Australian Travel Videos

In search of La Dolce Vita – Italian Travel Adventure

Mark Shea — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 03:23:29 +0000

https://youtu.be/ZpIwqwUDARI I'm releasing my Italian roadtrip feature film. We take in the best of Italy - Aosta, Lake Como, Venice, Cinque Terre, Tuscany, Umbria and the Amalfi Coast. Do Italians know the secret to the Good Life? Two strangers travel through Italy searching for la dolce vita, asking local people about love, life and happiness, and finding answers themselves along the way. Scott is an Australian wineblogger who had minor success with his first novel. He has lost interest in writing and is undergoing a midlife crisis. Charlotte is a Luxembourg fan of Scott who befriended him online and invited him to join her on a trip through Italy. She has been a librarian for 15 years and feels ready for a change, but is unsure what. They travel Italy, meeting the locals and learning the secrets of what makes a good life! Food, wine, tradition, family, love and more wine!

Australian Motorcycle Adventure Film on Youtube

Mark Shea — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 01:45:51 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep0gmY1d85s I rode from country Victoria across the Nullabor, explored the south west corner of Western Australia and traveled up the west coast taking in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions, finishing on the Gibb River Road. I did the journey on a custom Suzuki DR650 dual sport and camped out in the bush for most of the trip.

A Yacht called Failure. A shift in creative outlet.

