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Post by TheGameStatistic on Mar 25, 2016 18:50:09 GMT
Come into this thread not as a member of the community, but as a stranger happening upon a video.
I wan't ya'll to post the bits you're working on here for legit feedback. The feedback people need to hear. If you post here be prepared to hear the weakest aspects of your video but most importantly if it's griping enough to hold attention. So maybe the art is shit, or you don't have the perfect voice. Maybe there's some bad cuts, or some shotty camera work. These kinds of things are easy to fix, but a captivating video that keeps you watching is what's most important.
Be honest with the creator, Did the video keep you watching on its own merit? I'll admit i stuck around some videos because i knew the creator but we need to remove that aspect. If the video in question kept you all the way, give the creator props and maybe a few things they could fix if anything. I know some people say "there's always room for improvement" that's bullshit. A video can be fine but not hit the mark for everyone, which every video doesn't have to. If the video lost your attention explain why. If you're not the target audience, you have to realize that as well before you go in depth.
Creators be clear with the intent of the video when posting. I mean if its a review or something then it's obvious, but maybe you're just making an argument, or a case against something. Let us know so we can see if it comes through in the video.
Feel free to post old videos here. If you just want legit feedback on something you made and why its totally wrong /s here's the place to post.
We gotta get brutal with each other for our own good. Leave that koombaya shit in the other threads. Let em have it!
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Post by Tentacle on Mar 27, 2016 19:55:25 GMT
I don't think this thread will take off, since noone is willing to be brutally honest with anyone You clearly don't know me then. Right, let’s do a step by step background of your video since nobody else is willing to do so. What I say here are my comments alone and while you may not agree with them all completely, please do remember they are aimed towards the content itself and not you the creator. LETS BEGIN! Ok, straight away I have to ask. What’s with the intro and screen cutaways from gameplay? Genuinely what was you thinking when you made it? So typically for most creators, they have an intro card, logo or even title sequence that lasts a few seconds for it’s a good representation of the channel. You’ve got this nasty neon pink text on some greyscale background. Is that how you want to sell the channel? “But it goes with my channel aesthetic, it’s how I want to sell myself” Well that might be the case, but did you consider the quality output people may watch these videos at? Internet quality differs from country to country and so not everyone can watch a video at 1080p. This in mind, try watching that title sequence at either 360p or 480p and then try and tell me that it’s aesthetically pleasing? It’s highly unlikely that the answer is yes. A vibrant font without a boarder stroke is going to pixilate hard, especially on moving backgrounds. Ever wondered why YouTubers use the yellow font with the black boarder? Now you know why. It’s a neutral, yet striking colour. Give it a dark boarder and its impacted is given a bolder impact on screen. Pink is too vibrant to achieve the same affect. Oh and 13 seconds is far too long for some generic text intro. Consider the viewers time when making an intro card. It has to be quick and straight to the point. My own intro which is 7 seconds long is already pushing the mark. I highly recommend you look at my branding thread: limitedlives.proboards.com/thread/53/importance-branding-on-youtube?page=1&scrollTo=399Alas, let us continue. So I am not sure what microphone you are using… But it is picking up WAY too much flem and spit from your mouth. I am not saying you should spit before recording at all, it is actually advised to keep as much moister was possible since large recording sessions can make your lips and voice dry. The issue is here for you, is that it overpowers certain words and ultimately makes the video sound more like an ASMR than an actual review. There are ways to fix this of course, from changing microphones entirely too how far you sit away from your current set up. Heck, it could be just a matter of you having the gain up too high. You don’t want to sound like you are eating nor drinking in a review. That puts people off, besides well… Those who get off to it and watch ASMR’s! In addition, you should really cut out parts in which you breathe in or least lower the order in those parts. It’s somewhat time consuming but again, it’s the little things like that in which can be picked up with ease on the mic. I like in a very old house for example, so background audio is a major hassle that I have to clean up for every visual production I do. Outside that, everything is balanced well (Music faint enough to provide additional texture to the voice, while relevant to the game itself) English is obviously not your native tongue, so some of the humour can be lost in translation from the script to spoken word. However I personally like it, as it gives you an almost deadpan approach to the way you are discussing elements within the story or game play. While the order in which you presented things isn’t something I’d directly do, (I for one would do the story progressively thought the story instead of in one big heap at the start) you provided some decent counter points and backed up your statements as to why. Editing (Outside the choice in branding which I mentioned early on) is fairly simple and clean. Footage transitions clean and visual gags like the Bioshock footage worked alongside your general script. Nothing over the top or needlessly added which I really appreciate; it was just straight to the point and highlighting your general comments. I’d