Hello. My name is Jenelle and I’m not ready to start a YouTube channel. Starting a YouTube channel is something that I’ve wanted to do for many many years—to do it properly, to do it well—but today I’m throwing all of that out the window, and I’m just starting.
It would make sense for me to begin by telling you about myself and my plans for this channel—my hopes and dreams and what you can expect—but that would all take away from the point of this video, and the process that I need right now to actually make this happen.
In wanting to start a YouTube channel, I had a plan and a structure with how I wanted to kick things off. A logical progression. I have the skills and the tools to be able to start with at least a little bit better production quality than what you see right now. But production value and treating it like a business doesn’t make sense for me right now. If I wanted to go all in on YouTube I could, but it still wouldn’t pay the bills as quickly as I would need it to, even if I focused all of my effort on that. The time it would take to create high production value with refined, concise, effective videos is what I don’t have the freedom to do right now. To do that would result in very few videos ever being made.
At this stage, I need to hone the craft and play with the ideas more. Less polished and scripted. Talk into a handheld mic. Don’t worry about lighting. Getting the ideas flowing and starting the process is more beneficial, especially with the backlog of ideas I have. I’ll save hours and hours and hours on production and editing, and the content itself will not suffer proportionally. Plus this way I can document the journey as I go, which may be even more helpful to other people.
So what would it look like if it were easy? This is where you’re at right now. Go for it. Make the 1,000 bad drawings, the 100 bad pots or photographs. Quantity leads to quality. Document, don’t create. Build in public. Start before you’re ready.
The quality of the ideas is what you’re striving for, not the quality of the videos. The craft you need to hone is the story, the idea, the lesson. That can all be achieved without b-roll and animations and on-screen text. Those things can easily become crutches. If your story doesn’t work without those things, then your story doesn’t work period.
So what would it look like, if it were easy?
What if you simply recorded yourself reading off of your phone with all of these notes that you take? Unedited, jumping all over the place. These are your thoughts poured out. It’s valuable to share the seeds of the ideas, the inklings, the wonderings, the process. These are the things that don’t normally get shared yet are very valuable.
What if you didn’t even use a microphone and just went with the crappy built-in camera audio? Kept your wide-angle lens on, instead of a prime lens that could let in more light and have at least a bit of depth of field? Shoot things in one take, and edit out the filler. What if I didn’t even edit it? Just left it as is. Raw. Natural. Reality. Don’t worry about what you’re wearing, what you look like, whether you’ve showered, or the chaotic state of your office.
Getting started in whatever the most accessible form is right now, is the most important part.
I want a nice ending and takeaway. Something encouraging for somebody else to start their own YouTube channel, their own side project, whatever it is that they’ve been putting off. I want a proper conclusion, but that defeats the whole purpose of this video. The point is to just start. The point is that I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to figure it out, and in order to do that, this is the best way for me right now.
So, here we go.
Monday, October 10, 2022. I have started a YouTube channel.