube videos, what equipment I use, my thoughts, and more! I made this blog on the side for a more detailed explanation of how I record videos because 9 minutes isn't really enough to really explain what goes on when I record, but still is a really good summary to get a gist of it.
HOW I RECORD YOUTUBE VIDEO, VIDEO:
The first thing I asked myself when I first started making videos, is what kind of videos do I want to make? It’s nothing something I figured out right away, but the more videos I made I had more clearer pictures of my goals and who my target audience were. I watched a lot of Youtube video tutorials, especially cooking ones, and I always found like they were lacking in detail, and most of them wanted you to click on a bunch of links to get to the ingredients, or to re-watch the entire video just for directions. I know this is just a little thing they like to do to get more views and clicks.
Sometimes recipes are demonstrated too fast, and not everyone knows it takes like at least 3 minutes to whip up meringue, or how to fold them carefully in a bowl. That’s why a lot of my videos are focused on the inside of the bowl, rather than like, my face, my kitchen. Minus the fact I’m too lazy to put on my face for the camera.
I know a lot of the videos out there are for an entertainment purposes, but I would rather have a good a balance, of entertainment, and being able to teach others through my videos. That’s why I take tons of photos for step by step tutorials, update my blogs with detailed directions on the recipes, along with that I post videos with direction and ingredients, and the bottom with description has that information too. And if that wasn’t enough I made like little grid photos with step by step photos. I think its important to think about what kind of videos would you want to watch yourself, and take all those ideas and put it into your own videos. You know what viewers want, because you, yourself are one. *mindblown* Not saying that short videos are bad for how to videos, but a lot of my recipes aren’t just cake box recipes, and I’m just trying to break it down for you. Almost all of my videos are from scratch, and they’re not the weak hearted or lazy. You’ll need all the details you can get. I’m sort of reaching towards people that are enthusiastic about baking, but they want to transition over to more intermediate leveled recipes.
EQUIPMENT
I don’t want to say you need nice things to produce good content because in the beginning I used to record videos using only one hand. With a spoon in one hand and camera in the other, Yes I got made fun for it a lot, but it worked out.
One of the few other extra things that I’ve gotten myself just make my YouTube editing experience a lot more easier, and for you guys to be able to see and hear things a lot more clearer. I’m not here to tell you how you should spend your money, but I feel like you shouldn’t throw down 1000s or even 100s of dollars right away, unless youtube pays you that much, or if you have other purposes other than for YouTube for those equipment.
 Samsung Nx Mini Camera http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IVEHTCY/ref=twister_B00R5MIGM0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 |
CAMERA
I don’t know if any of you have noticed but up until my birthday, where I made my S’mores Ice cream cake video, I’ve been using my smartphone to film my YouTube videos. Starting out I was using the Samsung Galaxy 3, then changed to iPhone 5(8GB), which was pretty a pretty dumb move on my part because you can’t have a SD card in iPhones and needing a large amount of space for recording things like baking tutorial is really important. But if you’re making like a video on like, I don’t know “what’s in my purse” or 20 fun facts about me that takes 5 minutes, it might not be as big as a deal. Baking just takes up a lot of time, means a lot of recording, bigger sized files and you’ll need a lot of space. Also, it was much more easier uploading my videos, and photos using an android phone, and with the iPhone it was just really glitchy and crashed a lot. The sites I used to upload my photos was like Picasa, and my website for pictures and written tutorials were in Blogger.com and they all went hand in hand. But I had to find ways around that once I got my iPhone, and had to manually transfer my files a lot.
For camera I did debate over getting DSLR cameras and if I were to get one it, it would’ve been either t3i, or the t5i camera, but I wanted to spread out the money I had to get, lighting equipment, a mic, and like money to actually to buy ingredients, that I settled, well I don’t want to say settle, it was a more smart choice. Because I was able to afford all these other things. But I ended up going with the Samsung NX Mini this camera has a flip lcd screen. You can see yourself while recording videos. It comes in a bunch of fun colors, (yes that’s like my main reason of buying most of these things) I got this in pink, it matched my personality.
