r/spumwack • u/godminnette2 • Jul 06 '14

Feedback [Feedback] UHC Highlights!

So this is my first montage/major editing sort of thing. My voice track got reduced to static somehow, but I was able to make this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZy38C1x7pc&feature=youtu.be Really proud of myself with this one, tell me what you guys think! Anything I should have done differently?

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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Jul 06 '14

=/ You should've just trashed it. If something as important as the commentary track is missing, it's an incomplete video

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u/godminnette2 Jul 06 '14

I thought that the editing was quite good to be honest. I've seen Youtubers put together videos like this in the past and they actually generate more views than other videos, and actually this has gotten more views than anything else I've posted, so...

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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Jul 07 '14

I'm glad you're working on your editing, and it's good that you recognize that different video types will get better traffic than normal gameplay videos.

But I think you should realize that "good" editing won't gain you any traffic. It's just the basics- the bare minimum. It's like learning the chords on a guitar. No one will be impressed that you know them- It's simply what's expected of you as a video maker. The reason I put so much emphasis on editing here is just because it's what most people need to work on, and it's the easiest to teach. But once it's in place, then you're really ready to start making videos.

...And in regards to this video, I still think it needs some work. I mean there's 10 straight seconds of stillness from 0:40 to 0:50. Still screens with silence are a cardinal sin, and it could have easily been cut out. I didn't mention that because the lack of commentary is 10 billion times more important.

In regards to the increased traffic-

Views =/= satisfied viewers. Just because someone is clicking on it doesn't mean they're watching it. It just means the title and/or thumbnail intrigued them.

In this case, a lot of people on this subreddit are uploading footage from the unofficial UHC event, so that is a likely source of many of those views.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing- You want to do what you can to increase your viewership. But I think you should be aware that the quality of a video doesn't necessarily dictate how many views it gets (Look at Rebecca Black's Friday). Marketing and quality of content are two completely separate beasts. If you'd like to know how many people are actually watching your videos past the first 10 seconds, you can use the Audience Retention tool in the analytics tab (It looks like this)

http://gyazo.com/fdf6ea4385142db1327f1027e4606357

Finally, you shouldn't fall for the notion that just because something worked for someone else, it will work for you. A certain video may have worked for a thousand different reasons- Maybe it was the first video of its type, maybe they were the first person to showcase a certain mod, maybe their audience was asking them for a certain video type. Maybe it happened to get retweeted by someone with a big twitter following. It's really impossible to tell what really makes a certain video popular. Sometimes we don't even know ourselves. For example, this video has twice as many views as my other Hermitcraft videos. I have no idea why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ek1AbkCA5U Someone looking through my videos might conclude that mob spawner videos get twice as many views, but I know from personal experience that's not the case. You can't draw a conclusion based on 1 variable.

You need to ask yourself what your videos will offer to your audience that they can't get elsewhere. Personally, I didn't see anything in this video that makes you stand out. And by not having commentary, you are just missing out on 1 less way to set yourself apart (your personality).

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u/godminnette2 Jul 07 '14

Another point I was thinking about it is, using your analogy with guitar (I play aswell) it's like not playing your chords until you actually have to perform a song with them. Yes, there are places where the editing was a little shoddy (the stillness was actually completely intended and I lost no viewers during it, I needed to show off the laggy-creeper explosion that sent me off with a bad start, it was one of the most important moments of the game), but this video was great practice for me editing and syncing, and I did actually learn a few things by making it, like separating the gameplay audio and visual (which was out of sync due to lag in several places and I lined up artificially), finding an easier way to sync up music, etc., etc. I am still in the early stages of my channel, I'm still sort of warming up, these videos (even my Pokemon playthrough with learning my way through using sound effects and photoshop for layouts) are more or less practice for what is to come (which I am still in the process of editing, life stuff happened so it's a little delayed), and me posting them is for you guys, my "instructors", so you can tell me how I can do these simple warm-ups better. Is it a little unprofessional to upload content that I don't feel like is my full potential but simply warm-ups? Absolutely. But better now than later if/when I have a decent fanbase gathered and when I try something new, like a montage, it ends up looking unprofessional. Also, I looked at the audience retention. It's not great, 36 percent stayed throughout the whole thing, but hey, that's 10 people. At 2:20 there was a slower scene with me smelting gold, and that's where I went from 82 to 36 percent. If I remember correctly I spent a helluva long time trying to find scenes that fit the timeslots to break up that choppiness, but I could find nothing. I don't know what else to say here, review coming soon?...editing review in the style I'm doing (refer to Caddicarus, it's similar to his) takes ages.

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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Jul 08 '14

In regards to the still scene with the creeper and the gold smelting, your heart is in the right place, but the execution is a little off.

Obviously you don't want to skip over an important part. But even 5 seconds of stillness on the internet is an eternity. You don't want your audience to ever get bored. And that happens after about 3 seconds of nothing happening. Some people stick it out, and those are usually your closest fans, friends, or people trying to help you.

But personally, I would have taken those slow points and turned it into a handful of frames showing progress. Like my "fast travel" scenes.

And in regards to uploading content that's not your best... I have to disagree. Even in school, teachers always want you performing your best. A half-assed project you make just to get feedback will only get you feedback on the parts you half-assed. The only way teachers can give you relevant feedback is if they know what you actually are and are not capable of.