Have Any Tips for Someone Doing YouTube Videos?

As games, we've all probably seen a lot of videos and watched a lot of gameplay videos on YouTube. I'm wanting to start doing this, as I do believe that my readers would be interested. However, I want to separate myself from everyone else. Therefore, I wanted to ask fellow gamers for opinions/suggestions.

What could I do that will make myself different from everyone else when it comes to making YouTube videos for games? I have The Walking Dead games and I'm thinking of doing videos for those. Also, I have Amnesia and am wanting to do reaction videos for games like Slender with a bunch of my friends. Do you guys and gals have any tips that could help me out?

What would you like to see in gameplay videos? Do you like tip videos, complete walkthroughs, only bits and pieces of the games, such as how to make it past certain spots, etc...? What do you absolutely hate about some gameplay videos?

Any and all advice would be highly appreciated. If you can think of anything clever, please let me know. Heck, I even had one dude suggestion that I re-enact some scenes from video games. Honestly, I'd consider it if it actually was of interest to people.

Biggest problem I see (or hear, and it happens) is that the guy doing the video is too quiet or hard to understand. I watch a lot of different game videos for League of Legends, Minecraft, or whatever I happen to be playing. For example, TiensiNoAkuma is one of the top, if not THE top, Katarina player for LoL. I watch his videos and he knows his stuff, but he often is hard to hear and doesnt always organize everything he is saying into something easy to follow.

Also, if you are going to start doing a series and are going to make an intro, keep it short. I get annoyed with people who do long intros to their videos that just force the viewers to watch those little buffer symbols even longer. COLBYCHEEZE does it right, quick and easy. He's also generally easy to follow.

[quote name='Waughoo']Biggest problem I see (or hear, and it happens) is that the guy doing the video is too quiet or hard to understand. I watch a lot of different game videos for League of Legends, Minecraft, or whatever I happen to be playing. For example, TiensiNoAkuma is one of the top, if not THE top, Katarina player for LoL. I watch his videos and he knows his stuff, but he often is hard to hear and doesnt always organize everything he is saying into something easy to follow.

Also, if you are going to start doing a series and are going to make an intro, keep it short. I get annoyed with people who do long intros to their videos that just force the viewers to watch those little buffer symbols even longer. COLBYCHEEZE does it right, quick and easy. He's also generally easy to follow.[/QUOTE]

Thank you very much for your advice. I'm about to check out those users that you referred to and see how they have their video set up. I also thought about the whole intro thing and I completely agree with you about that one. That's one thing that I can't stand and it sucks if a person's video is split up into different parts and you have to re-watch their intro everytime you switch to Part 2, 3, etc...

Well some different angles you can approach. I will give you general advice. First off speak clearly, and make sure your mic is not full of static or it sounds awful. I don't want to listen to someone who sounds like a 12 year old kid, either with their mic setup or how they talk.

If your doing a lets play video. Try to balance talking and focusing on the game. Also you have to decide if your trying to be funny, or serious. Don't blend the two because it will be much harder. With both, make sure your detailed about the game, and you give the watcher details about the game, things he/she should know while your playing it. Like oh I just got this spell, this will allow me to burn things. Also just don't try to copy other people, be yourself but also put yourself in the listeners shoes. Know what they might want as well. If you ever watched Total Biscuit videos, he nails it perfectly where he is funny but at the same time he isn't overly dramatic, and he gives you important details about the game that gives you the watcher a good picture of the game.

If your doing a walkthrough, I would say do a full playthrough, but one idea is to use annotations at the start of the video to add in this major point at x time. Also be clear, to the point but detailed and try to cut out the unnecessary parts. (as of I don't want to watch you die 20 times when I am trying to figure out how to beat a part of the level). Also check and make sure before you do a walkthrough or lets play, there isn't 10,000 other videos of the same thing. No one wants to watch 3,000,000 people being scared by Amnesia. Try something less popular, something that people can cay oh this is new.

Most of the process is finding your style, but at the same time, make sure you have a good mic, and good sound because even if your first few videos suck, if they are easy to listen to on the ears, you might get people wanting to come back.