I would to note that a lot of things I bought, were refurbished through Amazon or the actual manufacturer’s sites. Which means there may be small imperfections, but they fixed it and you shouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But usually in the description it’ll say like what the imperfection was, and if it’s new or has scratches. so instead of like $400 for a camera i spent like $200. It did have like a 90 day warranty on it. I’m overall satisfied with this camera and it really make recording a lot easier. Though I would have just stuck to using only my phone to record, but I really did need a second camera for different angles. And the battery life of my phone sometimes didn’t last long enough throughout the whole shoot, that I would need to connect the charger while recording half the time. Which is really hard to work with while you’re baking. It actually fits onto my tripod that I used for my phone. but the weight of the camera is a bit much for the tripod, but it does the job, but you would need the feet of the tripod the be fully extended at all times and to be ready to catch your phone if it knocks over.
I also bought 64 GB micro SD card for my camera,which is like a little removable disk to store your memory so i’ll like, never run out memory ever again. If you have an android you may have seen this inside your phone, if you’re an iPhone users, you don't have this.
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| Innogear Tripod Selfie Stick |
TRIPOD
To record you’ll need a tripod, or a place to set your phone. This is probably the first purchase aside from I camera that I made, since it actually is as important as the camera. Depending on what angle you want your video to be, tripod would be the most flexible. It's actually a selfie stick that also converts into a tripod and it comes in a bunch of fun colors, green, pink gold, blue. The base of the tripod that holds it down, isn’t the most sturdiest in the world, so you should be careful. And make sure your tripod doesn’t stick out on the camera or it’ll be a distraction to your viewers eyes.
Before I did use a different kind of tripod, it was a regular tripod, with like tripod adapter that was like meant for smartphones to be attached. Unfortunately I don’t have a link for that because it was a gift from my brother who was sick of me recording baking videos with one hand all the time.
I suggest multiple angles to keep viewers more entertained. Though it really does get tough cooking in the kitchen and recording what you're doing, and on top of that trying to take photos at the same time. Be sure your area is clean, and you don’t have anything embarrassing in the background. Then again, internet loves super embarrassing things, so that could be your next viral video. But it’s best to keep things tidy.
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Neewer® 12''x12'' inch/30x30 cm Photo Studio Shooting Tent Light Cube Diffusion Soft Box Kit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GKFWWIW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage |
Photos
It was a pain to take my phone out of the mount or wherever, to take a photo. And a lot of times I needed to look up something off my phone and had to take the phone off the mount. You can have a laptop or iPad for that, but those things sort of tend to get in the way, and dangerous around all the liquids and food stuff your cooking, and you’d have to be extra careful. I recommend writing down the ingredients and directions, and carefully going over the steps. Take lots and lots of photos because step by step photos are useful in How To videos and they can contribute to your blog. I just use photo grid for collages and a close friend recommended I used Metipicu app to edit my photos. When you upload videos to Picasa they go hand in hand with blogger.com, a blog site, and you can easily just drag whatever Picasa photo you have into your blog. And that includes your youtube videos.
Lighting
Cowboy Studio Lighting
It's good to have good lighting in your videos, you don’t want to have your videos in the dark, like a creeper, unless its one of those kind of videos. Recording during the morning or day time is usually when lighting is best. Don’t have lights right above you like I do because it’ll give you this greenish tint in your videos. Sometimes to mess around with the lighting while taking photos I’d cover my hands over the lens and quickly remove them and snap photos. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but for a split second, sometimes it shows a different kind of photo. But to be honest most of my videos were recorded during the night. I started around 8 pm and ended around 4 am. Though I have made a lot of videos, I’m till a little weirded out recording videos in front of my family walking in and out the kitchen. And I just find its less distracting recording at night when theres no one around, and I have the kitchen to myself.
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Blue Snowball Ice Microphone
VOICE
The microphone I’m using right now is the Blue Snowball Ice. I went through a lot of reviews, amazon and youtube both. and this seemed to be the most affordable mic out there and used by a lot of YouTubers who can’t afford the yeti microphone that is twice the price. (like me) It works perfectly and I have no complaints. There are three different settings, I normally go with 1, and I think 3 is for like a group of people around the room. Honestly I don’t hear the difference in my own voice between 1 or two. It comes in different colors, and I went with white, because for some reason they jacked up the price just for it to be in pink.
Before buying a real mic I would use the microphone off my laptops. And that’s supposed to be last resort, worst video quality ever. It’s a real struggle trying to make your audio sound clear, and I’d have to reiterate everything I’m saying, at least 10 times, for one line just so it sounds clear. That’s why in the end of my videos I had this raspy I’m dying voice. With the snowball ice, everything was just in one go.
