Put together this little video to show a few tricks on how to improve your outdoors video. Hope you enjoy, leave a comment to let me know if there are any other tricks or tips that I should have mentioned!

Dang good video man!! Thanks for posting! Definitely gave me some easy ideas to incorporate into my videos to take the video quality up. I have a hybrid/bowfishing trip coming up tomorrow and I wanted to take the video quality up and will definitely include some B-roll which I rarely do and storytelling into it which I never do.

One thing I have been noticing from my own videos compared to someone who has hundreds of thousands of subscribers is those guys push their own brand. Take Chad Ferguson from CatfishEdge for example. It's not just Chad posting a video. Its "Hey whisker people (signature phrase)! Its Chad with CatfishEdge. Today we are going to talk about......" They have created a "brand" of themselves and their channels that makes you watch their content because the audience buys into the brand rather just some Joe blow posting a video. That is something I have not been doing that I started realizing this week.

Thanks for posting and keep up the great work. I'll be checking out your videos and subscribing!

Yeah, I'm amazed at how few people truly take the time to tell a story. Ultimately people care more about the fishing or whatever outdoor activity than they care about telling a story. Yet, fishermen are the best storytellers ever, shame really. Most people never get past the watch-me-go-fishing.

Best book you can buy, "How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck" by Steve Stockman.

Next book to buy, "Documentary Storytelling" by Sheila Curran Bernard.

One of the biggest difficulties is we usually only have one camera. They'll have an entire army: multiple cameras, a sound man, directors, not just one guy with camera. In fact they never record audio and video on the same machine.

The hardest thing we have is we have to make lots of sacrifices because we are just one person with one camera doing everything. So you either have ot sacrifice your fishing, sacrifice your storytelling, or sacrifice cash and flesh out a proper camera crew.

I'm not going to sacrifice the story, ever.

But be careful of just throwing b-roll on just to have b-roll. Each clip--or shot--need to help move the story forward.

Here's a shot list summary that I put together from Dr. Bernard's book to give you an idea of how to think of every shot and scene in your video:

Storytelling Shot List:
1. Get the widest possible angle of the landscape.
2. Get a shot close enough where everyone is in frame, close enough to see their faces, but wide enough to see what they're doing.
3. Get several angle of what they're doing. Imagine they are the center of the universe and film from multiple vantage point as if the camera is on a globe surrounding the subject.
4. Get close ups, both talking and non talking.
5. If you're in a location with sign, like the lake your on, get a shot of that sign, get a shot with action, like the truck passing by and get one totally still.
6. Capture time markers, things that let people know what time it is. I often do this with the color grading, using golden tones for early morning shots. It could be as simple as getting a shot of the clock on the wall before your leave.
7. Shoot indicators of direction: which way is the wind blowing? Which way is the water flowing? these all tell people aspects of where you are, what you're doing, and the difficulty of the task at hand.

Note none of the above requires talking, yet each shot tells a vital part of the story. It isn't that the cameras guy was bored and decided to get some random shots. They don't shoot audio and video on the same machine, to get any shot is a logistical hassle for them. there is no being bored out of your mind. No, the entire story is carefully planned. Each shot, scene, sequence and act is planned months in advance. In other words he didn't know what would happen but the over all shape of the story had been in place in the director's head for a long time before they ever stepped on the boat.

Just as the author of a book doesn't randomly pick words that magically makes sentences, that by pure chance make the chapters of a book. The same is true for any film. YouTubers should study filmmaking because that's what we are. The language of motion picture has been around for more than 100 years, yet few YouTubers think to study art to help make their videos better.

Cold hard reality: You've got about 10 seconds to show me that you care about telling a good story, or I'm click away from your video.

Great info! This is all very helpful. I appreciate all the tips & will do my best to use them in all my future videos. Thanks!

@RespectTheFish - Man, I totally hear you on that one. Personally I have been working on 'branding' for well over a year and have shied away from committing to anything yet. You don't get many do-overs, and you want your brand to be really good. And it is important; YouTube adsense revenue doesn't pay the bills and it is spotty at best. Taking your brand off-platform and turning it into a business is not only the smartest thing you can do, it is single-handedly the most profitable thing you can do.

