Making A YouTube Channel.

Have you ever thought about starting your own YouTube channel? Have you ever wanted to start a channel but thought that no one would subscribe or even watch your videos? Well I'm going to tell you that you can start your own channel and have views and have subscribers.

There's a saying that goes "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right either way." In other words, if you think that you can't, well then you can't. Positive affirmations guys! If you want something, I believe that you can and you should be able to believe it too. If you are thinking these things, but haven't made a channel or uploaded a video, how can you even give people a chance? Before you start thinking negative, please give yourself a chance.

Firstly if you have thought that you won't be able to get people to look at your channel, trust me, they will. Even if you don't promote your page on your social medias someone will probably still look at your page. Some people I'm pretty sure just live on YouTube, and come across our random videos. But hey, a view is a view.

And another thing is that if you're in it for the views and subscribers, I'm sorry to say I don't know if you would be able to last as a channel. I started my own sketch comedy channel about 3 months ago. Now let me tell you my videos are quite eccentric and a little crazy, but that's the kind of comedy I like. Some of my favourite comics are Jim Carrey, Frank Woodley, and Dana Carvey. I seem to somehow base my videos from my own inspirations based on their talents. Because of this eccentricity in my videos, I feared that people would take them so seriously and think I was a freak.
I peaked at 47 subscribers two weeks ago, and am currently sit at 44 subscribers. Losing those three subscribers made me feel so unhappy that I actually made all of my videos private.

Over the past weekend I thought about my actions and what I had limited myself to. By taking the choice to change my videos to private so no one could see them meant no one viewed them, and therefore no one knowing that my channel existed. I was cutting myself off from the world in a way. The inspiration to bring my videos back just today was over the weekend I was bored and decided to listen to Lady Gaga's Born This Way album. It's something that I really used to love when it first came out, and to be honest, I actually don't think I've listened to it since 2011 when it was released. Those songs taught me that to be yourself is one of the mot important things you can ever do. And in saying that, doing what you love is also important.

As Lady Gaga says, "they can't scare me if I scare them first." Maybe not the best of quotes, but you could look at it as a way of not letting life scare you in to hiding, just be yourself, do what you love.

This is why I put my videos back, because I'm doing something that I love. Not because I want views, or subscribers, but that would be icing on the cake, right? And that's something that you should know if you do indeed start a YouTube channel, that if you make your channel about something that you love, in my case comedy and writing comedy, then you have nothing to lose, and the ability to share your passion with everyone is ready and waiting for you.

Of course though, there will always be that one person who leaves a hate comment or dislikes your videos. In just the three months I've had my account I've had two dislikes. Yes it made me a little sad, but the positive comments are so worth it. People have commented saying "Wow, your background is so cool!" or "This is so funny!" and some have even said "You're really pretty." Comments like that blow me away, I really don't expect it especially since my videos are such bad quality and most of my videos I think are cringe worthy.

Lastly, I want to say this; If you think you could start your own channel, you absolutely can. Sure growth is slow, (unless you're doing beauty and fashion videos, those things are like wildfire!) but it is so worth it, because you can see your own growth through your videos, and I thin that if your having fun, people can see that and they feed of off that positive energy that you provide. If no one is watching your videos, just remember that YouTube is massively popular, and many small and new YouTubers are hard to find. You need to promote yourself, through your social medias, that way you can start to build a small audience. Sure it's small, but in time it will grow. And remember, if you are putting videos up just for fun, then YouTube is a great place to be.

~Morgan.

I'm Back?

Hello. Does anyone remember me? Lets be honest probably not.

Well I have come back to my blog and I'm going to change things up a bit, maybe you've noticed that I changed the name and background and the aesthetic side of things around. I have also started a YouTube channel that I will link with this blog, hopefully you can join me there and have fun with me.

This time around I'm not going to force myself into writing every other day. Instead it might be once a week, or a post that goes hand in hand with a video that I post to YouTube. I want my posts to be quality, and I feel that before I wasn't feeling motivated to write, even though I love writing. It was just because I wasn't believing in what I was saying, which I think translated in my audience dropping off.

Hopefully this time though you can see the real me shining through. I've decided to start up my blog again, because recently I was offered a volunteer writing job with a local entertainment magazine. That offer gave me hope and inspiration that maybe I am a somewhat ok writer. Now I get to do something that I love, and meet some very interesting people along the way.

I really hope that to everyone reading this, that you can join me on this fun adventure that I'm going off on. Thanks a ton for reading, and let's talk again in the future :)

~Morgan.

Creating Sample Writing?!