Mark Shea — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 02:04:27 +0000

After 20 years of producing videos, mainly of the travel documentary genre, I felt a need for change. Being a pioneer of the youtube era, I became tired of the treadmill one finds themselves on, of having to produce regular content in order to feed the machine. I also saw a change whereby videos became more about the creators and less about the content, and I think as one gets older, one becomes less willing to film some idealised version of their life. I wanted to sink my creative teeth into more meaty topics and fulfil a long held dream to write a book. When I walked the Camino del Norte in 2019, partly with no money, it was an challenging experience, but I felt not a complete story. For an experience to be complete, I think it must change one in a permanent way. I now feel my Camino experience is producing it's first fruit. A year of living on a small yacht, has continued the theme of living with less and I feel a circle is reaching completion. Writing is quite different from filmmaking, but at it's essence, it is the same. Can one craft a story that keeps the audience enthralled? With writing I now enjoy no longer having to speak in the first person. As Oscar Wilde best summed up, 'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.' I also enjoy the creativity of fiction, no longer do I have to stick to an idea of the truth, as one tries to do with documentary filmmaking. Below is a short story (and spoken word video version) I prepared for a local 2,500 word writing competition. It is a mix of fact and fiction, set on a make believe nautical holiday park called Mullet Waters. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. It is the first story I've done using voice to text technology, whereby I used my smartphone to dictate the story from a brief outline. I hope you enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/embed/AJ9NlghSQSo He returned to Australia, after many years overseas. He had no job and no place to call his home. He planned to travel up the east coast in his ute camper in the hope of finding some cheap coastal acreage to build a house on. But he found, even on the sparsely populated southern New South Wales coast, there was no cheap land to be found. He journeyed north unsure of his next move, visiting an old friend on the Sunshine Coast. He checked the rental prices and felt they were overpriced, so started looking at other options, including possibly purchasing a house boat. While doing this search he saw an ad for a wooden sailing boat in Yamba. The price was very reasonable and the boat had a lovely old world quality about it, the interior decked out with a warm mix of Mahogany, Cedar and Oregon. A ten square meter tiny home on the water, handmade by an amateur in Sydney over 11 years in his backyard. When he translated the yacht’s name online, he was informed that Siquando meant ‘Failure’ in Latin. Who would call a boat failure he thought! He decided the Italian translation for Si Quando ‘Yes, when’ was more likely the meaning of boat’s name. He contacted the owner of the boat, a Andulusian Spaniard, and without knowing anything about boats drove down to Yamba to have a look. He rang the local yacht club and asked them if they knew of anyone who could do a survey. The retired gent who answered, who didnt own his own yacht, said he could take a look. His idea of a survey was to lift the floorboards and check for water in the bilge. On paper the boat sounded good, the Andulusian claimed to have spent $10,000 on deck repairs and the motor had only done 130 hours. So he paid the full price, something he was told later, no one ever does for a 2nd hand boat, and thought, even if it ends up being a lemon, he could flog the motor and at least make some return on his money. The boat was moored at Mullet Waters Nautical Park, paradise on the water. The inhabitants of the Marina were an odd bunch, Millionaire’s rubbing shoulders with trailer trash liveaboards. He was on a cheaper swing mooring that he had to row to. The swing mooring crew were considered bottom of the food chain on the Marina, a colorful mix of drunks and misfits. They were known as pond scum, and his neighbour Nigel Binchook best represented the odd assortment of characters. Despite owning 3 boats, an airbnb unit, a car and a small truck, the only time he seemed to be truly happy was when he was knee deep in bin jus, bin chooking through a skip bin finding morsels of discarded goods that he collected and stored in two of his three boats, that sunk lower and lower along their waterlines as time progressed. He was a thin man, with a protruding belly. He was stooped in his posture and would walk with a strange waddle. Many on Mullet Waters claimed this was because he clenched the first penny he ever owned between his tiny wasted buttcheeks. He had a large Khazarian hook nose, with a long tuft of nasal hair, only growing out of the right nostril for some strange reason. He would sometimes move his head around as though smelling the air with his nasal antenna, probably sniffing out a new load of debris dumped in a nearby bin. He had a pathetic pony tail held in place by a rubber band, the remaining grey strands sometimes catching the breeze in unison with his nasal foliage. But the swing mooring crew at least had some tie to society. Those who lived ‘on the pick’, on the other hand were totally wild, sailing up and down the eastern seaboard, living off the ocean’s bounty, growing sprouts and harvesting rainwater. Solar and wind powered sea gypsies living their own sailor’s code. Not all were good though, many would do nightly marauding raids, stealing every thing from crabpots to clothes on washing lines. But worst still, were the youtube vloggers, narcistically recording every aspect of an idealised ‘boatlife’, cyber begging for bigger boats and even stooping so low as to feature their malnourished, developmentally challenged children, barking at the camera like some retarded clapping seal. At night, as the mermaids gently rocked his new home, the air filled with the far off howls of the drunken wives of the swing moorers, He dreamed that he too, would one day ‘live on the pick’ sailing up and down the coastline, learning to live with less, his time being his own. At first he found owning a boat very overwhelming. There was so many things he had to learn - how to repair woodwork, how to work on a diesel motor, how to diagnose electrical faults. And that was before he even started the sailing part, which involved further knowledge of wind, tide and mapping. He started drawing up an extensive list of all the things he needed to do to get the boat shipshape, but it seemed Siquando always had other ideas and there’d be some emergency that had to be fixed immediately; a burnt out wire that smoked out the whole cabin, the kerosene stove leaking kero into the bilge and endless leaks, including one time when a drip kept wetting his face as he slept. He found boatlife to be a very primitive way to live with no refrigeration, no shower, no mains power, an ancient kerosene stove to cook on and the need to cart drinking water in containers from shore. At night in the summer, swarms of mozzies and midges would enter his boat and leave him itching for hours, the roof of his cabin splattered red from the vampires he managed to swat when they rested with a full belly. He met a Kiwi who had just bought a local boat, with the hope of sailing it back to New Zealand. He seemd to know a lot about sailing, cornering people on the marina and