How to Vlog

 

Vlogging is an important part of the YouTube culture and are an important part of businesses and brands. It's so much work to do a vlog. At its very core, you just need a camera, it doesn't matter the tools you are doing it with. However, as you get more and more into vlogging and you want into vlogging. Get a camera, a stick and a microphone. So one camera is the GoPro, and it's easy to have in your pocket, and it captures a wide image. Another camera is your phone, and it captures good video, a great camera to start with. But eventually you want to use a bigger camera, using panasonic, sony, etc. You can go here, if you're interested in seeing what the best-budget vlogging cameras are. I'd say this is a good starting camera to start vlogging. It's cheap, and the reviews are good. 

The last piece is a stick and tripod. Here is another list of good cameras. River rafting would use a gopro, and vlog, use a GoPro when holding a bigger camera doesn't make sense. If you do have the bigger setup, you want to use it as much as possible and you do want to get the best footage possible.

Now let's get into shooting. There's a lot more to shooting than shooting every bit. No one cares about your day, because a vlog is not a follow me along, but a lot of times, they need to be more than just following someone around, and that's what a lot of people do when they first start shooting vlog. Don't be like, eating breakfast, shaving my face... boring if people don't know you, people will click off. You will have to have a journey or be funny, like there's got to be a story that sends through your day, you got to treat it as a film. You have a story, a beginning middle and end and you tell your story through your plot. When you are travelling, I'm taking someone along in the journey, and don't vlog unless there is a trajectory. Like if you are in Thailand, my journey is to meet the elephant, do the experience, and meet the elephants, talk about the bigger issues with elephants as a whole. There is some planning, and try to come up with a bigger overall story to fit your daily vlog, and do the basics of story in film. Don't just start shooting aimlessly.

The main aspect of a vlog is to engage with you as a creator, giving your journey and your experience with the viewers, at its core, you are filming yourself and running and talking to the camera, have a conversation back and forth to the audience. Find ways to talk to the audience. You want to have conversations. Tell people to say hello and stuff. Another key point is don't be afraid to vlog. People know what vloggers are, just don't be afraid to shoot things. You have to shoot everything, don't be afraid to put up the camera and shoot. It's like in an airport, and you can have security tap me. It just is what you want, stop caring what other people think, since you are putting your content in people to watch. Make it entertaining and enjoyable to watch to the viewers. 

Make sure to capture a ton of B-Roll, cinematic views, drone shots, and other things, and I will discuss in later videos. B-Roll ties everything together, to make the project more exciting, to see the location, to make the video more engaging. Come up with new cinematic creative ways to tell the story. Shoot more than you think because when you get into editing, you use a lot more footage than you think to get a vlog. Make sure to get the storyline. That brings us into editing.

How do you edit a vlog? You shot all this content, the key to start any edit process with a vlog is to just know your footage, bring all your footage into your software. You can use final cut X or lightworks for this. So if there is major gaps, I know about it so when I start editing it makes it a lot easier, to put into the edit. Editing is fairly easy. Most vlogs are beginning to end, and the way you shoot. It's very easy to edit, just start at the beginning and drop it onto the timeline, and work it through and cut it all up, and it makes it go really fast, 1-2 hours. Some vlogs take longer. Killing your babies will destroy a project and if they don't fit the story, you just need to take them out, you can't put weight on shots because of how long and complex the shot is. You have to think of the project on a different standpoint. Take out shots, and you just have to take it out if it doesn't fit. You are moving a ton of stuff you put time and effort to and you know the shot is so cool. It's tought, but it's something that you just gotta do. A hook is a piece within the vlog to get your viewers to keep watching. It's something where people are like "I want to know more". "You're going to take that chicken and go as close as possible ... etc" and it's a moment and an idea that captures the viewer's attention, and that's how your get people on the channel and tell them to subscribe.

Then, put the vlogs on youtube, or social media outlets, create a compelling title and thumbnail such that people will want to click it. Look at a bunch of vlogger, and think of ways that you can do your title so that someone will click on your video. Don't do clickbait, you gotta be engaging but you can't be clickbaity. There's a lot of elements and a lot of things when you upload your video, using it to get keywords. It helps to get a sense of the past titles so as you move forward you can create more engaging thumbnails so people can get engaged. Then once you post, you want to share it with other social networks, to get more eyeballs on your video, reach your Instagram, and Facebook followers, and hopefully make the algorithm look at your video in other places. This will help to drive a lot of followers where it fits with whatever Facebook/Instagram/Reddit.

The final thoughts is doing daily vlogging and it's really tough and hard, it puts a strain on everything in your life, big daily vloggers do it so long that they crack or do something oblivious, etc. All of us as  filmmakers can benefit from doing daily vlogging getting you ways to make more stories of nothing. Everyone should try daily vlogging for a month. This practice gives you the knowledge that make you have interesting vlogs. Shooting 200 vlogs, or thousands, or travel, will make some boring thing. You should vlog events to capture. There's no reason to vlog all the time, but if you're doing something cool, vlog the experience of the hikes so someone can get to the journey as I take on a mountain/ocean, etc. So you have your micro stories that go within each vlog. You have this big overall stories. You can show skits for comedy, and you do an experience within a travel vlog. Within a vlog will have mini stories. In Belize it's scuba diving that's the main topic, but you can have a taco stand as a sharing topic. These stories have to have a beginning, the middle, and the end and be more vocal and explain things on camera. It's like what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I expect to happen. At the end I wrap it up and talk about my experience, and ask other people. 

Always having something before and after gives the the post-production to always cut the beginning middle and end. Set things up, do your vlog, and wrap it up at the end of the day. Have conversations, say goodbye, all of that. And you do this for each situation. You might use the footage, you might not, but it's always good to have more footage than less.