My first YouTube video got 4 views. I deserved it.
I published my first YouTube video on Tuesday.
Four views. Zero clicks on the thumbnail.
I changed the cover to test. We’ll see. But I want to talk about the filming, because that’s where the real mistake was.
The video is about the history of sound in cinema. 1927. The whole story. And I wanted it to look good. Really look good. So I did what any reasonable person does when they want a video to look good.
I turned my own flat into a logistics problem.
Despite filming entirely at home, I kept changing locations. Every few minutes. New angle. New setup. New props. Drag things here. Move things there. Set up. Tear down. Set up again. In one apartment. Like a one man film crew having a nervous breakdown in real time.
It took several evenings. Because I still have a job as a programmer. So every night after work, I’d come home, set up a new corner, film a few lines, tear it down, and move to the next one.
I was solving a problem that didn’t exist. The viewer doesn’t care that you used nine different corners of your living room. They care whether the thing you’re saying holds their attention. I gave them a location change. They wanted a reason to stay.
So for the next video, I decided on four locations. That’s it. Each one for a specific purpose.
Three of them are in the living room. On the carpet. On the couch. Behind the table. The fourth is the bedroom with the projector.
The bedroom one is my favorite. The fog machine turns the projector beam into something solid. You can almost reach into it. It does more for the image than any of the seventeen setups I kept rebuilding all week.
Four locations. Each one ready. No dragging furniture between takes. No deciding where to stand every time. I walk to the spot. I press record. I talk.
This is the same lesson I keep relearning. The one from a few emails back. Preparation is the work. A simple video that exists is infinitely more useful than a complicated one that takes several evenings to film.
I made the complicated one. It took several evenings. It got four views.
You can watch it here if you’re curious:
Next video will be about AI. Since everyone has opinions. But this time, four locations. That’s the whole production design.
Warmly,
AL.
P.S. The full filming pipeline, from choosing your locations to the final color, lives in the mini course. Four locations included.