talking excitably about his many sailing endeavors. He had one yellow can opener tooth near the middle of his top gum. It would froth with saliva like sea foam when he’d gathered a crowd to listen to his stories. He was a short solid man who never wore shoes. His feet appeared oversized for his body, tufts of hair grew on the surface and the soles were cracked and blackened. His toe nails grew long and yellow, each one curling in a different direction. When first sighted one could imagine him scaling a coconut tree, using his toenails to grasp on as he scuttled up for a feed. He always wore a beaten up leather hat, indoors and outdoors. He had an impressive shoulder length mullet and thick bushy auburn eyebrows that stuck out so far, his hat seemed to rest on them. One night in his boat the Kiwi removed his hat and it was revealed why he always wore it. He had the finest ‘egg in a nest’ one could wish to see. A cylindrical ring of wavy hair grew from only half way down his head. The top was completely bald, a translucent pale white with prominent blue veins that obviously did something other than grow hair! The Kiwi offered to take him out for his first sail, it was a disaster from the get go. The big talking Kiwi had never been out on the Clarence and on a high tide, ran Siquando over the submerged breakwall. Then on the way back, he got the poor girl stuck in sand. She had to be towed off by Marine Rescue. It was a major disappointment for him, his first sail and he’d already had to get the boat out on the slip to check the hull for damage. Big talking Kiwi man went a bit quiet when he was made aware of the expense for that day. But it was an important lesson. He learnt he must be the Captain of his own boat! The boatyard crew were the only true locals he’d ever met, descendents of early fisherman, they depised all newcomers. He couldn’t really blame them. They were trapped in an ever increasing spiral; the more house prices went up, the more the idyllic lifestyle of their ancestors became a faded memory. They had seen how the town had changed; more rules, more people, more kooks in the surf, less fish and that one road into town a constant throng. They found themselves pushed further and further from their beloved coastline, driving great distances from the mosquito infested mangroves and brackish mudflats of the upper reaches of the Clarence, to service the retired class and their opulent boats, for cash in hand minimum wage. One day while sanding the hull, one of the workers told him, the Andulusian Spaniard had worked a few weeks at the boat yard, but was fired because of the low standard of his work. The worker asked him if I knew of the the suicide of the previous owner on the boat. The worker said, ‘You haven’t noticed the new paneling in the saloon on the starboard side?’ ‘Apparently the old owner blew his brains out one night, that is why the Spaniard got the boat so cheap!’ He quickly climbed the ladder to inspect the paneling, sure enough a new panel was overlaid on the starboard side, He pulled at it and it gave way quite easily. It was held in place with bluetack! Sure enough behind the new paneling there was various buckshot holes ingrained into the original panel with what looked like various remnants of skull and hair. He didnt know what shocked him more, the fact he’d spent weeks sitting in a dead man’s chair, or that the tight ass Andulusian had done such a shit job repairing the damage! He fell into a deep depression, he felt he had bought a cursed boat. He started hiding out in the boat, only leaving at night, drinking Rum all day and cursing anyone who dared come within five fathoms. Repairs went undone and he blocked out the light with a makeshift tarp over the mast. In the darkest hour he’d wake with night horrors, feeling a dark presence on the boat. ‘Go on do it’, said the demons of self-destruction, ‘End it now.’ At sunrise every morning, the sailor’s friend, a swallow, would come and sing to him the most angelic song, as though to check he’d made it through the night and to encourage him to face another day. One dusk while wandering around Yamba, lost and lonely, on a hunt for more cheap Rum, he came across a woman with much luggage at a bus stop. She was crying hysterically. He approached her and asked her if she was ok. In broken English she said, ‘I off at wrong stop, I lost. Me live Coffs Harbour’ Her eyes were red and bloodshot and she was visually shaking. He told her he would walk her to the backpackers where she could book a room till the morning. She was very thankful, they got talking, he promised to give her a tour of Yamba the following day and she gave him her number. Next morning, he asked her if she wanted to see the beaches. She told him she had never learnt to swim. He asked her if she would like to learn. She said yes, so they went to whiting beach, where he taught her to dog paddle and lie on her back, and look up to the sky and relax, with her arms and legs out, like a starfish. It lifted his heart to see the childlike joy on her face as she learnt a new skill. For the first time in a long time, he felt happy. A friendship developed between them and she returned to Yamba and stayed with him on his cursed boat. One night, she woke with a fright, speaking loudly in a foreign language, sounding very stressed and scared. She told him a ghost visited her in her sleep. She recited a muslim prayer and made it dissolve. He then told her the story of the suicide, the dead man that had haunted him in his own sleep. She said, ‘Bad spirit gone, boat now yours’. She opened up to him and told him she was married very young, an arranged marriage. She gave her husband 20 years and two daughters, but never felt love. She had ran away to Australia with the hope of starting a new life. She said she had found it very hard and that he was the first person to show her any kindness. There lives were both on low ebbs, but together they rode a rising tide. Having someone who enjoyed being on his boat with him, improved his own feeling about owning old Siquando. They would catch fish and mud crabs and she would prepare succulent Malaysian dishes on their little one burner stovetop. She added some order and tidiness to their little home, which encouraged him to start doing repairs again. They started venturing out onto the river and dropping the anchor overnight. Eventually they reached the stage where they were ready to lift the sails. She was on the till steering, while he prepared the ropes. With full sails tight in the breeze, he turned off the motor, the only sound remaining was the water lapping on the hull. Siquando then caught a breeze, and leaned into it, powering along at 6 knots. They found it exhilarating to feel Siquando accelerate so quickly and heel to one side as she cut a line through the water. They ended staying out there for 6 hours, criss crossing the river, back and forth, taking turns on the helm. That night in the Captain’s Stateroom, He was in a lyrical mood, telling her of tales of great sailing trips he’d read about. ‘A sailor always looks up’, he said, ‘towards the Gods. Let's keep our sights on the stars.’ They both knew that they had passed an important milestone that afternoon of sailing, they had taken that first big step that would eventually lead to them to escaping the pond scum of Mullet Waters. She looked into his eyes and with reverence asked, ‘Can we change her name to Adesso? It means ‘Now’ in Italian. They both laughed, knowing the ‘Yes When’ meaning of Siquando had floated out on the last tide. https://www.instagram.com/p/CTgYR-hh1eg/

