The Life and Death of a Woodworking Video

The Premise

I have to be honest here. This title is one that I thought up this morning, liked instantly but, in truth,  have no real clue about whether or not I can make this into a blog that will interest anyone except a handful of content creators who just so happen to have the same channel size and approach as me. For them this will be a ‘Hey you have had the same experience as me!’ moment. To them I say ‘Yeah, it sucks to not know right?’ To everyone else ‘I hope there is something of interest below.’ Let’s dive in.

The Obvious

Before we go on this journey through my tangled, inner thoughts together let’s just get the obvious out of the way. There is a very literal description of the life and death of a video. Let’s get it out of the way now.

A video is initially imagined and then filmed, edited, posted, clicked on (5% of the time), viewed (though rarely in its entirety and often in 2x mode), then when all interested parties are done with it Youtube decides there is nobody left in the world who cares and so it dies. Or does it? Maybe. Leaving it here would be a very dull use of a blog entry. So stick with me please.  Because there is a lot more to this. Like the hope.

The Hope

This is the bit that kills you as they say.

I wish I was the type of person who could just post a video just for the experience of posting a video.

I wish I was Someone who could think of a topic or build (anything that invokes self satisfaction). Make the video (and enjoy the process. Relish the challenge of every take and inevitable retake), edit the video with a burning passion for the creation of the most beautiful end result. An end result with stunningly choreographed tool strokes, vibrant colours as saw dust dances in the LED lighting and a soundtrack to make the hairs on your arm (ones left after testing how sharp your hand plane iron is) stand on end and wave to and fro in the dust extractor’s gritty breeze.

To be that person who could post the video and stroll directly on to the next one without so much as a backwards glance as the laptop fades to sleep mode, ready for the next, perfect creation.. No sneaky peaks at their night mode-darkened You tube studio to watch the counters tick and climb as more and more viewers find their masterpiece of casual excellence. Without a single care for the end figure. No comparison with videos past or similar-niched, fellow content creators.

To be the person who never wakes in the morning and fumbles for their mobile with thier first thought being to desperately check if the US woke up and was fed the video to brighten up their day.

Oh to be that person.

The person with a million ideas and all of them absolute classics of the small screen woodworking genre. But this is not my reality.

The Cold Reality

As you have probably guessed by now, especially if you have been subjected to my past video releases, I am most assuredly, without any shadow of doubt, not that person.

That person is the content creator I hope to be when I finally figure out some of the basics. Basics such as camera settings and lighting. Ah yes, and planning.

The real Life and Death of a Woodworking Video

And so, here it is, the life and death of a woodworking video. Which from now on needs to be edited to read ‘The life and inevitable death of one of my videos, due to my own mistakes.‘

Not quite as catchy. But let’s carry on.

If you do a little research on Youtube and take a dive into the most popular videos by views. And for this I mean approximately 100k views and above, I would say that 90% of them are not someone making or talking about making something that they need. The exception to this statement though is probably Workshop storage and work benches. These videos seem to do very well. This may be due to the fact that a lot of woodworkers, like me, spend more time upgrading their workshops than they do building things. But I digress (as usual). Let me explain a little because there is something that the makers of the 90% of successful vidoes do that generates the views. And it is fairly simple.

But here is my mistake number one. I do make videos on what I want to make and unsurprisingly they are not in the 90% of successful videos, or the other 10% most times. I have a theory why and I hope to explain it here.

My theory that I am trying to put across is that if you start the process like I do. Which goes like this. I think of a video and let it sit in my mind for around 3 months until it has driven me to the point that I am truly convinced that it is the video that everyone will be frantically clicking their mouse with an unbridled urgency to watch it in its entirety. The views will rival even the likes or Mr Beast. The entire concept is bordering on genius. And this is a dangerous trap to fall into. And it is only mistake one in my process. Solution - don’t make the video that you want to see.

Alternatively, I get to my making time and I need to make something for my house, a gift or the workshop and so I turn the camera on because, well, that is what I do. Surely I can’t waste any precious footage of the time I spend in the workshop. Planning be damned. I’m building so I am filming. In a way this is just another cleverly, not so cleverly disguised way of making mistake number one. So to conclude I have twice shot myself in the foot and I am the one loading and cocking the gun. I don’t know much about fire arms.

So back to the 90% most viewed theory. If making something that you want to make and making a video that you want to watch dont work, what does? Well, Im getting to that. Because there are a few common themes to the popular videos and on the surface it doesnt seem to be all that complicated. This thinking is a trap. I’m only at the initial concept stage of the life of a video and I have already condemned by video to inevitable failure by not starting right. But we will leave that to the end under a title, ‘What you should do’. Or something a little more catchy. Or not, let’s see when we get there.

This is my blog and so it is about my video’s life. So after I have decided what the video will be about, I set about carefully and meticulously planning it out. Scripting every word, carefully curating the story line to invoke all of the emotions necessary for a longer view time, listing the vital camera shots, weaving through a story line and even some jokes. NO!

No I don’t do any of that. I simply walk to my workshop and I stand behind my workbench, turn the camera on and blurt whatever introduction I have come up with on the 50m stroll. The lights may or may not be right, the camera is on but are the microphones? Did I just talk for 5 minutes of what should be at most a 20 minute long video and I am still yet to actually start making. Yes.