[quote name='Sir_Fragalot'] I don't want to listen to someone who sounds like a 12 year old kid, either with their mic setup or how they talk.
[/QUOTE]

This is my main one. Also I hate when I go to a walkthrough and it is someone recording a monitor with an external camera. Unless they are bootlegging some unreleased footage then I don't care to see that.

I'd say rehearse whatever parts of the game you're going to cover; 90% of time when I watch Let's Play vids I'm looking for the nuts and bolts of the game mechanics--to see if it's something I might enjoy or if it's something that's just annoying. One thing you don't want to do is bungle through a level unless the game is so bad it deserves this treatment.

Thanks so much for the advice and suggestions, guys. I do have an accent, so I hope that's not an issue for most people. Another question: Would you suggest I do commentary as I play the game (which in my opinion would be more valid) or do a voice-over the footage after I've completed the video?

depends on you.

live commentary is more difficult and if you suck at it your videos will suck. if you can do it well though i think its better and more natural sounding because... its natural. but that means you have to be naturally interesting to listen to.

edited over afterward will make sure you say what you want to say but it can sound scripted which isn't always a bad thing, just a different feel.

Try an edit over afterwards commentary if you are unsure. Put them both up. See how the hits do on each then maybe you can decide if you want to continue with commentary.

show your boobies

[quote name='crystalklear64']depends on you.

live commentary is more difficult and if you suck at it your videos will suck. if you can do it well though i think its better and more natural sounding because... its natural. but that means you have to be naturally interesting to listen to.

edited over afterward will make sure you say what you want to say but it can sound scripted which isn't always a bad thing, just a different feel.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the advice, man. It's going to be a tough decision. Of course, if I did it while playing the game, it would save a lot of time, especially for some lengthier games.

[quote name='sleepydumbdude']Try an edit over afterwards commentary if you are unsure. Put them both up. See how the hits do on each then maybe you can decide if you want to continue with commentary.[/QUOTE]

I might just do that. Thanks for the advice

I just posted a bunch of gaming videos to YouTube, here's my thoughts:

Only post what matters. Not sure what you're doing, but if it's a walkthough... I freaking HATE videos which show everything. I don't need to see you die 100000 times in Super Meat Boy, I can see ME do that, and save myself the trouble of going to YouTube.

So get something that will let you edit your video. I also don't need to see people walking around for ten minutes; the editting software can speed up the run time of the video, so do it.

Now IF I were going to add an audio track (I probably won't for personal reasons), I'd create it while watching the editted video, and add it afterward. Also do multiple "takes", and add the best ones... I really don't think having "um..." and "uhhh..." adds any value to the audio, so just don't do it.

[quote name='WindyCityGamer']I just posted a bunch of gaming videos to YouTube, here's my thoughts:

Only post what matters. Not sure what you're doing, but if it's a walkthough... I freaking HATE videos which show everything. I don't need to see you die 100000 times in Super Meat Boy, I can see ME do that, and save myself the trouble of going to YouTube.

So get something that will let you edit your video. I also don't need to see people walking around for ten minutes; the editting software can speed up the run time of the video, so do it.

Now IF I were going to add an audio track (I probably won't for personal reasons), I'd create it while watching the editted video, and add it afterward. Also do multiple "takes", and add the best ones... I really don't think having "um..." and "uhhh..." adds any value to the audio, so just don't do it.[/QUOTE]

Great advice, man. So, you think I should do the commentary after doing the video or while I'm recording the video?

[quote name='TTGSteve']Great advice, man. So, you think I should do the commentary after doing the video or while I'm recording the video?[/QUOTE]

IMO do it separate, but really go with whatever works for you. The important thing is you actually complete the project and have fun.

I don't personally like those "lets watch me play so and so" videos. Now if other people do (and I freely admit I'm usually not representative of what most people do or like), that's cool, go with that.

But the way I'd personally do it is to record the play, edit out the parts that aren't needed, then add the commentary to that.

However... make sure you keep notes. I know when I did my videos, there were a lot of important things I wanted people to know about doing the levels, and that's what I added to the video comment (my videos were mostly short, about 20 seconds to a minute or so, so didn't have any commentary).