My classic wooden yacht tour – an alternative home to beat the overheated Australian property market

Mark Shea — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:19:15 +0000

My yacht is called Siquando, which translates to "if when; at what time" in Latin and "Yes When" in Italian. The answer is always now! Which is maybe a good way to live life, considering sooner or later we all make the little flowers grow! She is a 9 mtr (30 ft) masthead sloop, cold moulded with triple planked diagonal dynel sheathed Oregon, Cedar stringers and a double steel ring frame support attached to the aluminium mast. Cold moulding involves laminating together thin layers of wood to create a hull that is watertight, strong and lightweight. Dynel is a soft absorbent polyester fibre that looks like wool. It absorbs epoxy resin to form a watertight barrier. The boat was built over 11 years by an amateur boat builder in Sydney (finished in 1983). It was built using Nevin's rules of design. Nevin's was a 1930's boat designer whose designs produced yachts capable of offshore cruising, with heavier scantlings (dimensions) than earlier Herreshoff racing designs. Her dimensions also fit the 'half tonner' IOR 1967-1993 racing rules She has a new beta marine 20hp diesel which has only done 130 hrs and she is fitted with all the safety equipment needed for offshore cruising such as life raft, epirb, vhf and ssb radios. The interior is decked out with a warm mix of Mahogany, Cedar and Oregon and is well appointed with 4 sleeping berths including a double up front, a kerosene stove, eutectic fridge and a jabsco toilet. The previous owners spent $10,000 on professional deck repairs and had the rigging checked and a new furling system added before sailing her from Sydney to Yamba. As someone completely new to sailing, I hope to first venture along the Clarence River, before taking her North to the Whitsundays and then south to Tasmania. I'm realising that owning a yacht requires having extensive knowledge of numerous disciplines - wood repairs, diesel mechanics, plumbing, electronics, weather and tides. These first few months have been a bit overwhelming, but I'm confident with time, I will sail this old girl out through the heads alone, giving her the adventure she was built for.

The Overlander becomes a Sailor!

Mark Shea — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 03:22:51 +0000

It's been a long held dream of mine to own a yacht and learn to sail. Unfortunately whenever I've crewed on other's boats, things haven't gone too well. The first time the yacht I was on, got beached for 6 days in Cuba and we had to sail round the Western side of the island with no motor or radio. The second time I ended up crewing on a drug smuggling boat in Tahiti, but was luckily kicked off at Bora Bora, before their big Fiji arrest. I was originally looking at acreage along the East Coast, but I felt the prices were unsustainable, so decided to look at alternative living spaces. With a yacht I get a mobile home that also allows me to learn new skills. Timber repairs, marine plumbing, electrical systems and hopefully, some sailing. So say hello to SV Siquando, a 36 year old classic wooden 30 foot mast head sloop.