have maybe condensed the script however and that is something you can work upon editing in the near future. While long videos do work on YouTube and have been proven to, we live in a new age culture where the average attention span for a teenager is about 15 seconds on vine. Your optimal length (In terms of average watch time on YouTube and AdSense gain) is between 5 to 7 mins. This of course goes back to my earlier comment; value your viewer’s time. They are here to watch and if you waste it with long intros or gags, they may click off before you finished. It’s a strong first effort, provides plenty of headway to grow. The start gave me a pretty negative outlook on things until the core aspects of the review begun to present itself. So you managed to change my overall opinion to a solid okay. Tl:dr: Liked the script, mix of humour and simple edited, loathed the branding whereas the recorded audio can be worked upon. |
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Post by digitaljoe on Mar 28, 2016 18:41:17 GMT
I didn't mean to ignore you SelfishDream. I saw your post over in the advertise forum but I've been so busy with real life I haven't been able to really check it out. Without reading Tentacle's review here are my main points. Audio and video are just fine. You could always upgrade equipment but that's not what's holding you back right now. Something that really bothers me about videos is overly long intros, and yours is killer at almost 15 seconds. If you want an intro, 3 seconds max is my recommendation. Your script is fine. Your delivery really goes quite well with your simple jokes and whatnot. You make good points about the game. I'd say the biggest thing is the length. Long videos work, but I think really they only work when you have an established audience, or it's such high energy that there's never a dull moment. My suggestion would be to keep yours under 5 minutes. I really do hope you continue doing videos like this. I see the potential and look forward to an improved video! Cheers  |
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Post by Locklear on Mar 28, 2016 19:04:30 GMT
Hit me, I like it. Been trying to improve my reviews as I go, but probably haven't gone far enough yet. I know one of my biggest problems is my script reading. Selfishdream, I posted my feedback in your thread.
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Post by TheGameStatistic on Mar 29, 2016 0:40:59 GMT
First 10 seconds. okay.
As soon as you begin introducing the game it sounds a tad lazy. Making it a few seconds more i would dip out by the 00:37 second mark for the monotone sound.
The little animations you got going on to show the category on the bottom left are actually really impressive. I'd like to know how that was achieved. If there was more charisma behind the voice i'd say i was watching an official game website with the quality of editing. As is now if i stumbled upon this review id would take a strong interest in the game to keep me here. otherwise i'm off to find some one else.
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Post by Tentacle on Mar 29, 2016 20:40:59 GMT
So I am confused by the intro. Not that you have a title card no, most people do. But you transitioned to “gameplay” but scaled it as such to leave the “code” background visually present. Why? You should have made the game the primary focus since your branding provided nothing to it. No harm in scaling up 720p footage to 1080p since most game consoles already do. Only acceptation to this really is 480p games and lower. Inclusion of lower thirds are a nice mind. Sound balancing is your worst aspect right now. You have a soft, if monotone voice which highlights your lack of base or projection. This is where the audio editing is meant to fix the route of the problem. You see, since you never provided any additional gain or base to your voice (Both of which are pre-sets useable in Audacity, Audition and Premier) and left in the gameplay sound-effects which in turn, left you often being drowned out. This is very apparent early on with the sword swings; mere menu scrolling and cut-scenes voice overs all being featured. To fix this, remove the flipping gameplay audio and replace them with audio tracks from the game itself. I suggest for your next video, you make your voice +4 Gain (Maybe apply a +2 Base) and make the background music (Whatever you pick) -15 or -20. It will really help you remain the focus. Because of the issues with audio, it really harms the impact and flow of what would have been your script. Information is lost with ease as a sporadic cut to different gameplay is blurred out by shop music or mobs of enemies moving about. In turn, it makes it very hard to focus and process the information you are providing. Finally… A minute long end card with nothing but your logo is going to make people click off within seconds. Yes you may have something to say to your viewers, but these sort of announcements are best reserved for update videos or social media. Your analytics are going to suffer terribly if you do this with every video. AT MOST, an end card can last 15/20 seconds to thank people for watching and to plug your other shit (Twitter, websites, merch etc) I look forward to seeing what changes are applied to your next project, good luck. |
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Post by Locklear on Mar 30, 2016 20:07:04 GMT
