Five excellent long-form Everest documentaries on YouTube

As I've mentioned before, recently I have become very interested in learning more about Mount Everest. I believe the modern term is 'deep dive', and I've been indulging myself with lots of buying and reading books, listening to podcasts and watching long documentary videos.

I've discovered that the amount of content on YouTube in particular can be quite overwhelming, and far too much of it is either shorts or clickbait videos that lack depth. A much better source of information are long-form documentaries, and luckily there are a wealth of excellent ones available to choose from. 

I'm going to share a few of my favourites, in what may well be part one of a series!

Everest 1998: IMAX (1998)

This film contains the first IMAX images from the summit. It makes it all look easy - if you want a behind the scenes description you can read No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs which really goes into the practicalities of making the film! The film covers the preparations for the climb, the trek to the summit and the return to Base Camp. The footage is beautiful, even when watched on a small screen. The film crew was on the mountain during the 1996 disaster and so shares some of the stories from that day (see the next video to find out more about that event).

The 1996 Disaster - Storm over Everest (2008)

This is a documentary and dramatisation of the events of the 1996 climbing season, when a storm trapped climbers high up in the mountains, leading to eight deaths including two experienced expedition leaders. It features interviews with many of the climbers that were there that day, along with  reconstructions of events. It's not that deep in terms of insight, but it's a good introduction to what happened and introduces you to some of the key players and timelines that you can then go and research further.

Summit Fever (1996)

This is the second Everest film featuring Brian Blessed (the first is Galahad of Everest which is also available on YouTube) and his exuberant enthusiasm for reaching the summit of Everest. This is his third and final attempt, and even though (spoiler alert) he doesn't actually make it to the top himself the film is very entertaining to watch. This team was also on the mountain during the 1996 disaster, and so you can see some footage of that event. The making of this film is chronicled in the book The Other Side of Everest by Matt Dickenson, director.

A Deadly Ascent (2019)

In two parts, this is the story of the 2019 Everest season, when 11 people died. It focuses on the problems of overcrowding on the mountain, and the issues of inexperienced people attempting to climb. It features interviews with Sherpa guides, climbers, and those who lost loved ones. It's a critical look at how people can buy their way to a summit attempt, and the impossibility of trying to help when something goes wrong at high altitude.

The Wildest Dream - Mallory and Everest (2010)

In 1999, Conrad Anker discovered George Mallory's body on the slopes of Everest. It's unknown whether or not Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine reached the summit in 1924 before they died, and Anker attempts to prove that they could have made it. He returns with climber Leo Holding and they recreate parts of the climb, wearing clothing from Mallory's time and attempting the Second Step, the trickiest part of the climb, without using the ladder that has been in place for almost all other attempts via that route. There's a clever mirroring of the historical story of Mallory and Irvine with the modern ascent story, and a poignant dramatisation imagining what it could have looked like if they had made it to the top.

Do let me know if you've found any others that I should watch!

Introducing a new Roblox based YouTube channel for children

Today I wanted to introduce you to Mia and her friends' new YouTube channel. I appreciate that it probably won't appeal directly to many of my readers, but as a parenting blogger I'm hoping that some of you might have a child that enjoys playing games like Roblox, and might like to take a look.

The channel is called The Cosy Crew and is the work of Mia along with two of her friends. They all create and upload videos, sometimes as a group and sometimes individually. They are much better at posting to their channel than I am to mine! It's become a real creative outlet for them, and they've all learned how to edit the videos, record their voices and add music. Obviously they have me to supervise and I'm keeping an eye on it, for example I've made sure that comments are turned off!

I love how they have taken note of which Roblox videos are popular, and they've focussed on quickly creating new videos to help other people, like this one showing all the Easter egg locations in a recent update, along with reviewing any updates to the game. 

Here is what Mia has to say about their channel: 

Hi, we're The Cosy Crew! We do videos on Roblox playing some of our favourite games- Royale High, Club Roblox, Adopt Me and loads more! We also do videos on other games such as Minecraft and Among Us! We love to do role play and play music for our band.

So if you have children in your family that you think might enjoy this channel, I would love for you to let them know about The Cosy Crew! 

Working on my YouTube channel

I've been using YouTube for several years, my first video was published five years ago and I've been a pretty steady contributor since. Some of my videos have done surprisingly well - my most popular video is a short review of our large Playmobil castle set which is currently sitting with 127K views. Recently, my video of us assembling an Ikea Stuva loft bed has been very popular, and I also do quite well with holiday destination review videos.

