by Rueae » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:48 pm
As things are right now and even with five or ten people...doing species specific videos right off the bat doesn't seem like a good move. Maybe I'm just thinking about it in grander terms than it will turn out, but when I think of a species specific video I see at least three to five of a specific bird. Admittedly we have enough to do a poi video if the people who posted in this thread a long time ago are still interested, but I picture it being more specific. Senegals, Capes, Meyers...alone. It just seems a lot more interesting to me and possibly more helpful to people looking at or for information on a specific bird on the youtube. (I would personally love to see videos like that to see how differently the same bird is and can act with and around different people and environments)
That said, I can totally see a video where we're tying to illustrate the differences between a big group of pois and then go even farther than that and illustrate the differences different species. (pois and pis for example.)
I do realize that would require a lot more people though...so it's probably just wishful thinking and day dreaming, on my part. I'm not meaning to be a damper, this is just my thought process.
I would however, like to see the first video be more of an introduction of sorts. Us explaining who we are and what we're trying to accomplish by creating a collaborative video account. Just people trying to explain what the viewers can expect from future videos.
Then we can go into things that concern all parrots, in general, just for a smoother start.
Cages- A video on cages where we explain why we chose it, both for us personally (or if our personal taste even applied at all) and for the bird we put in it. It could discuss color, (I hear a lot of people choose white because they feel it shows off the bird more, but I don't know if that's true) shape, (dometop, playtop, a top that opens, those scalloped types ones or just big rectangles) the doors and locks. We can bring up the space we feel our bird needs based on species and size and bring that into conversation too.
I had my ringneck in a cage that was a bit less in size than I would recommend for one, but she spent next to no time in there when I was home and was out a lot while I was at work (big family) as well, so it never really got to me or her. (the ringneck)
All that I just said regarding cages is a lot to swallow and having many people answering the same questions can take up a lot of time, I know. So I suggest then, breaking it into parts and possibly answering or addressing only one or two things at a time. I think the videos should be generally along the same time length every time one is made and should be kept on the shorter side to make them easier to swallow. Though I have no idea how long that should be, perhaps five minutes?
I have a few more ideas for general parrot videos, but I feel like this post is really long already and there is something I wanted to ask about.
Being a type of teaching channel on youtube, I wonder if we could (or should) ask the viewers to ask us questions. This could be something fun for them too, as we could ask for a specific length of video response (I'm thinking 30 seconds at most, possibly only 10 or 15) that asks a question of the group and we could answer it in the last minute or so of the next video we make. This gets them (and possibly their parrot) in one of our videos and their answer. I think this could have a lot of appeal to viewers because it allows them to feel like part of the project.
Since it's in the last minute or so of the video I don't think there would be enough time to chop together a lot of different people answering the question though. I suggest we instead elect a different person to end each time. We could either allow that person the sole answer or we could all discuss it as a group and have that person explain how everyone feels about the question/answer.
Keeping in kind of the same fashion we can also use it to our advantage. I'm thinking video responses should be specific to the question asked at the end of a video, but we could utilize the viewer's interest by asking them to post in comments the kind of videos they would like to see next, thus keeping us in ideas.
What do you guys think?
I also think, we should say what the next video will be about before it ends. (or possibly in the description?) This means we would already have an idea to be working on for the next video right when the one prior was posted.
If we do end up implement the use of viewers asking, this means that when we chose one it would keep us not one but two videos ahead of lacking an idea for the next video coming. I see it as a great way of keeping focus and preventing the group from feeling overwhelmed by not knowing what we're doing next.
I also think the time between each video should be as uniformly scheduled as the time of the video. I'm thinking we try to put the next video up two to three weeks after the last one. Possibly even just doing one video, close to the same day on every month.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.