by Zoe Schrader
YouTube channel: itsjustkassidy
Freshman English major Kassidy Neil has always been into makeup.
She began watching makeup tutorials and trying the tutorials on herself as a kid. Her passion for doing makeup has continued to grow ever since.
“I would practice on myself, and I thought I was pretty good,” Neil said. “I thought, look, I could do what those people do!”
Neil created her YouTube channel with makeup tutorials during her freshman year after saving up to get a camera.
“It actually took me a while before I finally decided to say, okay I’m going save up and get camera and post a YouTube video, and I’m just going to do it,” Neil said.
Since posting her first video on her channel, Neil has tried to post videos consistently.
“I try and do one as often as I can,” Neil said. “I see other channels that haven’t posted something for like three months, and I want to be able to have current videos all the time.”
Neil has tried multiple different styles of filming and editing in search of the best methods for her tutorials.
“I do voiceovers so I can explain what I’m doing and what products I’m using,” Neil said. “But I’ve also tried doing it where I don’t speak and I just play music in the background so that it can go a little bit faster.”
Since the creation of her YouTube channel, Neil has been surprised by the amount of feedback from viewers.
“With the first video I put up I was only expecting to get like 50 views tops, but I got almost 400 views,” Neil said. “I was really surprised and happy with myself, it’s been better than I expected.”
Neil has found the process of creating and posting YouTube videos to be very rewarding, and said it has even helped increase her confidence.
“I’ve gotten more comfortable through it, and more confident in how I do my makeup, and even how I look without makeup,” Neil said. “I’ve been more comfortable talking to people since I just talk to a camera by myself in my room.”
Outtakes:
“My dogs will walk in and just start making a ton of noise or my cat will jump up on my lap,” Neil said. “Or I’ll be doing a voice over and somebody will randomly start talking in the background so I’ll have to start all over again.”
YouTube channel: PT Shoepaste
After making a video log for an assignment in a class called the art and business of web video, freshman film studies major, Parker Denowski, created his YouTube channel.
“I made one and I really liked doing it and I figured it would be an easy way to do a consistent set of videos every week,” Denowski said. “I kept doing one a week after I did that assignment, and it’s been going on for a couple of months now.”
Denowski’s channel includes a series of video logs, otherwise known as vlogs, that are centered on a story or event that has happened to him in the week leading up to making the video.
“I always want to base each episode over some particular story that has a really clear beginning middle and end,” Denowski said. “Sometimes there isn’t anything particularly eventful or story-worthy that happened to me that week so I just take some little tiny thing and expand it into a bigger idea.”
After choosing an event for each vlog, Denowski writes up a script for each video.
“I write down a bulleted list of talking points for the story,” Denoski said. “And then I throw in some of the big jokes I want to make, or songs I want to sing, or weird impressions I want to do.”
Denowski said that writing the scripts usually take about an hour, and then he begins filming, which can take an additional two hours to finish.
“It can be tough because I have two roommates, so I have to schedule it so that I film when they’re not there,” Denowski said. “In one that I made I had to use a study room in glass and filmed there, and the vlog was all about dancing so I needed more room than I would have had in my dorm, so it actually worked out pretty well.”
Denowski said the most rewarding part of having a YouTube channel has been making people laugh.
“I make them based on what I think people will find funny, it’s nice to hear that it is lifting someone spirits because that is the goal of them,” Denowski said. “I like what I make, but I don’t know if other people do until they tell me, so it’s nice to hear.”
Outtakes:
“Sometimes my roommates will walk in when I’m singing or yelling something, and that can be funny. They’ve walked in when I’ve been dancing,” Denowski said. “I turn off the camera, and wait until they leave. Other times they will come in and move something around and then leave, so there’s like this weird little thing moved in the vlog.”
YouTube channel: Gregory Bordelon
Sophomore writing and producing television major and English minor, Gregory Bordelon, was 14 years old and looking for something to occupy his summer. He had already reread the Harry Potter series three times when he decided to start making YouTube videos.
