headless videos

It's the tyranny of portrait vs. landscape videography. If you take relatively tight shots, something has to give.

and 'vertical video', made popular since the first iPhone cameras could do video, made portrait video a serious faux-pas, as there are no consumer video screens that are 1080p TALL
 
Iamnoman - I think I explained myself badly, as I am not hiding from mistakes at all. This is the quote that gave me my New Years Resolution -

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.

Neil Gaiman


I just don't think my face is necessary in the video.

+1 for you and kudos for the Neil Gaiman reference. I am a big fan of his work.
 
. . . and then there is "personless" altogether!

What an interesting discussion!

As always, I have come to UU looking for one thing and got distracted by another!

There is another angle to this, but first I should say how I feel about the "headless videos": "I don't give a damn!"

I have done two or three "headless" videos. In all cases because I wanted the visuals to show my hands as clearly as possible. It has been a bit of an eye-opener reading about some of the other reasons people have for going headless. For example, "uke-shame" had never occurred to me, although as I had never really given the "headless" issue much thought before, that is not surprising.

If the video is a tutorial and it helps to watch hands, I would much rather see the hands than the face. I particularly like the tutorials by "VerweggistanExpress", who is usually headless, uses lots of clear gesture and no speech at all in his tutorials,
eg. https://youtu.be/OBWiUkbEN50

Maybe it is because I am a radio-addict, dating from the "wireless" rather than "wifi" era, that for most "performance" videos I am also usually far more interested in the sound than the visuals. So, I often don't even watch them while I am listening.

The other angle . . .

Having said that about radio, what I enjoy most about making ukulele videos is putting together collages of stills to go with the audio. I also enjoy messing about with sound effects using Garageband. So, usually, I will record the audio, mess about with it a bit and then either find one still image to go with it, if I am being lazy or feeling rushed, or a load of them if I am in the mood and have more time on my hands.

This is a great tool for quickly making a YouTube "video" from audio plus a single image: http://www.tunestotube.com/ It makes the upload equivalent to audio-only sites like Soundcloud but I really don't care if that bothers anyone - life is too short!

As far as my "collage videos" are concerned: they take a long time to put together but I enjoy doing it; I hope that the result is more pleasing to whoever stumbles across them than if I had just uploaded a video of me playing, headless or otherwise; they have their place alongside my "headless" videos and the ones where you can see my face.

A tool (ukulele, YouTube) is just a tool. The variety of things we create with those tools is amazing. Now, due to the thoughts that people have shared here, my imagination has something else to work with when I see a "headless" video . . . is that person actually a world-renowned player of the flugelhorn with a secret passion for the ukulele!? Is that one perhaps someone in danger if they were to be recognised?

It makes "headless" videos a whole lot more interesting - though I will probably still just be more interested in watching the hands of tutorial videos or just listening to "performance" ones.

The only "performance" videos I am guaranteed to watch all the way through, rather than stop watching but continue to listen, are the ones where there is something intriguing going on. Personally, I find most videos of someone just sitting playing and singing in front of a camera quite boring to watch, and that includes my own videos that are like that. I find that those sort of videos can be more interesting if I don't watch but just listen and concentrate on the sound. But that's just me, we are all different :)
 
Headless videos don't bother me, but I watched one the other day that was "left handed less". I had no idea what his fretting hand was doing, I found that a little annoying.
 
Feeling bored tonight so I'm perusing threads. This is a good one. :cool:

If you're playing/singing a song, it's nice to see the person's face. As for tutorials, it's nice to see the person's face and a close-up if possible. I generally use ukulele fretboard diagrams in my tutorials so I don't need the close-ups so much. Though, not everyone knows how to do that. I tend to use a tenor for any tutorials I do so it's easier to see. It's a tricky art with the camcorder to get the best overall wide-angle view.

When you put your mug out there on YT, you'd better be prepared for all sorts of comments. Of course with YouTube, you can disallow comments or likes. However, it's kind of nice to have feedback.

In my case, I get lots of comments (mostly good), and a lot mainly about how I am Professor Snape from Harry Potter or I look like a French actor. If I learned to do a British accent, I could set up a Professor Snape Ukulele Lessons and make a fortune! ;-) LOL

Petey
 
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