Storyboarding!

Do you ever wonder if YouTubers, specifically travel vloggers, script their videos? If you find yourself watching an episode wondering if it is scripted, completely pulled into the story and unable to click away, then likely, yes. What I have learned is that the more you feel drawn in to a video and unsure if the YouTuber is scripting, the more likely they have some pre-production or scripting process. That fact that you don’t know for sure speaks to the amount of effort they put into it.

That said, every creator has a different method, but even travel vloggers like Holly from Windy Hippy Sailing who claim to not plan at all are still thinking ahead to make the editing process easier. Whether or not you fully plan your episodes is entirely dependent on your YouTube channel goals.

Why Spend Time in Pre-Production

The biggest benefit to spending time in pre-production is because it will make your entire video smoother. Pre-production ensures that each shot is connected, and that everything you film supports the story and keeps it progressing. It ensures that you create tension throughout and makes you aware of what shots support that feeling. It ensures that you have good pacing, and that the tension releases and builds throughout the video. And most importantly, it makes it clear what is the pay-off.

Reduce Your Editing Time

Because you’re focused on only filming clips that support your story, the editing process becomes much much smoother and faster. You no longer have to dig through clips or film way more than you need for the edit. You end up with a much easier job! Pre-production ensures that the pacing is already reflected in the clips, so you don’t have to manipulate them so much in the edit.

Planning in pre-production also makes it easier to hand over your footage to an editor because your storyboard is all laid out, and the editor won’t be overwhelmed with footage. It also helps make your vision clearer to your editor so that the final product is aligned with you and your brand.

Thumbnail & Title FIRST

Many big YouTubers will tell you that if you’re doing pre-production right, you have your thumbnail and title chosen before you ever storyboard and film. I whole-heartedly agree with this.

First and foremost, the thumbnail (TN), title, and intro are the trifecta which cause videos to go viral. Without one performing well, your video will likely flop. So often, videos fail because the intro doesn’t line up with the promise of the TN and title, or the TN & title aren’t appealing because the video itself wasn’t planned in a way that was marketable to a large audience.

Planning in advance ensures that everything is aligned so that your video reaches the widest possible audience. No one wants to waste their time on a long edit just to have the video bomb.

Planning Makes it Searchable

I personally underestimated making content ‘searchable’. I was told to “make content that will go viral, because growing via ‘browse’ is the fastest way to grow.” But for 90% of us, making your travel vlog searchable is how you will be successful, because, as I often say, viral is not a strategy. Additionally, showing up in search is how you create that base of followers that might help you show up in browse in the first place.

The easiest way to make your YouTube Videos searchable is to plan around a topic that is highly searched. But you can’t do that if you are filming and then trying to find a search term to fall into. It might not always work out, nor will the final video be catered to the keyword in a way that will optimise watch time. Planning in advance takes this gamble away and also puts you at an advantage to plan in a way that best suits the audience who is searching for each term.

What about the UNPLANNABLE?

An argument I often hear in the travel vlogging sphere is that you can’t plan for some events. How can you possibly plan for dolphins or the impeller exploding?!

You can’t.

But also you can.

Pre-production doesn’t mean you aren’t catching the surprise moments. In fact, you plan on them!

Let’s imagine you are sailing from point A to point B. You head over to ChatGPT ahead of time, and you type in the details YOU KNOW. From there, you can add details for LIKELY scenarios, but the payoff will likely be the same regardless.

For example, when I went to Great Barrier Island with my patron, John, I knew a few things were possible. I would probably see dolphins, we would either get becalmed and frustrated or have big winds and have “the thrill”. We may have something break (which did), but then once we got to our final location, we’d feel a sense of accomplishment, celebrate by jumping in the water, and then be too tired to stay up much longer.

The payoff, regardless of the details, was that John did his longest sail to date and that we were able to overcome the obstacles that got in our way. We pushed limits and reaped the rewards of a beautiful location as a result. The details in between didn’t change that.

The benefit of pre-production is that I knew which moments to look out for. I was able to use ChatGPT to understand how they may contribute to the tension building throughout the story. And I was able relax when I knew a moment was not film-worthy.

What is Pre-Production?

Hopefully by now, I have convinced you that pre-production is worth your time. And if done right, I’d argue that pre-production should be where the majority of your time is spent.

You can watch this podcast episode to learn how I used ChatGPT to not only plan a video, but also to plan an entire channel from scratch.

Step 1: Idea Generation

What many people don’t realise is that the idea is the first step to increasing retention. I recently realised that I have not been brainstorming enough ideas before moving on to filming, and as a result, I’m choosing mediocre angles to show a story. This is something I heard in the beginning and keep hearing on various podcasts and in my own interviews.

Generate at least 10 ideas minimum for how to frame your upcoming story. Do your research to see which is most marketable. And THEN decide which to pursue.

Step 2: Thumbnail / Title / Intro

Before you ever start scripting, before you ever start filming, make sure you can package the video! I cannot emphasize this enough: if your travel vlogs are bombing one after another, this is the most likely thing you need to fix. In fact, this is an area where you should be constantly learning.

Back on my old channel, I would go and redo a few thumbnails and titles every month. Over the course of 2 years that I ran the channel, I was able to grow my channel CTR from 3.5% to 12% on the last few videos. I think that is part of the reason why I am only 8 videos into my new channel, and almost halfway to monetization (with only 3.2% of my audience being brought over from my old channel).

Similar to having a good idea in the first place, learning to package the idea will also impact retention. How many times have you decided to give a mediocre thumbnail and title a chance because you couldn’t find the content you were looking for? Then, you quickly click away because your expectation had already been set that the video would be poor quality, and the intro confirmed that. If the thumbnail and title had been good quality and the intro quickly confirmed you were in the right place, you might have stuck around a little longer until eventually, you were hooked in.

Step 3: Storyboard

Storyboarding every little detail may not be necessary, but I recommend thinking through, at minimum, how the tension in the video will build and release and what will be the final payoff. These two elements are the most important aspects of your video, and ultimately is what causes viewers to return. Storyboarding also helps you think through what shots would support the story so you can ensure you have your camera ready.

What I do: I plan my story, paste it into ChatGPT, and ask it to provide me a list of shots that would support the story. I give it a quick review, and the off I go.

Takeaway

Once you go through this pre-production process a few times, you may not need to sit down and do it on a computer anymore. You may be like Windy Hippy Sailing and just think of the edit each time you pick up the camera, and that’s enough. But I would argue that, for most of us, pre-production is one of the most valuable things you can do to help get ahead and save yourself time. In fact, famous YouTuber Paddy Galloway says that is one of the biggest shifts in time allocation he encourages when he consults for channels.

But as I always say, make sure you know your goals and brand first so your pre-production is supporting where you’re heading.