I have never made a fortune from YouTube monetisation, but I did make a few pounds a month which was always nice to have, and a good motivator to keep producing popular content. Back in January, along with many other small creators, I received the e-mail telling me that my channel was no longer eligible for monetisation. They introduced new benchmarks, and creators are required to have over 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in the last twelve months.

At the time I had just 463 subscribers and was about half way there with the watch time. My problem is that although I have a few videos with very high view counts, they are short videos so don't add much to my watch time, and they are also one off niche videos which don't attract new subscribers as my content is so varied. I made the decision to try and work on my YouTube channel to reach the new requirements, although five months in I'm still way behind.

Over the last few months I've managed to build up my subscribers and I'm currently on 915, so I'm doing well although there's still a little way to go. If  you aren't already subscribed I'd love you to pop over to my channel and consider clicking the red subscribe button, I really do appreciate each and every subscriber! You can find my channel here - Jennifer Jain on YouTube.

When it comes to watch time though it's proving a bit more tricky. I'm not very good at making longer videos, and most of mine only last about three to four minutes. That's because I know that I don't have the time personally to sit and watch videos all day, and I like to keep things short and sweet. I hope this means that people have the patience to watch to the end at least, but if they click away afterwards then it doesn't do much. I'm desperately trying to think of longer content that I can create which won't be too boring!

If you watch videos on YouTube I'd love to know which type of videos really keep your attention!

My YouTube video challenge update

Last year I set myself a couple of video challenges as I set to work on my YouTube channel. You can read about them here - My YouTube and new video challenges for 2017.

Firstly I intended to make a video featuring a second of footage each day for 2017. I was very successful with this, and you can read about the video and view it here - 2017 in seconds.

My second challenge was to publish 52 videos in 2017 - a new video every week. This one didn't quite go according to plan. When I gave myself the challenge I was buoyed by my success with Vlogmas 2016, and after managing to publish 24 videos in December 2016 alone I thought that with a few holidays planned for the year I'd easily hit my target.

What I discovered though was that the more videos I published the lower my views were. I was getting so few views on videos that it hardly seemed worth making them, and I just didn't have the time to promote them when I was publishing so frequently. I did publish 29 videos over the year which I think is pretty good, and I'll probably aim for about one a month this year.

I find it quite difficult to predict which videos will do well, but I have noticed that videos with lots of views as soon as they are published seem to take off better, so it's worth getting on with promoting a video as soon as it's live. I shared a video taken at Center Parcs De Vossemeren on their Facebook page. They were good enough to reshare it immediately which led to lots of views straight away, and it is now my most viewed video of the year.

My next most viewed video from the year was the video that I made about the resort we stayed in on Fuerteventura - the Iberostar Playa Gaviotas Park. In fact I have several similar videos which have all done very well, people clearly like to have a good look around a resort before they stay, or perhaps they are revisiting their holiday memories.

Some of my most recent videos are my favourites but they don't have many views yet, I'm hoping that they will pick up over time as I continue to re-promote them. My personal favourite video of the year is probably the one that I made of our family visit to Whipsnade Zoo, just because it brings back so many happy memories of a lovely day.

And that's the reason that I love making videos - I enjoy taking the footage and then editing it together to make a little video memory with our highlights from a day or a trip. So even though this type of video doesn't do particularly well for me, I'm still going to continue with them as a way of recording our memories - it's not all about the views!

Vlogmas inspiration - a list of ideas for Christmas videos

Last year for the first time I took part in Vlogmas - a daily video uploaded to YouTube in the run up to Christmas. I only decided to take part on the evening of November 30th, so it was all very last minute and I'd already missed filming a few Christmas moments, but I managed to complete the challenge, and I love having all our Christmas memories captured on video for us to look back on.

I've not decided yet whether or not to take part this year, but if I do I'm definitely going to be a lot more organised and come up with a few ideas in advance for those days when inspiration doesn't strike. So I thought I'd share them here in case you are looking for any ideas to fill your Vlogmas calendar!

Videos

* Advent calendars - do you have one for yourself or do you arrange them for your children? What sorts of things are inside? Do you buy a new one each year or do you have a reusable Advent Calendar?

* Film a trip to the local garden centre to share the themes, decorations, lights, any unusual Christmas decorations that they have, fun gift ideas

* How does your local town centre decorate for Christmas? Is there a celebrity turning the lights on or fireworks afterwards? You might be able to film carol singers or a band playing in the town centre and any Christmas window displays or Christmas street food

* Take a trip around your neighbourhood or estate and film some of the decorated houses, is there somewhere local to you that is well known for decorated houses? Share with your viewers in case they are looking for somewhere to visit!