Recently I emailed a local entertainment magazine to ask if I could volunteer to write some columns or articles, you know, so I could get some writing experience in a professional environment. Well, I was not expecting to get a reply saying 'sure you can!, just send us some of your sample material and tell us what you would like to write about'.

WHAT.

 

I mean, you  can tell from my blog that I'm writing something like every second day, but I guess that this is more of a hobby type of thing than a professional business move (Ha, I wish). But when this opportunity came up I had no idea what to send them, I've never done sample writing before! I looked around on a lot of comedy writing sites to see what I was supposed to send, since this magazine is very much comedy based (yet it's an entertainment guide). I knew a lot about sample packets for late night, but I really don't think that a magazine is going to care much for my comedy sketch scripts.

So I stayed up writing articles about super random things, and I don't think I stopped writing until about 11PM. Two hours of writing, and I came up with a short story and two articles that I probably should have worked harder on. But oh well, hopefully there will be more opportunities, and it was a learning thing. Next time I'll know what to do. In saying that, it's still only been 3 days since I sent my sample stuff so I guess I'll wait a bit longer to see if I get an answer.

If you have something you have to write for and you get asked to give sample pieces, here is a list of what to do so you don't panic like I did.

1. Make sure you know who you are writing for. Trust me, applying for a writing job on a comedy something or rather will always be different to applying to write for a science magazine (duh) Check out if thy have a website and see who the target audience is, I think that could help your chances.

2. If you are writing Late Night style stuff, check out @JoeToplyn on Twitter, he always has some really good tips. While your at it, check out the list that the Sandpaper Suit has on their blog. It is so helpful.

 

3. If you are applying for a local magazine or something similar (as I did) make sure your sample writing is something people in that area will find relatable. For example, if you're from Nebraska, are people living in New York or Los Angeles really going to like reading about corn? I mean, I like corn, but maybe not enough to read about it.

4. Make sure you actually have some writing samples, because you do not want to be staying up late rushing to write out four pages of stuff (Like me.. Oops) You will enjoy the feeling of having something pre-written. Trust me!

If all else fails, apply to a different writing job! Don't give up, you can do it!

Until Next Time...
Morgan ^^

Writing Jokes...Why Bother?

A lot of comics will argue that writing a comedy is much more difficult than writing drama. You know what? I have to say, I totally agree with them.

Have you ever tried writing a joke? Trust me it really isn't that easy. Well, it's easy to write a joke, but getting a laugh out of people, that's the hard part. Whether it's for stand up, sketch, a movie, or whatever else a joke can be in. It is difficult.

Now compare that with drama where you would write the dialogue pretty straight, as in you'd most likely write it like a normal, serious conversation. (I had to put 'serious' there because none of my conversations are ever serious. Just in case someone else has that issue.)

I study Film Production at university, and as you may have guessed, that pretty much covers everything. One of the things that we have recently covered is the 'Kuleshov Effect'. Now, (not to get technical or anything), but pretty much this means that our brains react to an image based on what we saw in the previous image. So no matter how bad the writing, editing, or acting is, (well... maybe that stuff is important. Usually it is.) our brains will still tell us that something has happened or is about to happen.

 

 

You can still do this type of thing in comedy of course, but I think the outcome would be more serious than comical. So that's why comedians have to take so long to come up with gags, or jokes. Comedy doesn't have this magical brain thing that drama producers can use.

 

 

Does anyone else find that unfair? Just me? Ok....

 

So why do comics even bother with working so hard on writing jokes? I don't know! Maybe they're crazy. But I guess then that makes me crazy since I write jokes too. :/  Not to mention trying to get more laughs by changing the timing, nature, or tone of the joke on each take. People in drama Just have to look at the opposing actor with a straight face and suddenly the audience think they want to kill each other. Ok, that was a bit extreme. I won't even go into the whole discussion on how the Oscars don't consider comedies for anything. I'll leave that argument for someone like Howard Stern. Doesn't he make great points about everything? That was so sarcastic. Sorry.

 

Think about it this way, if we didn't have comedy, we would be so unhappy and gloomy. There would be no SNL, no Seth Rogan making silly movies, no stupid Foo Fighters music videos. What would the world come to? I'm sure we would survive, but we would be very depressed. I think that's why comics keep trying to make us laugh, and keep writing even though its argued to be harder than writing or acting in drama.

 

Are you an actor or writer? What do you prefer comedy or drama and which is more difficult? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Until Next Time...

Morgan ^^ 

David Letterman's Top Ten

The Top Ten List is such an iconic thing to comedy, and late night TV. But now that Dave is no longer on air, neither are his top ten lists.