Appreciate your thoughts/insight sir, good luck with your trip!

I agree about your b-roll point... you want to utilize good b-roll to further your story. This video is obviously catered more towards beginners. Let's get b-roll started in these videos and then we can work on improving its use, you know? Per your other point I have to say I respectfully disagree that having only one camera is a big difficulty. I am a firm believer in the notion that you do not need a film crew, multiple cinema-quality cameras and audio techs to achieve great video. It helps to be sure, but the difference between a really great video filmed on a cell phone with clear audio, an enticing story-line and well thought out/edited cinematography and anything done with expensive equipment is negligible if done right. Look at what Steven Soderbergh did with 'Unsane.' That was an entire movie filmed on an iPhone. It can be done.

This is an EXCELLENT list of, thank you for sharing! In fact this should be a video in and of itself!

Very happy to be of service!

Yeah, you made my point: It "can be done" is by definition the description of the very difficulty mentioned, otherwise you would not need the qualifier. It's simply a limitation, not an impossibility nor is it a handicap. Zero budget filmmaking has been around since filmmaking has existed.

Note: I never said you need a film crew. I don't want a film crew. I want limitations because it stimulates my creativity. But at the same time If I choose to do one thing, it also means I cannot do something else: opportunity cost. My comment was not one of impossibilities, but of possibilities.

The reality for me is I can't get many of the shots I want because I only have one camera. That's a reality. That doesn't stop me from telling stories. It forces you to think of the shots in a different way. Thus the above list.

For me I simply cannot get the look I want with a cellphone. I use vintage lenses that were designed back in the 1970s. This is also a imitation: I don't have autofocus, the image is not as sharp, big lens flares, stepped aperture, cruddy old lenses that are full of mold, the moving parts are old and don't always work. I also have to deal with the flaws of the lenses from that era--Canon orange skin tones.

The lens in your cellphone is actually technically superior to every lens I use, but I cannot get that 1970-80s, "Little-House-on-the-Prairie-and-The-Waltons look.

Every piece of gear has limitations. Every piece of gear has difficulties. Remember I'm the guy who fishes with handline reels and no sonar. My definition of difficulty and limitation is simply based in fact not impossibility. Yet nothing prevents me for catching fish or telling a good story. Thus the comment never sacrifice the story ever. Get over whatever difficulties exist.

The real point is think like a filmmaker. You're no longer a fisherman/ outdoorsman. You're online filmamker/TV show producer. Most people will never make that transition because they don't really want to do what it takes to tell a compelling story.

I always catch far fewer fish when I'm filming. Again limitation. When I just focus on fishing-only videos, I see far fewer views on that kind of video. When I focus on telling the story even at the expense of the fishing, I get far more views and a greater number of subscribers. Everyone talks about wanting more subscribers and views, but few want to do what's necessary to earn more subscribers and views: telling a good story.

It's because people want to see a story, a good story well told, even if that means getting skunked. The days of just watch-me-go-fishing videos are over. Those who got in first and early like the Chad Ferguson and others didn't have to produce very complicated videos. In fact how much time does Chad film on the water? Even in the early days it was all tutorials. Those days are gone.

Yet when I have done exactly what Chad does, I get few views and subscribers from those sorts of videos. It just doesn't work anymore for someone new. The storytelling is what gets it done today for someone new coming in. YouTube has changed so much over the past decade.

It takes a combination hero, help and hub content ot make it work these days. Often hero content being the prime stuff that gets the views and subscriber, basically movie making.

Very well put sir... I could not agree more with everything you said. It does not matter what you do when you are out filming; one of the best performing videos on my channel is one where I didn't catch a single fish. But I told a fun story about the experience of being out and away from work for an afternoon. I went and played around Port Aransas... for me it was a day where I got to feel like a kid again. That was the actual story happening behind the scenery of a fishing trip; it was the enjoyment of the day that lent itself so well to the video and my audience responded to that.

Appreciate you and what you do sir, keep it coming!