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All went well with the inspection Friday. The bilge is full of dust, which is what one wants to see in an old wooden boat, and the diesel motor is near new, with only 120 hrs on it. I'm very lucky to have met a retired gent from the yacht club who has given the boat the once over and is happy to teach me to sail. Yamba is a fantastic place to learn as it is on one of Australia's biggest rivers, the Clarence. In fact one can cruise up river to Grafton, stopping in at six taverns with pontoons where one can have a beer and meal. Might have to be one of our first trips ??? .. . . #sailing #yamba #woodenboats #sailinglife #sailinginstagram #sailingadventure #yacht #yachtlife #svsiquando

A post shared by overlander.tv (@overlandertv) on Dec 13, 2019 at 11:53am PST
I'm been very lucky to have met a retired gent at the local yacht club that has offered to teach me to sail. Peter also looked over the Grand Old Dame and gave her a clean bill of health. We are thinking of putting together a how to sail video series called Krusty Old Seamen. Peter is still not that keen on the name :)

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I'm now the proud owner of my first yacht, SV Siquando. From left to right - Captain Mark, previous owners Spanish Jorge and Kiwi Jodi, and Krusty Salty Seaman Peter, who will be teaching me to sail. . . . . . #sailing #yamba #woodenboats #sailinglife #sailinginstagram #sailingadventure #yacht #yachtlife #svsiquando

A post shared by overlander.tv (@overlandertv) on Dec 13, 2019 at 7:37pm PST
So I will be based in Yamba for a bit and will be offering video production services from Port Macquarie to the Sunshine Coast.

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'l have many leather-bound books and my yacht smells of rich mahogany......and noodles, 2 min noodles!? . . . . . . . #sailing #yamba #woodenboats #sailinglife #sailinginstagram #sailingadventure #yacht #yachtlife #mastheadsloop #halftonner #classicyacht #timberyacht #svsiquando #anchorman

A post shared by overlander.tv (@overlandertv) on Dec 26, 2019 at 7:13pm PST
Hope you all had a safe festive season and look forward to sharing my new sailing adventures in some handy how to videos.

Walking across Spain with no money and other such adventures.

Mark Shea — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 11:56:28 +0000

https://www.instagram.com/p/By5Zbcsosqe/ 'The world reveals itself to those that walk on foot.' Werner Herzog I'm currently in the small electronics room of a hotel in rural Bosnia. Around me buzz computers and hard drives, surveillance equipment and alarm systems. The air is still with an intense dry heat. My quick dry travel shirt is drenched with sweat. But I have access to a laptop and feel the need to write something of my recent experiences. I walked the Camino Del Norte and Primitivo over 42 days, 28 days of which I walked without money. I lost my wallet, most likely pickpocketed, and after the initial shock, decided I liked the feeling of having empty pockets and nothing left to lose. I made some rules to test my idea that I could live without money - *Dont accept money *Dont ask pilgrims for anything *Only accept help from someone for a limited time (eg 2 days) I learnt what herbs to eat along the way. I learnt some basic Spanish to ask for old bread at cafes and bars. I did odd jobs for a bed in Albergues like painting, cleaning and cutting grass. I photo documented the journey on instagram, so to save time, and also get out of this sauna, I will share some pertinent photo posts. https://www.instagram.com/p/ByA5UFpIIh9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/ByCUAd8IkUf/ https://www.instagram.com/p/ByZguhMCjys/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Byua0J5IMy2/ To live without money I had to live one day at a time. I had to simplify things, break my day into trying to achieve simple tasks - walk, eat, find somewhere to sleep. I felt that by doing this I saw deeply into my own and other's hearts. Money is such an important consideration for most people. https://www.instagram.com/p/ByZwTvFiTvx/ The last 100 kms was the toughest. I saw the true filthy heart of the money circus the Camino has become. In fact I would suggest anyone who only walks the last 100 kms of the Camino is kidding themselves to think they would get any type of benefit out of it. I didnt even stay in Santiago long enough to get my Compostella. After my experience I decided I needed to give something back, so traveled to Lesvos, Greece to volunteer to help refugees at Europes largest Refugee Camp. Unfortunately I got a staph infection in my arm and spent a week in bed on antibiotics, but got to meet enough refugees to get an idea of their predicament. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz5-O7Po_1P/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B0iB3PQnN1s/ The Camino experience seems a long way away now. Normal travel seems dull in comparison, very dull...and pointless. There was something about having a challenge, a goal, and putting all your energy into achieving that goal. I also felt I had to live in a certain way if it was to work. I felt I too had to share the little I had to be able to receive. One night I woke at 3am and wrote down this little poem/prayer about my experience. Reading it again, it is probably a good metaphor not just for the Camino, but life. Hope youve got something out of my ramblings, feel free to comment below. 'Can you walk the Way, tired, hungry, injured, with empty pockets, and still feel the birds are singing you onwards and the flowers are smiling as you pass them? Can you accept that you may experience the worst but also, great gifts of abundance? Step by step, day by day. Don't worry about tomorrow. Appreciate this moment.' https://www.instagram.com/p/By_YgiFo91-/