* Film putting up your Christmas tree, I've seen some fun stop motion videos of the tree being assembled and decorated

* Show us your Christmas tree when it is fully decorated and tell us the stories behind your favourite ornaments

* Visit a Christmas market and film the things for sale, food and drink, any entertainment, rides and so on

* Film your visit to the school or local Christmas fair, having fun playing the games, maybe a visit to Father Christmas and a go on the tombola

* A trip to the pantomime or other Christmas show

* Share a Christmas recipe - this can inspire several videos. Share your favourite simple Christmas treat or a longer project like making a Christmas gingerbread house

* Share a Christmas craft - again you can make several videos for different crafts. You could do your own take on a popular classic craft (making sure to give credit for any inspiration)

* Video a Christmas day out, perhaps a visit to a local attraction that has extra Christmas activities organised and festive decorations

* The school Nativity show or play - while you shouldn't share video that shows other children, you can interview your own child about the show and their part in it (in costume would be brilliant!) and get them to sing some of the songs for you at home by your Christmas tree

* How do you wrap your presents? Do you have a special technique that you can demonstrate? Share some favourite wrapping paper and other wrapping related purchases that you've bought this year

* If you have several areas of the house decorated for Christmas take us on a house tour

* Christmas Eve - what do you get up to? Maybe do a day in the life as you finish Christmas shopping, pick up the turkey, open the box of chocolates while you do some last minute wrapping, and hang up the stockings

Vlogs direct to camera

* Have a chat with your children about Christmas, prepare some questions in advance for example 'what time will you get up on Christmas morning', 'what is your favourite Christmas food', 'what songs did you dance to at your Christmas party'

* Interview your children about what presents they are hoping for and what presents they think other people would like

* Ask friends and family members to share a Christmas memory about you on camera and edit them together, you could end up with a fun selection of anecdotes ranging from your favourite present as a child to a work Christmas party memorable moment!

* Your favourite Christmas memories

* Your Christmas traditions, what do you do every year? If you have children, has that inspired you to start any new traditions?

* What are your favourite Christmas songs? Can you sing them?!

* See if there is a Vlogmas tag going around with different Christmas questions to answer, there often is! If you can't spot one, why not come up with your own list of questions and tag fellow vloggers to answer them, or ask your viewers to suggest questions

I hope that there is something here to inspire you, good luck!

You can see all my videos from Vlogmas 2016 below!

Predicting which videos will be popular on YouTube

I've been publishing videos on YouTube for a few years now, in fact my first video was a washing machine review published back in 2012. Some of my older videos have done really well. My most popular video - a look around the Playmobil Lion Knight's Empire Castle that we bought my son for Christmas one year - has received over 115,000 views which is quite amazing. I have quite a few other Playmobil videos which have done surprisingly well, and all I do is show the features of the sets and talk about them. I should probably think about making a few more, especially as many of the sets are now no longer available!

Something that put me off adding videos to YouTube for a long time was that it has a reputation for negative comments and trolls. I'm a sensitive person, and if someone said something rude about me or my children I would take it very personally and it would probably stop me uploading videos. Fortunately the worst that I've had was someone commenting on the fact that I was letting my son play with dolls!

I've uploaded videos across a variety of genres, but mainly toy reviews, craft tutorials and days out or holiday videos. I've never really done much in the way of promoting my videos, and I've found that in general they either take off immediately and the views keep growing, or they tank completely. I think that one way to do well is to get lots of views as soon as you can after publishing. I had a lot of success with my video about the pirate play area at Center Parcs de Vossemeren which I shared to their Facebook page and they re-shared immediately. The views came in straightaway, thick and fast! But having said that, my second video about the park which I published a few days later and didn't share has now overtaken it in terms of views.

In general my travel videos do perform well, especially those of holiday destinations abroad, and hotel or room tours. A really quick video that I made of the beach where we stayed in Fuerteventura also took off really quickly without any promotion at all, I've no idea why!

One type of video that I've had poor success with has been craft tutorial videos. This surprised me as I thought they would do well - I obviously need to do some work on improving them! My most popular craft video was this short demonstration of the Chameleon Multiple Tone Pens, one of the first craft videos that I made. It took a long time to get to that level of views though, it was published over two years ago.

Another craft video that I made has done terribly despite me actually promoting it - it's only 30 seconds long and I really thought it would do better - please have a watch and make it more popular!

So sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why some videos do better on YouTube than others and I find it impossible to predict! I'd love to know if you have any tips or tricks for YouTube success!

My YouTube and new video challenges for 2017

Once I set myself a challenge, I'm pretty good about seeing it through. On the 30th November last year I decided that I wanted to take part in Vlogmas 2016, having never heard of it before and not being a particularly frequent YouTuber. I stuck to it and managed to upload a video each day in the weeks leading up to Christmas, which I was really proud about, and it has given me some lovely videos to look back on that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

A second a day video

So when we were away at the end of December I was having a brainstorm for a new yearly challenge, now that the Sky Blanket is almost finished. I wanted something that I could do every day that would produce some sort of reminder of the year. A friend on Facebook posted a video that she had made last year with each day of the year being represented by one second of video and I loved it and was instantly inspired to start one of my own.

So each day I'm taking the time to record a quick second of video that either represents each day. It might be something special, like blowing out candles on a birthday cake, or just a quick everyday moment in time, whether it's the school run, homework or just sitting around playing or reading. I'm editing the clips together in Movie Maker, and at the end of the year I'm looking forward to sharing the video with the family. I've told the children and they are loving watching it build up, but I'm keeping it as a surprise for Ram (don't worry, I'm pretty certain that he won't be reading this!) to play on New Year's Eve.

52 videos in 2017

I'm not sure if I'll take part in Vlogmas again this year as it was quite intense, but I definitely want to create and upload more videos through the year. I really enjoy the editing of the videos, and while I know that I don't have the best set up for filming, if I do really get into it then perhaps I'll have a think about adding to my kit, starting with some decent lighting. So this year I'm intending to upload 52 videos over the year. I don't want to be too rigid about one a week in case we are away or things get busy, but I think that is an achievable amount.

I don't make my videos very long (for me over five minutes is a long video!) as I don't want to bore people. I'm also not very good at talking directly to the camera as I feel that I look really awkward, but I'm hoping that with practice this is something that I can improve.

I've got lots of ideas. I'm aiming for lots of travel videos of places that we visit over the year, like this one from the hotel in Tenerife that we stayed at in January.

I'm also planning to add video tutorials for some of the crafts that I've blogged about, like these mini Hama bead hearts for Valentine's Day.

I'll also be looking out for some linkies that I can take part in for inspiration, like the video that I made sharing my ten favourite colours and my first proper attempt at talking to camera.

If you want to see more of my video content then please take a look at my channel, and if you like what you see I'd love you to subscribe! You can find my channel here - Jennifer Jain's YouTube Channel.

Taking part in Vlogmas 2016

On the 30th November this year, in the early evening, I first learned about Vlogmas. I must have been living under a rock, because since then I've seen references everywhere! But if you're like me and it's a new thing to you, basically it means that for every day in the run up to Christmas, or even every day during December, you upload a video to your YouTube channel. It doesn't need to be a Christmas themed video, although most seem to be, and there are no rules - it can be long, short, a straight vlog to camera, a day in the life, craft or recipe tutorial - anything goes!

Because I was coming in at the last minute, some of our Christmas preparations were already underway. The tree and decorations were up, present shopping was mainly done, and cards were written. But I decided that I wanted to give it a go, and once I set myself to a challenge I generally see it through.

I kept my videos quite short, often only 2-3 minutes, and many of them are done by theme rather than specific event, for example my Elf on the Shelf and Gingerbread House videos were filmed over several days. Some were very quick to put together and some took a little longer. I always aimed to have the next day's video finished and scheduled before I went to bed, and if I knew that I was going to be away or busy I set up a few general videos in advance.

I'm not very confident in front of the camera so you won't see very much of me, and I'm also a bit shy about filming when out and about, I'm always trying to make sure that I'm not filming too much of other people. I don't tend to take much video day to day. So I did feel self-conscious when taking some of the footage, and it was a real effort to make myself film things.

But I'm so glad that I did! I captured many moments that I wouldn't have otherwise - like my son in his costume talking about his carol service, the children getting excited before the pantomime started, the opening of the boxes that our Elf on the Shelf arrived in, as well as a few glimpses around our house which I'm sure will be fun to look back on in years to come. I also made an effort to do more festive things so that I would have something to video and include, like a trip to the garden centre and going to visit Christmas lights and decorations.

Below is my first video - Advent Calendars - and you can find all my videos in my Vlogmas 16 playlist - Jennifer's Little World Vlogmas 16 Playlist. I'm going to edit all the videos together into one long one which we can keep to look back on in years to come!

I'm already planning for next year!