“I just kept making videos that summer and didn’t stop. It was vlogs, music video parodies,” Bordelon said. “Since then it has basically developed into my dream of running my own station one day, or running a television show.”
Since his start on YouTube, Bordelon has discovered the general theme that he wants for his channel and has created four separate comedy sketches.
“I have just this past year revitalized my channel and found my network here at Dodge, and my friends and fellow peers that I really like to work with,” Bordelon said. “With them I have created four independent sketches, just little snippets of absurdity humor.”
Bordelon said he likes to create he sketches in the style of Saturday Night Live.
“I really love to orient things around the Saturday Night Live format,” Bordelon said. “The characters that they come up with are just timeless.”
Bordelon has taken the entire spring semester to create his four videos, with the help of photographers, actors, and crewmembers all within the Chapman community.
“It’s a lot of coordination with my directors of photography, I have more been the type to wish big and then bring it into reality and they really help me funnel that out,” Bordelon said. “I have a lot of friends on the improve team that I’m involved with, friends that are in the screen acting program, and then friends who really just in general like comedy.”
Bordelon said the most rewarding part of having a YouTube channel has been the all of the work that goes into creating the videos.
“It is just a clear representation of your creativity and your idea, along with the collaboration of others,” Bordelon said. “. It’s amazing because I’m really bringing on some of my best friends to work on these sets and it doesn’t feel like work at all, this is my hobby.”
Outtakes:
“We were filming roll call at an elementary school and we were at one of the portable units in the back of the school, and sure enough we just didn’t anticipate on recess,” Bordelon said. “There were so many kids that came by our portable set and were like ‘is this a movie? Is this real?’ and we were like ‘Oh, we’re filming right now, could you guys step outside?’”
“One of my actors actually didn’t show up for Roll Call, so I had one of the actors already on set play both roles,” Bordelon said. “She played a male and a female roll, and we just improved this new idea of a character. It was perfect, and the video ended up working really well, regardless.”
YouTube channel: Almost Cool
Recent graduate Almog Antonir has reached YouTube fame after his first series “Long Story Short” got picked up on Reddit and went viral.
“We posted one of the episodes on Reddit, which links to all the episodes,” Antonir said. “A random person saw it, liked it, and posted a different episode on Reddit and that is the one that exploded.”
Antonir had wanted to start a YouTube series for three years, but was unable to until some time freed up in his schedule.
“I talked to my roommate, Tom, who is the lead actor and I told him we need to start a web series,” Antonir said. “It could potentially be a way for people to see our stuff, it’s easier to get attention that way.”
The series “Long Story Short” was created after Antonir and his team decided on a college themed story line, and fast paced editing.
“We wanted to do something college-y just so that we could target our own demographic because we understand it better,” Antonir said. “We knew we wanted it to be really fast paced, so Long Story Short evolved from that, and we based it off of our own experiences.”
Since the series has gone viral, Antonir and his team post a new video every two weeks.
“We have to have some type of consistency because now we have a fan base and they expect to see things,” Antonir said. “That is both fun, and adds some pressure, which is good.”
Antonir has put a strong focus on keeping the videos, the production team, and the cast centered on the Chapman community.
“Getting to work with my close friends, and the Chapman community has been rewarding because there are a lot of talented people here,” Antonir said. “We get to have everyone collaborate, which is awesome.”
Multiple production companies have contacted Antonir about expanding the series, but no final decisions have been made.
“Being contacted by various production companies and studios to potentially take this to the next step has been the most surprising,” Antonir said. “We had no idea it would happen, and even if we thought it would happen we had no idea it would be this fast.”
Outtakes:
“To film with these guys, they are all super close friends of mine and they are hilarious, they are all actors and they are all really smart about comedy,” Antonir said. “Sometimes we get to a point where we can’t get anything done because everyone is laughing to hard.”
