YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

The Importance of Writing

You will need to write some for your story before you make a video. This can be as elaborate as writing a word-for-word script, writing a short outline, or even just writing it in your head, but the better videos all have some planning behind them.

Treatments and Scripts

Writing is related to, and part of, storytelling (and vice versa), but it's so different that I decided to give it its own heading, one that's equal to storytelling.

Note

See what I just did there? I pointed out that I am writing this. That's called breaking the fourth wall in filmmaking; it's when an actor stops acting and addresses the camera directly, in a way that "admits" there's a camera. It can be an effective tool, when used sparingly, and for a planned mood, in drama and comedy, and is pretty much the basis of all vlogging by definition. Breaking the fourth wall is your first lesson on writing for motion art. Enjoy.

Storytelling is the broad strokes. When a Hollywood writer pitches a story to a studio, they often have only the brief outline of a story. There's even something called an elevator pitch, which is supposed to be the shortest amount of time it takes to convey a complete story, like if you found yourself sharing an elevator with a producer for a ride of only a few floors. This is also called 25 words or less. The plot of most Hollywood films can be completely expressed in 25 words or less. For YouTube, think 15 words or less. This is true of most Hollywood films. Complicated ...