This week we wanted to take some time chat about the changes we have made behind the scenes of our YouTube channel over the past year. These are changes we have made to make producing our YouTube channel and managing our social media a little easier. Most of these changes are not necessarily something viewers of our channel would be aware of just by watching our content. But none the less we feel have made a huge impact on the quality of our channel!

Camera Setup

Of course every YouTube channel has to have at least one camera! In the beginning we played around with using our phones to capture the content we wanted to use. We however realized rather quickly that we needed action cameras in order to document the adventures we hoped to have.

Our hope was to be able to capture multiple camera angles on our bike rides and other outdoor adventures. This was important since it is the bulk of where we wanted our content to come from. For this reason we picked a few different GoPro’s. After using the GoPro’s for a few videos we noticed that the audio quality needed some help and ordered a few external microphones. Having to do a bunch of audio editing is time consuming and usually not very effective.

Of course we would love to also have a DSLR or a drone, but decided to spend our money on our GoPro’s to begin with. As the budget will allow we do plan to add these to our camera gear. If you are interested in what is in our camera bag check out our “Whats in our Camera Bag” blog post or video!

Camera Run Time

When we first started filming our content, we would leave the cameras running the entire time we were on an adventure… This approach to filming produced A LOT of extra footage. This resulted in excess editing time and took up an unnecessary amount of space on our hard drives. Thankfully we have gotten better about picking the shots we actually want to include in our videos. Figuring out what shot you actually want to get is a learning process. For us, filming is not our main goal… our first goal is always to spend time with our boys and be present with them as much as possible.

Editing Software

For most YouTube creators… once you have captured your content, you have to have some way of putting it in order and presenting it as a finished product. There are lots of options out there for video editing! The type of computer you have will dictate what programs are available to you. From day one we have used Adobe Pro CC to edit our videos.

I am not going to lie, it definitely has a steep learning curve! BUT the versatility that it offers was a main selling feature for us! We are still using Adobe Pro CC! However, thanks to Jeremy being in school we now have access the the whole Adobe suite of programs! We are looking forward to learning more about some of these other programs and how they can help us produce quality content for the J&K Full-time Adventures Brand.

Computer

When we first started out editing video for our channel we were using a SurfacePro3 we had purchased a few years prior. While this computer is capable of running Adobe Pro CC, it sure did NOT like it! You see when the surface would get too hot (this is happens to a computer when it is working too hard) it would start to slow down… and eventually it would just close all programs or shut off. This resulted in many HOURS of work lost on multiple occasions. So after a few months of extra time editing each video we decided to upgrade our computer! After lots of research (done by Jeremy) we decided on an Asus Republic Of Gamers gaming laptop. Kelli who does most of our editing is very happy with the upgrade! She is extremely grateful to no longer be loosing precious edits to our videos!

Update: Since publishing this blog, we have released a video and new blog about this topic!

Switching Website From Wix to WordPress

Obviously since you are here reading this very blog, you are experiencing our new website! Our original website looked and functioned very differently from this version. We are extremely pleased with the usability of the new to us WordPress platform! We are able to do SOO much more with WordPress then our first attempt at a website! If you haven’t already we would love to have you take a look around and leave us some feedback on the new website design! We are still working out the kinks, feel free to let us know if you find any that we skipped!

Don’t forget to watch this weeks video too!!