Most of the time they were really stupid, but through that silliness we could all see something funny, and that's what made these lists so special. Dave Letterman and his writers have created something that has gone down in history, and something that future and current comedians and writers can look back on.

 

Many people in the TV and comedy business have said that they used to write top ten lists to practice their joke writing. One of whom is Dan Schneider, the creator of Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh, iCarly, Kenan & Kel, etc. He said in a interview once that when he was younger and had become interested in comedy that he used to write out top ten lists and fax them to Letterman's show. He also said thought that none of them were ever used, but it's still good to practice with.

Since so many writers always say that you need to practice our writing skills every day (like my creative writing lecturer. he wouldn't shut up about it), and so many comedians and comical writers seem to always suggest doing top ten lists, I though I would give it a go. One of those who've suggested it is Joe Toplyn, maybe you've heard of him? He's a comedy writer who actually has a book about writing for Late Night shows and preparing a packet for the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop (which I can never do because I'm a million miles away from New York -_- ). If you're interested in finding out more about his work you can check out his twitter for more info. He says that writing every day and practicing with these lists is important.

So, here we go. A few of my own original Top Ten Lists.

Top Ten - Offensive Family Feud Topics:

10. Name a celebrity with no talent starting with a 'K'
9. Name something you see a lot of in Hooters.
8. Fill in the blank: 'A woman should not judge a man by his _______'
7. We asked 100 men: Why are women so annoying?
6. Tell me a word that rhymes with 'Duck'
5.Name a person that the world would be better off without.
4. Tell me something that is terrible besides marriage.
3. Give me sign that you are eating too much.
2. Tell me one word to describe your boss.
1. Give me another name for 'mother-in-law'

Just saying, not all of them are so great. But if something is funny, then that's awesome!!

Top Ten - Unknown SNL Sketches:

10. Sarah Palin's Diary.
9. Invention Convention.
8. The Relationship.
7. 101 Flamingos.
6. Dead Men Are Dead.
5. CSI: Oklahoma.
4. Unusual Crafts with Betty Baths.
3. Nature Calls.
2. Tools.
1. Meets the Jones!

If any of these are in any way similar to any of Letterman's top ten lists, please let me know via email or the comment section below. I haven't seen or heard that many top ten lists, so just letting you know there may be an overlap. But hopefully not.

I hope you at least one thing funny, if not, well, I tried. I thought they were alright. They're just practice ones anyway, so if I didn't put them on here they'd just be doing nothing in my notebook. So may as well put them on here.

I really hope you enjoyed them!

Until Next Time...
Morgan ^^

Ode to Jimmy Fallon

Ok, maybe not an ode, but I have to give him credit for this. And of course his writers for coming up with the concept of Thankyou Notes.

Many comedy writers always seem to say in interviews, books, whatever, that doing practice exercises such as Jimmy's Thankyou Notes, or Dave Letterman's Top Ten are helpful when coming up with more elaborate jokes (I suppose jokes that you could use for stand up or a sketch?). So today I thought that I would give it a shot an put some of my own 'notes' on here. After all, what else were they going to do? Sit in my notebook and never be seen by anyone? Most Likely.

So here are just a few of the Thankyou Notes that I've written, when I'm practicing jokes. I'll warn you now that some really aren't that great, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.

Thankyou Notes:

+ Thankyou, bleach blonde hair dye, for making dark haired people end up looking like Conan O'Brien

+ Thankyou, second storey windows, for giving me something to do when I'm bored. After all, where else would I put my two week old egg salad sandwich?

+ Thankyou, Farrelly Brothers, for being so gross out funny all the time. My mum hates you guys.

+ Thankyou, random people on the street, for being so unbelievably funny when asked stupid questions on late night shows. Apparently I put to much thought and effort into writing jokes.

+ Thankyou, Dave Letterman, for having a tie collection that looks like you went through Bozo the Clown's closet. I think he wants his ties back.

+ Thankyou, SNL, for creating "Kissing Family". I used to think my family needed to be closer, but now I don't think so.

+ Thankyou, inhaler, for making it look like I have a tampon shoved up my nose every time I'm sick.

+Thankyou, bottle cap, for being the water bowl of the mice world.


Well. There you have it. Trust me when I say I have three pages full of these jokes, I just shared some of my favourites.

Also I recognise that I have only been watching Jimmy Fallon for about a year, so if there has been any similarities in thankyou notes, please let me know in the comment section below. I don't mean for there to be. He's been doing them since Late Night so there may be some overlap of ones that I haven't heard or seen before.

Anyhow, I hope that you enjoyed them. And I hope that they can improve over time. Just got to keep writing, don't I?

Until Next Time...
Morgan ^^