Homemade Electric Car – $8,000 D.I.Y.

Mark Shea — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 07:11:00 +0000

Hobart local Warren 'Boyler' Boyles takes us for a ride in his D.I.Y. electric car converted from a 3 cylinder Daihatsu. He completed the conversion 8 years ago for an approximate cost of $8,900. He charges the car with both solar panels on the roof of his garage and mains power. Technical information Motor Controller Cells, cell electronics, charger Cables, switches and all the rest Useful EV Conversion Websites www.aeva.asn.au www.myelectriccar.com.au www.electric-echo.com https://www.instagram.com/p/BtSj4m1n5Oz/

Happy New Year

Mark Shea — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 09:08:04 +0000

Hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and have some amazing plans for 2019. I'm spending the summer in Tasmania and have had a great time; fishing and eating fresh oysters off the rocks, https://www.instagram.com/p/BrzZcXgByjS/ and getting to meet the King of Australia at a music festival :) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsHF30fnFEk/ This year I plan on walking the Northern Camino in Spain and writing a book about the experience. I have a story in mind and will also be sharing photographs. I asked Camino De Santiago Pilgrims to send me their favourite photos. 200 pilgrims replied. Here is their video Music: Nature Anthem-Grandaddy

BIG SKY. RED DIRT. Photo book – Australian Motorcycle Adventure

Mark Shea — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 06:54:26 +0000

With Christmas fast approaching I have decided to produce a photo book, so as anyone who decides to gift my streaming Motorcycle Adventure Film; 'Journey to the West' can have something tangible and physical to give to their loved ones.

The 32 page hardcover photo book will feature some of the best photos and 4K video stills I took on my journey from the East Coast to the rugged North West. Places, faces, the whole experience of a solo motorcycle camping journey. Extracts from the film script make up the story.

Been an epic experience making a book about an epic experience. Thanks to Nadia and Charles and Libby for their help in design and editing. Learnt so much about the process of producing a photo book. Been such a worthwhile experience. I think you will love it :)

How to Market your own Tourism Business with Video.

