He’s a natural presenter (a 5 year old)
My son is a HUGE fan of YouTube videos.
It makes up about 75% of his viewing.
He is 5 and he loves watching mainly anything factual; usually stuff to do with animals, reptiles and gaming.
He’s especially loves FGTEEV YouTube videos, which is an abbreviation of ’Family Gaming TV’.
The channel consists of a bombastic and hilarious real American family who have over 12 million subscribers, all from making videos about games that they enjoy playing together.
My boy enjoys watching them play iPad games like Redball and Hello Neighbour. They’re relatively easy games but ones which are based on logic and problem solving.
They’re actually great fun to play with him, on the occasions that he actually wants to play alongside someone.
He also loves the process of making videos and is keen to get involved in what daddy does (I make videos for a living)
So my boy has been so inspired by FGTEEV that he wanted to make his own video, doing the same thing - playing his favourite games and talking about them.
Now - those who know him will understand that he can be quite a shy boy. He doesn’t like people like having uninitiated conversations with him. He shyly hides behind us when anyone says hello. Even family get this kind of reception from him.
He just struggles making a first connection sometimes...
But when the camera is on OH MY do we see a transformation!
He talks so freely and confidently to the camera by skilfully introducing himself before talking about what he’s doing in the game.
He talks in a totally comfortable way about his game play whilst playing. Commentating on what you’re doing like that can be tricky, even for many adults. He handles it perfectly.
It’s a bit unbelievable that he can do this so easily, in an almost professional TV presenter style way - he has certainly learned a lot from his YouTube videos. And he’s only 5.
We did a two camera shoot - one on his face and the other focussing on the iPad in a birds eye view style shot.
The other is a portable battery powered light on a stand.
The video he made is 11 minutes long and it is so joyful to watch back with all the final graphics, titles, edits, sound effects and music.
Last thing to say is that we in two minds about what to do about with these finished videos. He says he wants them to go on YouTube, and I’m sure they could be very successful, but as tempting as that is I’m not sure it is the right thing at the moment.
We’re generally very protective about what we share online about our kids and family.
We never post pictures of them on Facebook (not even on private settings or with family) and certainly never on Twitter etc.
STEEM is probably the only place we have shared most about them (that being stories or updates on cool things they have achieved through unschooling)
So we’re very careful about just putting stuff out there.
Equally, there are numerous child YouTube stars with huge followings like Ethan Gamer and CKN Toys who present their own videos about things they enjoy. They have millions of viewers and must make a fortune.
Now I’ve absolutely no idea the level of parental involvement in making decisions here - but I know it’s a big big deal to have your child identified and have millions of views online - I’m not sure there the individual privacy starts and ends with someone like a child who doesn’t understand the online world.
Someone must be making a fortune from these kids anyway, be it a production agency or simply a cottage industry at home.
Anyway, we’re still not sure how to navigate this brilliant potential future.
I guess for now we will make videos for him to share privately with his friends, develop his skills and then see where things go from there.
This won’t be the last video we make with him :)
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This is amazing!
You've inspired my next post!! 💙
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Wow that’s awesome, I look forward to it!
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Hey! I'm absolutely with you on the sharing thing. Well, and I don't see the point in neither publishing nor viewing videos like the one you cited about Red Ball - unless you are 4 or 5 years young LOL.
But I like how you share your setup in pictures. Up to now I only do low quality close shots w/o faces (I don't need to put smileys onto it then) - just for the purpose to either stay in touch with friends on different locations or to maybe come in touch with future friends.
Steem on!
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Hey @anil, thanks for the super thoughtful comment :)
That filming setup was super ad-hoc one evening, as we filmed it at home and I brought back just two GoPros back from my office to shoot with.
(The overhead bar is a mop handle propped up by the clothes horse haha)
It's the first time I've used a smiley on my kids faces - usually, I do the same, with shots from the back or close-up's of the activity in mind - but this struck me as a good way of keeping his identity private but also letting people see the full context of what were doing.
Sharing and privacy is such a bigger concern than it probably was to most people only 5 years ago.
Maybe he sees talking you the camera as no different to talking to you. After all, there is no-one else there and he's at that wonderful age where you don't over think and imagine how you'll be perceived if someone else watches it.
You’re absolutely right - there’s no self consciousness or second guessing or trying to be interesting or funny.
However his lingo, choice of words and body language is very similar to that of TV presenters. It’s quite formal in a sweet way
He's been watching and learning, has he! 😁
My boys wanted to do the gaming thing like their favourite Youtubers too (I'm pretty sure youngest used to watch FGTV). Oldest has this delusion that you definitely need all the gear (which we currently can't afford) to get anywhere and refuses to acknowledge/believe that it's possible to slowly work your way up and thus won't even start. Youngest is still keen to become a dtuber but as he's realised after a couple of experiments that he's not that great at talking his way through his games and also doesn't feel like a good enough gamer to be a tube gamer he's decided to do something else, he just hasn't worked out what that is yet. I'm trying to get him to do videos on our homeschooling shenanigans (which will also satisfy some department requirements XD) but we haven't managed that yet either.
ps - hope your 5yo is happy with the family and friends audience so you don't have to fight with him about why you don't want to put it on Youtube :)
That’s great they showed and interest in it, and perhaps still do.
Yes there’s a myth that you need lots of fancy idea gear, but you really don’t.
I used 2 x GoPro Hero 4 cameras for the video we did with my boy. Then just edited those two angles together, and added some fun titles and music 😁
GoPros are very cheap and easy to get hold of, easy to mount anywhere too - we did an over head shot looking down at the iPad from above and we used a broom pole to clamp the camera on to achieve that effect 😂
That’s half the fun - the journey of producing something and setting up is quite satisfying in itself!
Perhaps there’s a way to source some basic cameras to do this with for a day and make it a project?
Convince them it’s possible and might spark something in motion?
We only have my iPhone to work with ^_^; and that's getting hard as I normally delete stuff off it once it's been offloaded to my computer but as that's been unreliable to non-functional recently (not sure whether to blame Linux or Apple at this stage as it was working and then there were updates and now it's not really working) I haven't been game to offload things unless I know for sure they're on my computer (so basically just deleting earlier videos as I go as they're what takes up most space).
Youngest is happy to work with what he has with this kind of stuff, I think what will help most with oldest is me telling him that you do this kind of stuff professionally and still just rig stuff up :)
I see! Ah that’s a tricky one.
iPhones are a pain in the arse for that.
Yes all professional videographers always face times when they are required to think on their feet to solve a problem, usually with lighting and camera stuff. Often using gaffer tape or whatever is to hand.