So I am confused by the intro. Not that you have a title card no, most people do. But you transitioned to “gameplay” but scaled it as such to leave the “code” background visually present. Why? You should have made the game the primary focus since your branding provided nothing to it. No harm in scaling up 720p footage to 1080p since most game consoles already do. Only acceptation to this really is 480p games and lower. Inclusion of lower thirds are a nice mind. Sound balancing is your worst aspect right now. You have a soft, if monotone voice which highlights your lack of base or projection. This is where the audio editing is meant to fix the route of the problem. You see, since you never provided any additional gain or base to your voice (Both of which are pre-sets useable in Audacity, Audition and Premier) and left in the gameplay sound-effects which in turn, left you often being drowned out. This is very apparent early on with the sword swings; mere menu scrolling and cut-scenes voice overs all being featured. To fix this, remove the flipping gameplay audio and replace them with audio tracks from the game itself. I suggest for your next video, you make your voice +4 Gain (Maybe apply a +2 Base) and make the background music (Whatever you pick) -15 or -20. It will really help you remain the focus. Because of the issues with audio, it really harms the impact and flow of what would have been your script. Information is lost with ease as a sporadic cut to different gameplay is blurred out by shop music or mobs of enemies moving about. In turn, it makes it very hard to focus and process the information you are providing. Finally… A minute long end card with nothing but your logo is going to make people click off within seconds. Yes you may have something to say to your viewers, but these sort of announcements are best reserved for update videos or social media. Your analytics are going to suffer terribly if you do this with every video. AT MOST, an end card can last 15/20 seconds to thank people for watching and to plug your other shit (Twitter, websites, merch etc) I look forward to seeing what changes are applied to your next project, good luck. Thanks for the long reply! As far as the intro goes, I was confused too to be honest. I wanted more of my branding bullshit to stick longer, but it just ended up a bit awkward and bad. That's the first and last time I'll do that. My background audio is usually quieter, but I got some feedback last video about it being too quiet...so I think I overcompensated with that I completely agree. I'm going to shorten the intros/endings for the future and keep working on my voiceovers(as well as voiceover editing) to hold interest. I like having the game audio instead of the soundtrack in the background for 2 reasons: 1. Copyright infringements are a confusing subject and my video could get flagged 2. It gives a better representation of the game, which is important to me. I'm not opposed to the pure soundtrack background, as I think it probably makes the video more cohesive and poignant. Either way, the mix needs to be better definitely. Great in depth advice I needed. |
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Post by Locklear on Mar 30, 2016 20:10:59 GMT
First 10 seconds. okay. As soon as you begin introducing the game it sounds a tad lazy. Making it a few seconds more i would dip out by the 00:37 second mark for the monotone sound. The little animations you got going on to show the category on the bottom left are actually really impressive. I'd like to know how that was achieved. If there was more charisma behind the voice i'd say i was watching an official game website with the quality of editing. As is now if i stumbled upon this review id would take a strong interest in the game to keep me here. otherwise i'm off to find some one else. Definitely need to work on my voice still, performance and maybe better mixing would help. Making my future intros/outros more snappy to hopefully hold interest better. The animations are actually lower thirds I got from videohive. They were generic, and I edited in my logo and the words for each category. Took me a while to figure out how to export them properly to keep the animations transparent....but it worked out! My current life goal is to not disappoint with a voiceover!  |
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cbgog
Forum Member
I'm a man who makes Ghosts and Snakes sometimes
Posts: 59 
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Post by cbgog on Apr 1, 2016 21:40:05 GMT
My turn.
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Post by digitaljoe on Apr 1, 2016 22:41:36 GMT
I understand the format is supposed to be you rambling, but I don't quite see the appeal in that. That might be my own personal taste, but it just makes it seem dull to listen to you ramble over footage. Also right off the bat if you ARE gonna use this format, 8 minutes seems a bit long. You kinda go into your personal life and then back out. I'm not sure many people would care, and you immediately backing out makes it feel strange. Really the biggest thing is the format is just boring. If you were to make something like this but use a script, and shorten the video down I think you would have a solid "reviewish" video. |
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Post by TheGameStatistic on Apr 2, 2016 22:10:56 GMT
Feels like a video make for people who know you. Cause i don't get the point of why it exists or why you want to ramble on it after nearly 2 minutes in. It quite literally is rambling, and i don't see anyone sticking around unless they're a fan of the channel already. |
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Post by Content Free Time on Apr 4, 2016 4:44:39 GMT
Feels like a video make for people who know you. Cause i don't get the point of why it exists or why you want to ramble on it after nearly 2 minutes in. It quite literally is rambling, and i don't see anyone sticking around unless they're a fan of the channel already. I actually have to disagree. This was honestly one of the videos that got me hooked on his channel. I enjoy hearing rambling as long as someone's really expressing their thoughts on something and not repeating themselves too much. My only two criticisms are that there were a few things that were repeated, and that the moment around 6:00 went on a little too long for me. |
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Post by TheGameStatistic on Apr 4, 2016 5:41:57 GMT
This is why multiple input is good. you never know what works for some and falls flat for others.
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