Gamersrijit: October 2014

Friday, October 24, 2014

tips for the beginner youtuber...

Things you will need:-

1. A pc or laptop. Preferably windows 7. Cause let’s face it, a Mac is too damn costly for some people.

2. Basic video editing software. Say Sony Vegas or Wondershare

3. A good video camera which can be either plugged into a power source or has a good battery life. I recommend using any phone with an 8 mp above camera. And proper lighting.

4. A tripod. Mobile tripods are also available online so no worries.

5. A quiet room with good acoustics. Just record yourself speaking in different rooms in your apartment/home etc, and see which sounds best and has least amount of outside noise – cars honking, people talking loudly on their cell phones etc

6. A capture device ( only for game capture , try Live gamer portable by avermedia.)

7. Some patience for retakes and a well thought out script.

8. A screen recorder. I recommend Debut. ( for reviews where you have to include a snippet from a website. Or where you are reviewing the website it self. )

9. A good internet connection. By good I mean reliable. For it does take some time to upload the video to utube. I recommend using a basic unlimited plan from any isp.

10. A subject.

Well… I guess by now you have probably either skipped through that list, or must have ignored it completely. Please don’t do that. Just go back and read it again.

It’s by no means an exhaustive list of all the review possibilities. For example it does not take into account a food review. Where you can just take a snap of the plated food and write about your experiences below.

I can go on and on and bore you to death or just keep it simple and short.

I am going with option 2.

Also note, this is the first time I am writing in length so excuse the structure or lack thereof.

For a good review, you must first have a good enough camera and proper lighting. Some of the more experienced reviewers use studio lighting, but lets face it, they have dedicated rooms to use as a studio.

Just make sure your video is being shot in a well lit room and you’d be all set.

Don’t use table lamps however. As those things have different capacities and will mess things up.

Always clip your nails and keep your hands clean. For unless you are facing the camera directly, those are the first things that catch the audiences eye.

Use simple language. Avoid using too much technical jargon as you are trying to show things to an audience who not all might be computer engineers or tech enthusiasts.

But I will give this that there are some points where jargon is needed, do explain what it means.

For example, when you use 8 mega pixel or 10 megapixel to describe a camera, do say that’s that is a rating of the camera which determines how sharp the image is going to be. This is oversimplification, granted, but you will not sell a camera by simply throwing tech specs at the customer. Of course there will be some viewers who buy things solely based on the tech specs. So try to keep things balanced.

For the actual recording part, do a dry run first.

Time it with a stopwatch.

Anything above 10 minutes is considered excessive unless it’s a very popular product like the iPhone or Ps4 or Cannon cameras for example.

You should remember the following review length rule of thumb.

1. Less than or equal to 5 minutes. Is classified as a quick preview. Example: an un-boxing video.

2. Less than or equal to 10 minutes is classified as a review.

3. 15 minutes to 20 minutes is considered a full review.

4. 20 minutes and up to maximum of 30 minutes is considered an exhaustive review. For example an exhaustive review for a mobile phone will consist of detailed description of its physical features, a full walk-through of all its software features and benchmarks in detail.

If you have stuttering issues like me, just speak slowly and carefully. No one wants to listen to a motormouth when they want to hear about details. Stick to the script and keep it simple.

Once the dry run is over, record the video again and see if it matches with your target.

If not, rinse and repeat.

You can also record separate clips and merge them together with transitions if you find that recording and entire video at one go is proving difficult.

For the subject choose something that’s new but well known.

Don’t take up some obscure thing which people have no idea about. And always try to review products from established or brands recently gaining popularity. For example the Xiaomi Mi series of phones.

Well that’s about it. I have given you all the tips. The rest you should be able to figure out on your own.

But, there are the thumb rules for reviewing that I would like to tell you about before finishing.

RECOGNITION
REASONING

SERVICE

FIN.

Recognition is the part dealing with you giving an initial description of the product and mentioning its brand.

Reasoning is the part where you describe what type of product it is in more detail. But keep this superficial.

Service is the part where you go into the physical features and software parts etc. in detail.

Fin is the actual review and your rating. Mention some pro and cons of the device or website or service or whatever it is you are reviewing and give it a rating. Devise a rating scale for this.

Example of a rating scale:

A game rating, out of 5.

1. Sound/audio 50 pts

2. Graphics 50 pts

3. Accessibility 50 pts

4. Content quality (How the story is, whether open world or not, if open world then how it is executed etc ) 50 pts

5. Replay value ( new game + mode, cheats activated after finishing, etc ) 50 pts

The total comes to 250 so now divide it by 50. That comes to 5. So the above game would be rated 5/5

Also remember to comment about the rating earned.

A 5/5 item would be must play/own, a 1/5 item would be do not even consider.

You have to devise different rating scales for different subjects.

Phew.

Never wrote so much in my life. Well… I guess this article, broken as it is, might help some future reviewers get started. I am sure that if you follow all the steps and do some self promoting, your video will be popular as well.

Thanks for reading. Do comment and visit my youtube channel: youtube.com/gamersrijit

Gamersrijit

25/10/14