💥 In This Training:
[Link]
● The components of a video, and the different levels of involvement for each.
● What are the stages of making a video from start to finish
● Publish checklist I use for every video (that you can copy)
● How to make everything more efficient
● When to post
This training is going to be focused on my current process for MagnatesMedia (which is the
exact same process any faceless channel would use to make videos). But if you’re going to be
on camera the only real difference is instead of ‘recording voiceover’, you’ll ‘record video
footage’.
Let’s dive in…
🧩 Components Of A Video
[Link]
The 4 Core Video Components:
1. The script - written by the script writer.
These are the literal words of what will be said in the video. It involves researching the
topic and turning that into an engaging story / script that will hold attention.
2. The Voiceover - recorded by the voiceover artist.
This involves reading the script word for word into a microphone in an engaging way.
3. The Video - created by the video editor
This involves finding and creating assets to match the voiceover recording (including
stock footage, clips, graphics, animations etc), as well as adding music and sound
effects.
4. The Thumbnail - made by the thumbnail designer.
This involves creating a captivating image to represent the video and entice viewers to
click.
Levels of Involvement in each component:
It’s important to note that for each different job role we’ve mentioned, you can think of 4 different
levels:
Level 1: The task is done fully by you
Level 2: The task is partially done by someone else, and they help you with it
Level 3: The task is executed by someone else but you’re the director guiding them and
overseeing the process, as well as having input / bringing your specialized knowledge. (E.g
suggesting changes / ideas / revisions).
Level 4: The task is fully automated and you have no involvement.
To begin with, if you don’t have money to invest, everything will be level 1 (done by you). This
can help you understand each role better.
But the quicker you can get more of the tasks to level 3 (or 4), the better. That’s why later in this
course we’ll focus a lot on how you can hire team members to help you even with a small
budget. (As you get more advanced, you may even consider hiring a manager to manage the
team on their behalf, to further automate the whole process).
[Link]
↔️ Whole video process from
beginning to end
Let’s start with the slightly bad news: a bit more effort goes into creating a YouTube video than
most people first realize. This is another reason why making less videos but higher quality
videos makes a lot of sense.
But the good news is I’m about to give you a clear system to follow. Throughout this course we’ll
be covering each of the stages of production in depth, so you or your team know exactly what to
do.
But in this training, let’s start with a simple overview of what happens to go from a random idea,
to an actual video. (This is the process a MagnatesMedia video - or any faceless video -
typically goes through):
1. Select an idea / topic - in the training about ‘Coming Up With Endless Epic Video Ideas’
you’ll learn exactly how to come up with lots of great ideas. But step one is being
selective about which of those to actually pursue. (Which may involve a little preliminary
research to make sure it’s definitely a subject worth covering).
2. Once you’ve chosen an idea, the research begins. If I’m writing a video, I’ll go through
lots of different sources and make notes on a google doc called RESEARCH. I’ll always
try to find any books on the subject to make notes on, and collate everything onto the
google document.
3. Create a separate google doc called SCRIPT and begin turning the research notes into
a script. At this stage, you’re putting the research into your own words, focusing on the
aspects of the story you want to tell, and using storytelling techniques to create an
engaging narrative. Divide the script into different chapters to make it easier to write, by
focusing on just one key aspect / section of the story at a time. Once you’ve got a first
draft of the script, you can go back through and improve it further, and do more research
on certain aspects if needed.
4. Once the script is fully finished, the voiceover is recorded (reading the script aloud into a
microphone). Any mistakes in the voiceover recording are then cut out.
5. The final voiceover file is sent to the video editor, along with the script google doc. You
can go through the script document and add comments to every part where you have a
specific idea. So for every sentence where I envision a certain graphic, or certain type of
clip, I’ll add a comment on the script google doc as a note to the editor. (However you
don’t need to do this for every part of the script - the editor can come up with their own
ideas).
[Link]
6. At the top of the script doc I’ll also give the editors some general guidance / instructions
for the overall video. For example: you can say if you want them to use specific colours
or fonts or music, and give links to any references for the visual aesthetic and design.
