Fr J Hackett
Well-known member
Yup. And generating that content is a BIG job, regardless of the medium
Not only have you got to edit the video down, you have to produce the material in the first place which means filming everything, everywhere as far as possible (I do dislike channels that feature a talking head for a lot of the time telling you about what they've done but haven't filmed! It's excusable when filming would have been impossible or inappropriate but otherwise not)
And you've got to source, select and mix down background music, maybe produce graphics etc. etc. etc.
I have, as you might by now surmise, considered upgrading my currently moribund (thanks to Covid) but in the past fairly popular blog into a vlog and I'm far from certain I want to commit the level of time and effort needed. My understanding having spoken to one or two vloggers is that every single minute of uploaded content represents a mimimum of an hours solid work, often a lot more. At, if you want to be sucessful, a minimum of 20 minute vidoes ideally once a week, that's in excess of 20 hours a week, every week. Hmm!
I'm not convinced I can, or want to for that matter, generate that much content week in, week out, that would be at all interesting ... and I'm not the least bit bothered about making money from it if I decided to do it (not that I'd turn money away of course!)
Back in the dim and distant, as a semi-professional folk musician, I used to get quite annoyed with people objecting to paying £60 to £80 quid for a two plus hour gig with two musicians. Comments like "I don't get paid £40 an hour" went down like a lead balloon and were followed by a pointed pointing out that performing on stage for two hours plus involved getting ready for the gig (a good hour plus), travel (variable), loading in and setting up (an hour), striking down and loading out (about half an hour), travel home (variable) and unloading the van so that two hours was anything between six and eight hours.
Then deduct vehicle expenses (try insuring a vehicle for use by professional or semi-professional musicians! Not popular for some strange reason and in our day Admiral were the only mainstream insurer that would insure you, for a price), equipment insurance and replacement (in our case we had about £4k worth of instruments and £3k worth of PA gear if we took everything), the evil necessity of Public Liability Insurance etc. etc. etc.
The bottom line is that at our (all too brief) peak as performers, we were making a very modest "profit" and for many years it was really a self financing hobby, if that
Getting back on point, I do follow vlogs about sailing around the UK especially if the people and the boats concerned are "real". I start to lose interest when they set off into the sunset for the Med or the Crabibean or whatever and I also start to lose interest if they "sell out" and start getting expensive kit on the cheap or for nothing whilst still trying to claim they're sailing on a shoestring. I don't blame them, who wouldn't take advantage if the chance offered? But I do lose interest
And I've zero interest in the mainstream "sun, sand and bikini clad girls" content of the big bucks earners. Again, good luck to them but it doesn't pop my cork at all
Interesting what you say and I can understand it from a personal and producers point of view in receiving a remuneration for effort and work. However and you miss the point of the original question have Uma lost their way and importantly does banal content warrant reward or even watching and many of those "sailing" videos are pure dross.