When you’re Adjust the sound levels, on your computer, because anything that goes above the line, is usually going to make your audience’s ears bleed out. And for music there are a lot of royalty free music out there that you can use. But sometimes its a pain to search for new songs, that I just repeat a lot of my videos. one of the sites is bensound.com/royalty-free-music/ that everyone seems to use. I would keep the background music at least a 4-6 on my video. Background music, is background music. I’ve gotten lazy with music that I just use whatever music thats in my iMovie. I’m not really big on the sound, because by the time I get to it, I no longer care. and it’s least of my priorities.
What Have I Been Using To Edit?
YouTube Editor
For a very long time I’ve been using YouTube Editor, and probably used the most in my earliest videos. I’ll place the link to here. Back when I had the android, I would just send all my raw videos from my phone onto YouTube. It would have taken a really long time, and hours to do it, but I was a nub back then. YouTube Editor is pretty easy to use, and its for basic editing, cutting videos and adding subtitles. Unfortunately its gone through so many updates that I was unable to edit anything because it kept crashing every few seconds. And the dangerous part of using this, is if you don’t refresh to save your work, or if you exit accidentally, or if you crash without saving, you can possibly lose all the hours of work you put into your video, this happened to me on several occasions. The pro of using this editor is, not needing to download any software onto your computer, and you just edit through your web browser.
Windows Movie Maker For Windows
There wasn’t anything special about this, I had this on my HP laptop. It was just a slightly better improvement from YouTube video editor. You can make basic cuts and add texts. But it was a little bit too confusing for me to master, and it looks like something you’d use in 1998.
I didn’t really tell my family that I have been making YouTube videos, because I was kind of weird, it wasn’t exactly a secret, I just wasn’t announcing it to the world and I didn’t want anyone to know about it and judge me. And i didn’t want all my fans to be like just family members, family member friends, and I wanted to make a name on my own (still am)
iMOVIE For Macs(currently using)
(What I use currently and comes free with the iMac)
It wasn’t until I was getting a somewhat decent amount of views and receiving some spending cash every month through youtube that I told my parents about it, and they were just like, "WHY ARENT YOU MAKING MORE VIDEOS" And I told them how I am regularly updating but its just my constant struggle of everything crashing, and using lag computers were slowly everything down. My dad then let me “borrow” his iMac computer that has iMovie installed to it, and a portable hard drive they had laying around the house to save all my footage and photos in.
I don’t want to say you need nice things to produce good content, because in the beginning I used to record videos using only one hand. With a spoon in one hand and camera in the other, Yes I got made fun for it a lot, but it worked out.
One of the few other extra things that I’ve gotten myself just make my YouTube editing experience a lot more easier, and for you guys to be able to see and hear things a lot more clearer. I’m not here to tell you how you should spend your money, but I feel like you shouldn’t throw down 1000s or even 100s of dollars right away, unless youtube pays you that much, or if you have other purposes other than for YouTube for those equipment.
Other Stuffs
I don’t have much to say appearance wise because I don’t regularly make an appearance on my videos.
Or have anything to say personality wise because I’m dead inside.
But remember Smile, take breaks, drink water.
It’s going to be nerve-wracking to upload your first video, but I can almost guarantee you it just keeps gets better and better after each video you make. And you’ll just get used to it.
Thanks for reading
Good luck on making videos
Comment below for any questions.
Add me, nao! And send me food pics! If you're having a baking emergency feel free to contact me anywhere to ask any questions. I reply more quickly through Instagram
Twitter@hungrymoomoocow
Instagram@hungrymoomoocow
Blogger@hungrymoomoocow
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/hungrymoomoocow/960420374008109
(Would be great if you guys let me know that you found me through my fewd/youtube/ so I won't think you're just any random stalker.
Add me, nao! And send me food pics! If you're having a baking emergency feel free to contact me anywhere to ask any questions. I reply more quickly through Instagram
Twitter@hungrymoomoocow
Instagram@hungrymoomoocow
Blogger@hungrymoomoocow
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/hungrymoomoocow/960420374008109
(Would be great if you guys let me know that you found me through my fewd/youtube/ so I won't think you're just any random stalker.
Hey Sarak aka Kim...lovely post and lovely blog altogether...will certainly follow from now on...please feel free to get in touch with me on my blog...shrinkfly.weebly.com
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