7. When the video editor is done with the first draft of the video, there’s software called
[Link] you can use which makes it easy to give feedback - you can even add
annotations and notes on specific parts of the video to make it clear what needs
changing. (Sometimes multiple rounds of revisions may be needed).
8. Whilst the video editor is working on the video, you can send instructions to the
thumbnail designer(s) on what the thumbnail should be (or simply tell them what the
video is about and maybe share the script, and ask them to come up with their own
ideas). You may need to send some revisions to the thumbnail designer(s) to tweak
things and try different variations.
9. Once all the editing revisions you request are complete, the editor will do the final export
of the video. You can then begin the publish checklist - this is all of the things you’ll
need to do when uploading the video to YouTube, like adding the title and thumbnail.
10. Once everything on the checklist is done, the video status can be set to “published” so
the world can see it. You then breath a sigh of relief, and repeat this process all over
again*. :)
*As you scale up your team, you’ll have multiple projects ongoing at once. So different videos
will be at different points in this process (e.g. whilst your writer is working on a script, a past
script of theirs will already be being edited by your video editor).
If all of this is feeling a little overwhelming, don’t panic… the more you go through this process
the easier it’ll get, and there’ll be loads of strategies throughout this course to make things more
efficient.
Of course, as soon as possible you’ll be hiring team members to help you too, so that a lot of
this process won’t even involve much work from you directly, and you can outsource the parts
you don’t want to do.
It’s also important to note that you can make the whole process much more efficient by
batching - which means that rather than working on one video at a time (and going through
every stage for every single video), it makes more sense to work on multiple videos at a time,
and focus on one stage at a time. For example, you can record multiple voiceovers all at once
whilst all your recording equipment is already setup. Or you can come up with ideas for multiple
thumbnails all at once. This way you ‘get into the zone’ with each specific task, and you save a
lot of time.
✅ Publish Checklist At The End
[Link]
Checklists are one of the most effective tools for keeping everything as organized and efficient
as possible. For any repeatable process in your business, it’s good to have a checklist to ensure
nothing is missed, and so that other team members could also do the steps if needed.
I’ll share with you roughly what my “publish checklist” looks like, which is the steps I go through
once I have the final export of a video from the video editor. You can of course customize these
to suit your needs, and add/delete things if appropriate.
Check the final export of the video from the editor has successfully completed all the
revisions I requested. (Also make sure there’s no errors, and that the sound levels are
balanced correctly so the music and sound effects aren’t too loud or too quiet).
Upload the file to YouTube (initially schedule the video for a much later date so that it
doesn’t go live immediately once uploaded).
Wait for video to process - then check there’s copyright or monetization issues (fix and
then re-upload if there is)
Upload best thumbnail (check which of the variations looks best on: [Link]
Watch the video once through on YouTube to confirm it all looks ok
Add title
Add description of video (including any searchable terms related to video)
Add description links (e.g. your affiliate links)
Add sponsor to description using text and link they provide
Check all other settings on the ideo (e.g. ticking ‘not for kids’, etc)
Add tags (relevant phrases that come to mind related to the video)
Add end cards
Add subtitles (select auto sync, then simply copy and paste your script document)
Add chapter timestamps
Manually place ads on the video
Add video to appropriate playlists
Change video status to ‘published’ when you’re ready for it to go live
Post your own pinned comment on the video
Then…
If the video has a sponsor, let them know it’s live + send the invoice
Share video on community tab to maximize views
Change title + thumbnail if performance is below what’s expected / average
Update project status within Notion
Backup all files related to the project on an external hard drive / cloud drive
📅 When Should You Post?
[Link]
YouTube says that there’s no evidence that post time has any impact on a video’s overall
long-term success.
And my personal experience has been the same: it really doesn’t matter when you’re making
evergreen content that’s still going to be getting views for hopefully years to come.
That said, in your analytics in YouTube studio, if you click on the ‘audience’ tab, it shows you
when your current audience is most active on YouTube, so posting at those times would make
the most sense if you want to try and reach as many people as possible right away.
As we’ve discussed already, it’s all about when the audience wants you to post, not the
algorithm.