This is a guest post written by my friend, Claire of Matsallehkeliru.
(l-r, Jared, Roy, Joseph, Dan)
“I just wasted five minutes of my life”
The words every Youtuber fears. You shoot a video, send it out into the world and watch the viewer count tick higher and higher…then scrolling through the comments you find that.
Ouch.
At least that’s how Joseph Germani feels. And with almost 3 million video views from his page, Germani Productions, he should know.
I recently met up with Joseph and a few of Malaysia’s other Youtube “stars” for a chat about viral videos, creative passion and crazy fans.
So how do you avoid those hateful comments and get your video global?
1. Keep it Short
Jared Lee and Roy Ajong of internationally screened Grim Film, agreed that people tend not to watch videos that last longer than 3 or 4 minutes. Unless of course the video is super-good, like their breakthrough hit, Long Distance Relationship (7m21s).
2. Love Stories
Everyone loves a love story. Ask Dan Khoo – 9 out of his 15 featured short films are lovvvvve stories <3
3. Funny Stories
Everyone loves a funny story. Joseph Germani still gets people shouting, “Hey Siri!” at him in the street…
4. Relateblility
Wow, is that a word? It is now. All the guys agreed that the best thing you can do to get a “share” of your video is to create something that people can relate to – “I totally do that?!” That’s what people share. You know it’s true because you’ve done it 😉
But you can’t please everyone all the time. There will always be people who post hateful comments on your video…or on your blog. But we are brave enough to embrace this. And in the words of Jared, “Haters make you famous”.
Though he also said, “It’s cheap to make love”, so you can weigh those comments for yourselves.*
They learned this the long way – you guys get the instant info. Thank me later. But that’s the interesting thing about these guys. Although they’re making videos that are watched by millions of people around the world, none of them ever formally learned how to do it.
They just did it.
They studied or are still studying unrelated subjects – perhaps in true Asian style, to make their parents happy. I speculate. But their passion for acting, film making and storytelling is so strong, they taught themselves. They grabbed a camera and figured it out along the way. Kudos.
Go live your passions.
The other interesting thing was that these guys could be rivals. Should be rivals. They’re all competing for the same viewers, right?
But they’re not.
They have been wise enough to realise that the Malaysian arts scene is small. Very small. Whether you’re talking about Youtube, film, theatre, art, music….it’s the same. It’s small and it’s difficult to make a living.
(Perhaps, for example, because people would rather go and watch Step Up in the cinema than go to see a live dance show. But that’s a whole other topic…)
They’ve recognised that they can do more together. That collaboration enhances their skills and sharing knowledge makes their work better. Which is good for everyone – nurturing this industry means giving your friends a leg up.
“Unity makes things grow faster”, said Jared.
And we’d all do well to remember that.
Look out for the video collaboration between Grim Film, Dan Khoo Productions, KYOPROPAGANDA, TheMingThing and Germani Productions, coming soon, to a computer near you…
*He was actually talking about love stories. It’s cheap to make love stories…that’s what he meant…I think… 😛