Popular Video, Recording Actors, and Title Generator

One of my YouTube videos has suddenly become quite popular. I recorded some actors for some of my short video animations. My Random Title Generators can now generate more than a billion titles.

Popular Video

I haven't been paying much attention to how many views my videos on YouTube get. This week I got a note from YouTube that said I'd had over 18,000 views in the last month. I thought that must be wrong, so I logged in to check. It turned out that my video "Some Days ..." really took off starting in late February. It isn’t a new video. I posted a decade ago.

·          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXVwHaQcDQ8

As of yesterday, it had 21,860 views. It peaked at 1,083 views per day in early March and has varied from 400 to 700 per day since then. Yesterday it had 738 views and that seems to on an upward trend. There were only 32 likes and 7 dislikes. Most people didn’t watch the whole thing.

There doesn't seem to be many people who go on to watch my other videos though. I did get some people subscribe to me. I only need 931 more and I can get my videos monetized.

My Short Videos

I got a little work done on "The Desperation of the Wretched Senator." I rewatched it and made notes on changes I wanted to make to finish the project. But then I got busy recording actors for my other short videos, so this project stalled.

I recruited a couple of actors from the older filmmaker’s club to record voices for my short video projects. They recorded material for “The Sad Lady and the Hesitant Father-in-law,” “The Dread of the Daring Rocketeer,” and “Time Enough for the Anxious Social Media Manager.”

I learned a lot from the recording. Working with experienced actors like these two was much different from working with someone less experienced. The main takeaway for me is that each actor is different in how they work, and I need to be flexible in how I work with an actor.

Some actors don’t mind working on their own, while others prefer to have someone else to react to them. This is actually something I’m relearning. When I was making films in the late 90s and early 00s, I found the same thing, but since then I let it slip from my mind.

I had both actors record lines for the same character. I might get another actor to do some of the same characters. Already I’m unsure which to go with. My goal in this project is to gain experience, so I’m thinking I may as well create both versions. I don’t really need to pick one.

One issue I’ll need to cogitate on is that we changed social media manager from a man to a woman. The character is something of a wimp. I feel that it would work better if he were a man and not a woman.

One of the people from the Old Filmmaker’s club had some suggestions for “The Sad Lady and the Hesitant Father-in-law.” That got me to look at the relationship between the characters in a new way, which surprised me. It has me considering altering the dialogue a bit, which means I’d have to record new lines. I would have to redo all the lines. I did some processing of my voice, and I don’t remember exactly what I did. I may see if I can find an actor to record them.

Random Title Generator Update

I made some more revisions to my Random Title Generator. The two versions combined can now generate more than a billion titles. I'm working on some more ideas that will increase that.

Some of the titles I got while testing the code:

• Threatening the Ruthless Judge 
• The Animosity of the Soft-Hearted Burglar 
•  The Wisdom of the Damned Utility Room 
• The Executioner and the Wistful Trash Collector 
• Seeking the Excited Diamond Cutter 
• The Story of the Makeshift Container Terminal

·          https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/random-title-generator/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Sharkbiter Update 2012 August 12

I finished a new version of The Sharkbiter Interview. I split the video, which runs 9:16, into 14 parts.

My goal with the new version is to cut it into parts that run about one to one and a half minutes long. I read that videos longer than that are less popular. The audience retention statistics on YouTube showed that the audience for Make 'em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way had dropped to under fifty percent by one minute into the video. http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/

My first attempt was in early July. I ended up with seven parts, which ran between 1:24 and 2:22. The average was 1:45. I thought that worked OK, but the videos were still longer than I wanted.

I watched the videos several time before I decided where to cut them. Some I left as they were, while others I cut into two parts and, in one case, into three parts. The 14 parts ranged in length between 0:45 and 1:33. The average was 1:11.

I found Part 1 difficult to do and I had to redo it several times before I had it the way I wanted it. Part 5 came in too short, so I had to add some dialogue to bring it closer to the average. I did new introductions and closes for all of the videos. Beyond that I found I needed to add or change a few words so each part could stand on it’s own.

Over all I’m happy with them, but there were a few that I think don’t work as well as separate episodes. I will think more about those and I may recombine some of the parts.

When I first wrote the script, I thought of it as a single video and I think that made it harder to split up the way I did. If I had that idea from the start, I could have avoided that problem. I suppose I could do a more drastic rewrite now, but I think it is better to finish this off and move on to other projects.

I plan to start posting them next week.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog