YouTube and You

YouTube and You

Have you ever thought about a career in film making?  I think most people have.  It would be so great to work at the dream factory called Hollywood, wouldn't it?  Well with today's technology you don't have to move to Hollywood to make it big in film making.  Or should I say video making?  But really what's the difference between a video and a film?  The length, maybe?  Let's forget the semantics and jump right into YouTube!

I have my own YouTube channel.  I can upload just about anything I want onto it and people all over the world can watch the videos I put up.  There are restrictions and you can't just post anything.  It is possible to get banned and have your channel removed.  My friend Chinstrap has had his channel removed.  You can't be a bad boy (or girl) and be putting up copyrighted stuff such as videos using copyrighted music!  Don't be posting a video of yourself dancing to Lady Gaga's latest hit and expect the video to stay up.  You don't own the music so you can't use it!  What a lot of people may not realize though, is that YouTube has a huge selection of music that you can download and use in your videos for free!  Just do a bit of research!  And don't post really offensive things.  The world doesn't need to see people getting their heads chopped off in an execution, or women being roasted over an open flame.  You may want to see that stuff, but it's offensive and will get you banned.  Don't post stuff like that.

Now the big question is how do you get people to watch your videos?  Uploading them to YouTube just isn't enough to get views.  Once you have an established channel you might be able to just upload stuff and people will watch it, but that takes time and effort.  So what kind of videos will people watch?  Who the hell knows?  For instance I uploaded this video and it has 7 views.  So only 7 people watched it.

Is it a bad video?  Hell no, I think it's pretty good!  But apparently no one was interested in my reading a bit from one of my own books.  What is interesting then?  How about chicken?  Is chicken interesting?  Take a look at this video:

As of right now while I'm typing this blog the video has 705 views.  People want to know how I cook chicken in a microwave.  *chuckle*  So should I make cooking videos?  I don't want to do that mostly because I can't really cook that well.  That's why I cook chicken in a microwave!  But it comes out well and so I thought I would share that secret with people.  

How about video games?  They're pretty popular right now.  There are some guys who play video games and do commentary while they play.  The videos are called "Let's plays", or "Walkthrus".  Some of these commentators have millions of subscribers.  Yes, I said millions.  Take the guy named Theradbrad for example, he has over three million subscribers.  Here is one of his videos:

Brad is so popular that I guess once in a while a smart game developer will send him their game and allow him to play it and put up a video before the game is even released.  I say they're smart because having him play your game will get the game a lot of buzz and promotion.  Brad is good at what he does and believe me, what he does is not easy!  I've tried it a few times and haven't had the same level of success.  But then I don't stick with it.  One way to find success on YouTube is to keep a steady stream of videos uploading.  So to compare, here's a video I made of the same game.  My video only has 6 views.  But then I don't keep adding videos and finish the game.  

Believe it or not, there is more to this than just pointing a camera at your tv and recording the game.  You need specific equipment to record game footage.  I think I paid around $200 for the small thing I have.  It connects the game to my laptop computer and I can record the game footage with commentary if I want and then save it as a digital file.  Now these game walkthrus might not be easy to get views on, but sports games are a bit easier.  They take a LOT of editing, though!  Football is fun, but you need to cut out all the stuff in between the plays in order to make the video short enough.  Long videos are really nice, but they take forever to upload!  Shorter is better.  So here's me editing some football:

I really was going to keep up with this series, but my Playstation 3 died after a couple of videos and I wasn't able to make any more for a while.  Months and months had passed before I was able to make video game videos again and when I finally could, I had lost the saves I needed.  That sucked.  But this thing has 75 views right now!  So people love to watch football and see how you play!  I know I like watching it!

So let's get back to making videos.  What does it take to get a YouTube video channel?  Just sign up.  That's about it.  It's all part of Google.  Now YouTube can be more than just something to show videos to the world.  There's so much to it.  I don't even know half of what you can do with this stuff!  There are people who make "daily vlogs".  I follow two of these people.  One is in Orlando, Florida and is called TheTimTracker and the other one I follow is in England and is called WanderingDaz.  These husband and wife teams do videos every day about what they're doing, what's going on in their lives, or just whatever they're thinking about.  They upload videos every day!  I honestly think they're fun to watch.  For a while they barely had any views, but eventually after they had stuck with it, people found their channels.  And now they get more and more subscribers.  That's a lot of work to upload a video every day!  I love and respect what those people do!  

So even if you don't want to make videos yourself, check out YouTube.  It's a fun thing.  You can find anything at all you want.  There are literally videos on just about anything you want to search for!  Such as this:

This video is insanely funny!  Learning about a habanero pepper the hard way is always fun!  You can search how to build a computer, or how to change out a sink!  How to train your dog, or funny golf videos.  You can type in the name of any video game at all and find things!  YouTube is fun!  So help support a YouTuber today.  You don't need to give them any money or anything like that, just watch videos and then leave a comment, or click the thumbs up icon to leave a "like".  

Welcome to Minnesota and Fun!

Welcome to Minnesota!