Mark Shea — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 05:46:01 +0000

As you can tell from the photo above, I've been involved in video for quite a while. The camera featured is the Canon XL-1, a three-CCD standard definition camcorder made from 1997 to 2001. It cost twice as much as my car at the time. Most phones today produce video of better quality than the XL-1. One thing that hasn't changed is the essence of good audio-visual storytelling. For 300,000 years humans have told stories. First around a campfire and then, with the invention of the Gutenberg Press in the 1440's, via the written word. With the advent of the internet, and improvements in bandwidth, video has become the main way we communicate stories now. Every day 500 billion videos are watched on youtube. Yet despite this huge technological wave, only 9% of small business produce videos. I would like to help small business, particularly in my area of expertise; tourism, learn how they can produce their own video content. Online Video - A technological breakthrough In a podcast with Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson mentioned a line that has really stuck with me 'The spoken word is now as powerful as the written word. It has never happened before in human history.' Peterson has stated that Joe Rogan is, by the numbers, probably the most successful interviewer of people ever. If we are to look at Joe's latest podcast with Elon Musk the view count is 13.5 million. To give you some idea of the scale - NBC Nightly News, the most-watched broadcast in the USA averages 1.4 million views per show for the last 92 weeks. This shows small business that tv no longer control the broadcast space. But how does one rise above the 300 hours of video uploaded to youtube every single minute? Youtube vs Facebook Personally I think getting a one off viral hit on youtube or facebook now is near impossible unless you pay these services or find some hack in their makeup. If anything, facebook may now be a better place to get a short term viral hit with a video than youtube. But I think youtube still wins the game with regard to longterm video visibility. Let me give you two concrete examples - Facebook desperately want to move into the video space, they see it's huge potential. The advantage of sharing a video to facebook is that you can organically target niche audiences via facebook groups. I recently made a fun little video featuring the ute camper I've built since returning to Australia. I wanted to do a bit of a parody on Australian car advertising from the 70's and also tie in an iconic hair style from the 80s - the Mullet. As a video producer I enjoyed the process of scripting, storyboarding, shooting and editing the whole video in one day. After uploading it to facebook I then shared it to various groups related to Australia, comedy, van life and Aussie utes. The video seemed to hit a nostalgic nerve, going viral. Over the weekend it was released, it was viewed 100,638 times on facebook and only 918 times on youtube. That is 100 times the views! But this doesn't mean one should avoid youtube all together. I think with youtube it is important to think about what search terms viewers will use to find your video, and try and claim that space for your town, region or area of expertise. For example, I did some videos for Yealands Wines both 7 years and 4 years ago. When you search for Marlborough wine region on youtube (and thus google) these videos still maintain the 1st and 4th spots in search. After the success of the first video I made for Yealands, they saw the benefit of producing another video that gave viewers an overview of why the Marlborough Region produces such good wine. They didn't push Yealands so much in this 2nd video, understanding that by just providing succinct information about their region, they would be viewed as the local brand experts. What formats work for online video marketing Online video statistics state that good video ads should - be authentic, entertain, evoke emotion, go personal/relatable, be useful, give viewers control… and work with sound off and in non-interruptive ad format. With regard to tourism video marketing, Jean-Paul Toonen of T36 Media informed me of a study by the University of Leuven (Belgium) that found many marketeers traditionally make the mistake of only using video as a medium of evidence. They believe that if they show the local qualities of a region, it’s superior scenery and sunny beaches, then the viewers will be convinced. But this footage only proves the existence of these hotspots. And not the effect of relaxation, happiness and entertainment. The audience is only convinced by honest testimonials and authentic interviews, in combination with action in the picturesque local environment. After learning of this study, I devised a video marketing formula called 2minprofile. I believe 2 minutes is all that is needed for a business to get their message across. In this two minutes, all a business needs to do is differentiate itself from it’s competitors 4 times. That works out to be roughly 30 secs per point. Each 30 secs works out to be 6-12 shots, depending on the pace of the video piece. So essentially a formula can be developed right down to the number of shots needed As stated previously, a business then needs to claim the Keyword space when thinking of a title for your video on youtube. Here is an example still holding number one spot sevens years after I produced it! Ride the wave of change - Podcasts The growth of podcasts has interested me. I think it is a kick against the fakeness of a lot of social media. It is raw, unedited. You see the nuances of a genuine conversation. I've attempted to ride this wave of interest in long form media by devising a concept that captures the raw honesty of conversation, bypassing 'influencers' and letting the most knowledgable person talk about their business - the owner! Once again notice how this video claims the space as best in their category. Of course this only works if your business really is the best. What not to forget when producing your own videos In this article I will not be providing suggestions for what gear you need to purchase to make your own videos. But I will give you one very important piece of advice. Video is a audio-visual experience, don't skimp of sound gear. Sound is tied in with emotion, just think of your favourite movie scene - break it down into it's pieces. Do you think that haunting violin music had anything to do with you feeling the need to weep? Bad audio will turn people off quicker than you can say "20% of viewers will leave a video if it hasn’t hooked them in the first 10 seconds." Hacking the system - Gaps in the market Finally I want to throw some statistics your way and give you some food for thought on where there are possible gaps in the online video market. For a while now the top 10 youtube travel influencers have an audience made up mainly of 17-19 year olds. Yet statistics from the Australian census, show a local spike in Chinese and lifestyler (55yr+) travellers. It is also interesting to note that 35+ and 55+ age groups are the fastest growing YouTube demographics. Could you use these stats to your advantage? Are you providing a specialist or luxury product or service. Could being a first adopter of video marketing allow you to claim the online video space for your town or region? If you have any further questions, please feel free to comment below.