Or you could record the audio while you're playing, then edit that. You'll have to figure out what way you prefer.

while not youtube, in graphic design there is an old saying from paul rand

dont be unique, just be good at what you do. the people that are good at an already established art know how good they have to be at it. the unique tend to stuffer here because there is no baring on how good the quaulity should bee.


i'll tell you starting out your videos and commentary are just going to suck. however if you keep doing it your stuff will get better. Probably the hardest part starting out is just learning how to use a video editor and what settings to use. after that it's more about getting good at making videos



lastly live commentary is okay but i wouldnt do too much of like you see some youtube channels do. i honestly quit it past certain games here because it makes ya play like shit and makes the game less fun to play. i actually th ink at this point the people that dont even have commentary on their videos are a tad more unique than most channels (although again unique isn't always good hehe).

btw if you want check out my crappy channel www.youtube.com/kevfactor my early stuff was just awful and my current stuff is still awful but not as bad. it's just for me i found a good medium as i'm one of those guys that mostly like uploading a game from start to finish on youtube and have it be a good archival footage for later if i want to watch myself replay a certain section of a game.

I just did my first commentary, but it's not for video games if you guys would like to check it out and let me know what you think. It's for horror movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXzGpyTo9cs

the difference in voice quality is pretty jarring. not sure how you did it but sounds like one of you was hosting a skype call or something and the host sounded good while the caller had poor quality. if thats what it is, you might want to ask the other guy to also record and then synch the two high quality tracks to each other in audacity or whatever audio editing program you use.

the content was entertaining and the commentary didn't really ruin it so overall i'd call it pretty good.

[quote name='crystalklear64']the difference in voice quality is pretty jarring. not sure how you did it but sounds like one of you was hosting a skype call or something and the host sounded good while the caller had poor quality. if thats what it is, you might want to ask the other guy to also record and then synch the two high quality tracks to each other in audacity or whatever audio editing program you use.

the content was entertaining and the commentary didn't really ruin it so overall i'd call it pretty good.[/QUOTE]

Thanks very much for your opinion. Seriously, it will help me progress and hopefully in a better direction.

Which do you think had the better quality? Myself (Steven) or Faron? His mic was much louder than mine I noticed. I'm using the Logitech G930 as my microphone, while he was just using the microphone built into his laptop. I actually had to boost my mic in editing and I had to lower his. So, I'm probably assuming that you thought mine was of lesser quality?

If this is what you're saying, I'll try to look up ways to make my mic sound better. I used to be in a band, so I could dig out my professional wireless microphone (I was the lead singer.) However, that would be a terrible pain, seeing as how I'd have no idea where it is, but if it improves the quality of my videos, it would be worth it.

Faron had the better quality.

Here I just did this little audio thing for you.

Read a review for a game for a few seconds and recorded it 3 different ways.
http://soundcloud.com/ck64/sets/audio-recording-1

The first is just using my headset with nothing done to it, raw recording. This is what your (Steve) voice sort of sounds like in the review.
The second is the same recording using the free program audacity to cut out some of the hiss with the noise removal tool.

Sounds a lot better! There are other audio errors with the recording but the noise removal helps a lot.

The third is a recording with my portable TASCAM recorder. I was sitting a little to close to it so it sounds kind of echo-y. Its my voice resonating with the mic/plastic. No edits were done but I had to boost the hell out of it with audacity. Still, it sounds pretty good especially compared to the first recording.

The forth and final recording is using a Shure SM57 and its raw with the gain on my preamp turned up to about 60%. No editing in audacity.



So as you can see there are a lot of ways to improve the audio be it by hardware or software.

Thanks so much for your advice, my friend. I'm going to give the recordings a listen and see what's up. How do you do noise reduction in Audacity, if you don't mind me asking. I used to use Adobe Audition for my sound recording needs, but haven't used that in awhile.

so when you're recording leave a blank space of 2-3 seconds to capture the ambient sound (sounds like fuzz or hissing).

select those "blank" 3 seconds and select noise removal.
from that menu click get noise profile.
then select the entire length of your file and click noise removal again.
now that you already have the noise profile just hit preview to make sure it sounds good then ok.

Awesome! Thanks man I'll try it out.