WHY I made a song in every program on the internet.

It was 2 months ago today; mid November 2023

Whilst I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to make a decision which was going to change the trajectory of what the remainder of my 2023 looked like.

You see at this time I had just come back from a 5 month hiatus from youtube, posted a new video, and had it completely flop, just like the one before that.

Nothing happened, at all.

If anything, it actually accelerated the slow and progressive decline of my subscriber count.

Being a small YouTuber means that, you have to be okay with being a blip in the endless ocean of online content.

But I needed something to bring me out of the depths. Something glimmering amongst the waves that might just catch an eye.

I wanted to do something big, unique, risky…

But what?

This is where some good old fashioned research came in.

The concept

This time I wanted to build from an idea I knew could work. Something that has worked in the past.

A proven concept.

One day I came across a graphic designer & youtube creator named Elliot. I saw his video my suggested feed

And I was compelled to click.

Even though I have little interest in graphic design, I loved the video.

But the best thing about it was actually this:

This video was inspired by another channel that used the same concept in game design.

This was the lightbulb moment. I had found a concept that had been proven, not once, but twice.

I knew I could work from this but to make it worth the effort. I had to believe in the title and thumbnail first.

The packaging

Admittedly (and sometimes unfortunately), with youtube, this is the most important bit.

How it looks to people who have no f*cking clue who you are.

I spent 1 full day trialling, photographing, researching, building a bank of titles and thumbnails that could work. Until I finally hit something I liked

Packaging first enables you to lead with a strong outstretched hand.

But mostly, in this specific case. It excited me, I could now feel a vision forming.

Blind to how much effort and time this project was about to consume, I dove into the next stage with a thump.

The filming

Unlike other formats, this one required filming BEFORE scripting, because I wanted to script around raw, genuine footage.

This was fulfilling the promise set by the title. This was important.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that I would spend every waking moment for a week filming, downloading, problem solving and filming some more.

It drove me to the brink of insanity and back.

But at least I could relax now. I sighed relief, celebrated with a mandatory victory dance and hoped no one was watching.

The bliss, it lasted a good few moments, until reality hit me.

I had gone too far.

I could no longer turn back.

I was committed.

Do I script now?

My grand idea was this:

To make the video flow, I wanted the script to effortlessly glide around the raw recording and allude to the things that I’m doing candidly.

I wanted to take quotes from the recordings and dance the script around them like some sort of synchronised swimming routine.

SO

In order to script, I needed the footage.

In order to know which footage, I needed to cut.

In order to know what to cut I kinda needed a script.

This means I need to painstakingly cut all my 30 hours of raw footage, now

But also, I needed to write the script at the same time.

This took a long time. The script was thousands of words long.

Another week rolled by and I needed to switch the camera on again

Filming stage 2

OKAY so week 3 (I think) and it was time to film again. All of the direct, talk to camera footage.

This was surprisingly quick, but it did take a full day of changing locations, setting up gear, troubleshooting camera & storage problems

I knocked it out in a few different sessions throughout the day and moved to the final edit as quick as possible

The final edit

This was the beginning of the end. Both literally and metaphorically.

The edit chewed me up, consumed me, spat me back out then went for another round.

A wholeheartedly positive experience, but nonetheless it didn’t go by without me considering purchasing a new computer, buying a new hard drive and being forced to split the video amongst 3 different projects due to CPU capacity issues.

‘Should’ I do something like this again? Probably not

Will I? …Likely

All in all incredibly proud of how this turned out, and I regret absolutely nothing.

Click here to watch the video