David Wesst

At the beginning of the month I announced I'd be doing a web series on YouTube called Script Unscripted.

It was planned to be a sort of experiment in content production, as over the past year I've really dived into the whole YouTube thing, to a point where we've cancelled cable in lieu of Internet TV, and I thought: "You know, I could probably do that".

So far, it's consisted of four episode, and roughly four hours of time.

I wanted to take a moment to review some of the things I've learned so far.

Livestreaming Still Needs Planning

When I watch a livestream on Twitch, or a coding video on YouTube, a lot of the time it seems unscripted and done in the moment.

I think I'm right about the unscripted part, I don't believe it was done in the moment. There is plenty of planning, setup, and familiarity with your tools that needs to happen to produce quality content.

Over the four livestreams, I have managed to make errors in production on pretty much all of them in one way or another. Sometimes it's the background music being too loud. Sometimes, I forget to push "Start Stream", other times I forget that different platforms have different hardware configuration, which results in audio and video being out of sync.

I still need practice with my configuration. Ideally, I'll be setting up a more consistent environment in which I can keep things setup and ready, but there is a lot more I still need to learn.

Editing is Time Consuming

The experiment was supposed to yield both a livestream full-length YouTube video, and a shortended or "Minified" version. Though the series, I managed to make one minified version, and write a second that I never got around to finishing.

Why? Well, I recorded the amount of time it took me to get the first video ready.

For 2-3 minutes of video, it was about 5 hours, plus time to create the assets like the intro animation, and end card.

I realize it's not that bad for most streamers and video people, but being that I've very new to the whole thing, it takes time to pickup a whole new set of tools and learn how to use them.

Ultimately, editing, sound production, animation, and all the polish to make it appear clean is time consuming.

That Being Said...

I'll be continuing to do more videos as I've got the tools and skills to keep it going, and in all it's a lot of fun. I just need to practice more and start leaving my confort zone to try and explore new techniques.

Celebrate Small Victories

YouTube is very saturated, if not over saturated with content producers being that that only bar to entry is that you need a recording device on a computer.

With that, if you're expecting to become the next big thing on YouTube, you should probably get your ego in check as you'll be greatly disapointed.

If you want the success, there are people who make YouTube their full time job, and in all fairness, it's not a great paying one for the most part. It takes a lot of time, energy, and possibly most importantly consistency.

That Being Said...

I have a very low subscriber count, and not at many views as some. But I have subscribers, and I have views, which is awesome!

I had low to no expectations walking into this, but having a live chat aobut code with Cecil Phillip in episode three, and ultimaely having tons of different things happening all at once, all while coding, has been a lot of fun. Plus, now I'm building up a new network, and who knows where it will go.

The Point

I think the point is that I like dong the "Vlog" or YouTube thing. It's definitely different, and much more time consuming, but it forces me to practice skills that would be otherwise getting rusty, like public speaking, live demoing, and writing concise and ideally non-technical content.

I plan on continuing this YouTube experiment, but I want to change it up to be a little more versatile with the content.

In any case, you can be sure I'll be announcing it on the blog and maybe even with a commercial you YouTube.

Thanks for Playing. ~ DW