Years ago I lived in a small town in Minnesota called Buffalo.  I had moved there to get into a relationship with a girl.  While things with the girl didn’t work out, I really enjoyed Buffalo.  Now you have to understand a few things about Minnesota.  First off, it’s full of typical American small towns where just about everyone knows just about everyone else.  And they all know each other’s business.  Not that this is a bad thing, it made for a family type atmosphere in everything you did.

Now why am I writing about Minnesota?  Because of one of my favorite movies called Drop Dead Gorgeous.  Click the name and a link will take you to Amazon.com to buy the movie.  I’ll warn you up front this one must be rare as right now it’s priced at $42.94!  But honestly, it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen!  And it takes place in Minnesota.  It’s playing on the Starz movie channels now if you happen to pay for premium movie channels.  Click the word Starz and it will take you to the web page.

The movie takes place in the fictional town of Mount Rose, but I’ve had people tell me it was based on a place called Rosemount, Minnesota.  Click on the name for a quick view of small town affairs.  *chuckle*

Now a few things make this movie so hilarious.  The first is the Minnesota accent.  Not that it’s funny, but it’s really…unique. (Don’t cha know!)  And yes, people really talk that way.  They hit a lot of Minnesota life spot on!  These folks are down to earth, honest, and loveable.  Well, most of them are.  *chuckle*  There is the one rich, corrupt family in town who will do anything to make certain their daughter wins the local high school beauty pageant.  And I mean anything. 

This movie is basically a black comedy as a pretend documentary crew shoots footage and does interviews throughout the pageant.  It stars Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Kirsty Alley, and Ellen Barkin.  I don’t want to give anything away, but while watching this, I’ll usually laugh myself to tears.  I’ll at least show you the movie trailer:

Don't miss this one! 

I love black comedy and have even written one.  It’s called Terminating Vegas and is about a security officer at a casino who wins the lottery and decides he then wants to be fired from his job.  The casino keeps trying not to fire him and things quickly spiral out of control.  If you’re interested in a Kindle copy, they’re pretty cheap right now at only $1.49  Just click the name above and check it out.  You can also get the book through Barnes & Noble, but they only sell the paperback version of the book.  Maybe someday this will be made into a movie, too?  Nah…probably not.  But then again, stranger things have happened.  *chuckle*  

Keep clear of the moors

Evil English?

I love movies. And it seems that in movies now a days everyone wants to make their villain English.  What is it about the English that makes them so good at being the bad guy?  Maybe it's the setting that makes them so good at being evil?  One of my all time favorite movies is An American Werewolf in London.

Now this movie doesn't really have a bad guy unless you consider it to be the werewolf.  And the werewolf is an American, but the setting is a huge part of this movie.  Keep clear of the moors!

Moving on, how about the movie Die Hard.  The bad guy may have been supposedly German, but he spoke with an English accent and was played by an English actor.  Hans Gruber was played by Alan Rickman, an actor born right in jolly old London!  (He also played Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies, but then everyone was English in those, weren't they?)

Doesn't he look evil?  And with that English accent, everything he says seems to come across as so smooth!  Dark sided and English, what a combo!  I'm certain he's a really nice guy in person, but I really love the evil characters he's played.  Mr. Rickman also played Alexander Dane in a very entertaining movie called Galaxy Quest.  He played a classical English actor stuck in a role for a horrible American space television series that had been off the air for years (Think Star Trek).  He had some fantastic lines in this one!  Good guy or bad guy, some of these actors and actresses get the best lines!

My latest favorite is from a movie I saw only last night.  It's called Oblivion and stars Tom Cruise.  Yes Tom is American, but one of his co-stars in the movie is Andrea Riseborough, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.  (What a great name for a village!)  

I won't spoil the surprise about her character, but as you watch the movie, she doesn't seem quite right.  You can't put your finger on what it is, but there is something funny going on with her.  And she does such a good job in the roll, that until the secret is revealed, you never see it coming.  At least I didn't see it coming.  She even goes so far as to shed real tears in the roll.  Fantastic actress!

In the movie The Great Escape most of the English prisoners who are recaptured at the end are executed.  This was pretty true to life during World War II and the film was based on a true story.  You get to know a number of these guys throughout the movie and it's horrible when they're shot!  

Now we've moved on from English actors being a fantastic villain to English actors just being fantastic!  *chuckle*  There are some pretty talented Brits out there!  Here's one more old movie with a lot of English actors in it.  I haven't seen this one in years, and there's only one token American main character in it.  It's Sylvester Stallone.  The movie has not only English, but also some European soccer players.  It's about how a bunch of World War II prisoners of war end up challenging the Germans to a soccer match.  They plan to escape during the match, but as the movie goes on the match grows more and more important to them.  You'd think it would be cheesy and have a horrible plot, but this one is actually pretty good!  It's called Victory in America, and Escape to Victory in other parts of the world.  If you get the chance to see this one and have the slightest interest in soccer (Or World War II movies) this comes highly recommended!

So I guess the point of this blog is to tell how much I've been enjoying English acting lately!  *chuckle*  They're getting some good roles now a days.  So support an English actor if you know one (Or English writer, I have a few of them for friends!), they're absolutely brilliant!