And if you are curious, yes I have recorded most of a video before with the microphone off. I’m that guy.

So let’s assume, for this time line we are describing, that the microphone was on and functioning, we have filmed all of the footage and it has all made it in one piece, or several pieces onto hard drives and we are onto the next step. Have I considered a Thumbnail yet? Don’t be daft, I plan to scramble through the footage for a quick, thrown together, solution the night before release when I will again come up with a genius title that will blow peoples minds. Right?

Now comes the editing. Whoever invented this was cruel and mean and, of course I could hire a professional but that would mean I would be then paying for the privilege of making videos and that really feels like a step too far. So instead, I embark on 10 to 20 hours of watching clip after, badly planned clip of me chatting and cutting, then chatting and drilling, and yes, you guessed it, more chatting.

As an aside, some information that I find a little funny. Early on in my video making journey I would film well over 7 hours of footage in order to edit it down to 20 minutes of video. 7 hours!! No wonder I hate editing so much. It’s not the editing it is the lack of planning once again. Maybe, just maybe editing is easy if you make a plan and then stick to it. But I wouldn’t know.

But the editing gets done usually leaving me so bored of the sight of my face and sound of my voice that I can’t look in the mirror for at least 24 hours. Then the upload begins. At this point I can add in the video description, tags, end card, affiliate links and so on.

Every bit of information you see around the video is carefully thrown in randomly scattered as who really reads the description anyway? But still no thumbnail and definitely not a title. But before I delete the video from my laptop as I can only fit one on there to be edited at a time, I do take some stills from the video that may at some point in my rotation of 20 plus thumbnail, prove to be handy. Ps not once have I just uploaded a video with the original thumbnail and not changed it at least twice. There has to be something in that right?

Fast forward now to the night before the video is released and as predicted, I am scrabbling around for a thumbnail and title. Now do please bear in mind that before I started my journey to become an average content creator I watched endless videos and podcasts from people talking about the different areas of the video process and they all stated quite clearly that you need to spend an equal amount of time on the thumbnail and the title as you do on the video itself. At first I found this ridiculous. I could think of hundreds of titles that described exactly what the video was about and I managed to make thumbnails in minutes with my face pulling a silly pose and whatever I had made on the video. Add in a red arrow and boom! Talk about missing the point.

But in my journey, the thumbnail is done and the title typed. Don’t forget to add in random capital letters to really entice the viewer to click and the the video is live. Now the fun begins. The journey to the death.

The Fun Part ?

The video is live, the possibilities are endless. Could the be a viral sensation of a video?

Within minutes people are watching and the thrill is real. Numbers are increasing and my loyal viewers are commenting and leaving some seriously positive responses. (Thank you. You know who you are).

Queue me walking around the house on top of the world. I am Mr Wood Beast. But the elation doesn’t stop me checking the laptop for the metrics every 5 minutes. (by this I mean every 2 minutes but didn’t want to sound needy). The Click through rate is high as, well. Did I finally make a good Thumbnail. It is being fed to people who know and like the channel and the average view time is well over 50% which is solid.

This is the way that every video starts and it is an amazing feeling. And dont get me wrong, I don’t hate the performance of any video this past 3 months. But how many do I love?

Well, this is where it gets a little less than ideal. The video has run through the subscribers that Youtube wants to show it to and now it is time for the algorithm to push the video wider to a more risky group of viewers. People who are not subscribed and may never have even heard of my little channel. Are they ready to Start Making?

And this is where the video sinks or swims, lives or dies. And in 50 plus uploads only around 6 have taken off from here.

Yes, 44 videos or more have died at this stage never to be resurrected. Destined to sit in the library ticking over at 10 views a day, patiently taunting me. And the life cycle is over.

Is that It?

Not quite. There seems to be something that separates some YouTubers from others. Call it relentless optimism, self faith or just plain stubbornness. But some content creators give up after maybe 10 videos, call it a failed experiment and move on to something else. They seem to be able to draw a line under their experience and move on. Others keep uploading without ever changing, seemingly content with their community and how they are performing. And others adapt. They learn, investigate what the 90% of successful videos are doing that is so differerent from what they have done for their 10 videos so far. And they evolve. They find a niche that works. They make a plan for their videos, for the feel of their channel and where they want to take it.

I am not in the third group. I wish I was in the third group.

I am firmly placed in the second group. Elated with the community around the channel. But what I do know is how to get better views but something is stopping me and it is so very infuriating. I don’t have any excuses or blame that can be placed anywhere but on my shoulders. But despite this, I will upload my next video this Saturday and the cycle will start again. It is Wednesday though and I already have a thumbnail. Progress?

So What does Work?

I dont want to leave you this way, with no clear answer. But I need another blog entirely to explain this one and I didnt plan this at the start I promise. Sorry. Until next time…

Caveat - No hate is felt here for the mythical creators described in the early section, only admiration and a slight disbelief that anyone is that relaxed. They seem to be a little similar to unicorns, which my daughters assure me are available to purchase, although they cannot divulge the location.  And, though this may surprise you, and in a way, me, I am not unhappy with my process and the results that they achieve. We are all on a journey and some will crack it sooner than others. Some may never get there, or want to. All results are ok. So long as you are enjoying said journey for whatever rewards it is giving you. My rewards are and always will be the viewing Community that lifts me up after every fall. That is all.