This is how I make devlogs

Now that I'm nearly 75% done for my first devlog for ZakZakNeko, I decided to share some thoughts on my youtube devlog process. At least, I hope someone could benefit from them =)

Idea: Well, a no brainer, but at first step I try to figure out why anyone should want to watch the video I'm about to make. Sometimes I fool myself at this point thinking that plainly explaining random stuff on a game would be an instant hit. * shrug * but it does not matter too much as learning to make videos is a nice hobby in itself.

Story: The idea is then expanded into some logical parts/chapters which fit well together. I usually make bullet points on topics I'd like to talk or present. The raw first version of the narrative gets done by expanding the bullet points.

Clips&Content: This is one of my favourite parts in devlogging. While reading the narrative, I get instantly ideas what kind of clips/animations/images need to go in different parts. I feel like this is maybe(?) a creative skill I learned along the way as my first devlogs were more or less just random dull gameplay. (Whispering: "Only later I figured out that people have minimal attention span nowadays and it's somehow more exciting to rapidfire content."). Anyways, today I spend much more time making animations with Godot's animation player and movie maker mode (it's actually quite fun!). Also, I like to make sure that the original clip content has high quality (60 fps, low compression) and if possible, good brightness. All this, so that once the video gets rendered and compressed on my PC and then -once more- encoded at Youtube, the result looks decent.

Narrative recoding: Oh boy :D This is then one of the least favourite part. Usually bc it is not too easy to organize time at which our house is completely noise free. For some strange reason (please don't copy this) I'm somehow pedantic about having a single nearly perfect take for the narrative. Before recording that perfect take, I like to warm up my voice a bit by doing some singing exercises :D I feel like it is easier to talk more clearly/stronger that way. After that I usually record the script once to rehearse it. Aand then the golden perfect hit...during which I of course make mistakes, and sometimes they are so funny that I end up laughing. Then again, sometimes I end up in an endless loop of mispronouncing something. Trying to be all relaxed and just talking without much thinking is in my mind the best medicine against such mishaps. After a good take in Audacity, I edit all the unnecessary noises/mistakes out and do denoising and compression for the final vocal track. Btw, I use Blue Yeti mic for recording.

Video editing: This is then the most boring part. I use Davinci Resolve for importing the clips and narrative and composing them into a devlog. Sometimes I find out that for some part, I have not enough material and I need to go back to clips&content to find some more. Few times I have also noticed that a part of a video is dead boring, which is of course easy to swipe away if I feel it does not belong. So, after clips & narrative have been synced I usually watch the video in Davinci few times before rendering. If everythings ok, I render with nearly the best export settings available and if necessary adjust/trim the final render with ffmpeg tool. 

Thumb nail: But this is something I like quite a bunch, because it means I can be creative again :D I'm not really an expert on thumbnail design, but I feel like good contrast with some simple color scheme has worked well before. Also the usual devlog thumbnails " before->after " seem to work. I guess good thumbnail catches attention fast and makes a potential viewer thirsty to click the banner and watch the video. 

Submission: Well, then finally just upload to YT and that's it...mostly. This is my tip nr 1. especially if you are starting. Just upload and log out of your dev account. Eye balling the statistics daily does not really make sense. It's just an easy way to procrastinate, so don't do it :P Maybe have a look day or two afterwards to check some comments, and maybe once or twice a month check out the statistics. Make notes on viewer retention (= how long ppl stayed in your video), should that be important to you.

That's about it. I mean, depending on the style you are after, this all might take solid week or two to execute. BUT: I think going quality over quantity works better in YT. 

Ok, take care!

-Haru