Railroad Equipment Cabinet Video Tutorial?


bigfoot13

Well-Known Member
Thinking about starting up a YouYube channel. Like if you would watch a video on how I made this equipment cabinet from a for sale sign.

Took a couple of hours from start to finish but could probably be done in less, since house hold responsibility fit in that time too.

Open to feedback and suggestions. I'm also contemplating making it into a kit.
 

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Yeah, establish your own YouTube page.
I did that with videos of my train interests, EasternSP Rails.
Just keep loading up whatever ya want to the page.
Doing a How To video takes a lot of patience and careful editing. I good video editor is important so you can do a good job of editing including titles where ya need em. You can also do a music background to go with it as long as ya have copyright to it, otherwise YouTube won't let ya upload it.
 
@D&J RailRoad Thanks. I have all the pieces to do the video (camera, lights, software, some experience) except for maybe time. No sense doing it if there is no interest so I thought I would bounce the idea of others since this and Instagram are my only RR community.
 
Bigfoot13: Can't tell you why, but I am one that doesn't really check out every video. Ima old; maybe that is it, and it seems that static pix work fine for me. However, I do watch a few every once-in-awhile. Take a good look at Ken's videos. He has it down. No camera shake, does not zoom in/out all of the time, keeps the subject centered in the screen for the most part and probably the biggest factor ( to me ) not much dead time where the subject is not shown. I want 'click, watch then go to the next'. Maybe something like a Super Bowl commercial. You have 30 seconds @ $gazillion dollars to tell folks who, how and the what for's. Another analogy is a web page - you have something like 6 seconds to capture the viewer's interest so they continue to delve deeper in the page; else move on to something else.

I suspect that Ken spends a ton of time on ones he shoots. The ones I have seen so far have been put together with thought and what looks like minimal editing. Watching his drone vid's has prompted me to start looking for a good but inexpensive one as there are times that I just can't get to where I want to with static camera - even with a long lens.

Have fun!
 
I use GrassValley's Edius editing software along with a HP Z440 video editor. This is pretty high speed, so it cuts down the time it takes to insert a transition or inserting titles as well as rendering the video into Windows Media.
As for how many views you get, it depends on what you title the video. If you title it using catch words that will fit the audience you're addressing, you'll get quite a few views. If you use titles that capture a large array of search words without actually addressing them in your video, you'll soon find that your web page is considered as nothing more than click bait and your viewership will fall off.
Familiar items will draw interest. For example, on my YouTube page I have a three-part video of the Wyoming Division Model Railroad. It's acquired over 140,000 views, mostly due to the title.
The other part of your video production is composition of the subject. Learn how to aim a camera lens. Use a tripod whenever possible. Use a good sound pickup system or do postproduction voice dubbing. I have found that I can use my cell phone to record voice dubbing then insert it in the video. I just strip away the video portion of the file. Write down what you want to say, one sentence at a time, rehearse it then record it a few times till ya get it just right.
In the editing process, be careful with your transitions. If ya overdo it, the transition becomes a focal point of your video and people go away. Long transitions are boring. Use it only to get from one look to another, nothing more. Forget all the fancy transitions. Nobodies interested in them except the novice video producer.
 
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