blogging about vlogging: February 2014

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Charlie McDonnell

Another dinosaur of YouTube like Phil, Charlie has been on YouTube for forever. He's that cute British blond with a mole. If you're a regular to YouTube, chances are you've come across his channel Charlieissocoollike or at least have heard about him. In fact, he's such a big deal, I'm a bit intimidated to write this.

Charlie McDonnell is one of the most adorable nerds you will ever see. He loves knowledge and things like Doctor Who. He's also a musician. In fact, combine music and Doctor Who and a couple other lads and you've got Chameleon Circuit.

In addition to Charlie, best friend Alex Day as well as Liam Dryden, Ed Blann, and Michael Aranda make up Chameleon Circuit. They've put out two albums, the first self-titled and the second, 'Still Got Legs.'

Besides Chameleon Circuit, Charlie was in a band called 'Sons of Admirals.' This group also had Alex Day and Ed Blann with the addition of Tom Milsom. They were and all are solo artists, but formed a group taking after the idea of Shakespeare's group of individual actors, Admiral's Sons, thus the band name came about. This group is now dismembered, but they covered songs like Cat Steven's 'Here Comes My Baby.'

Charlie also produced his own album called 'This is Me.' The album has 13 tracks, all songs Charlie wrote, performed, and recorded himself. They're songs about various things like 'A Song About Love,' 'A Song about Acne,' 'Bread,' and even 'Rhymezone.com.' Charlie also has music videos of many of these songs on his channel.

You can buy physical copies of Chameleon Circuit's albums here as well as Charlie's own here. They are also available on iTunes. You can listen to them for free on Charlie's website.

Right now, Charlie has a subscriber count of over 2,310,000 on his channel. Charlie made YouTube history by being the first UK youtuber to reach one million subscribers.
Most popular: 'My American Accent' and has almost 9.280 million views. His second most popular video, also with over 9 million views is the classic 'Duet With Myself', which is also a song on 'This is Me.'

Charlie has some video series he'll make. In addition to vlogs and music videos, there have also been 'Challenge Charlie's and 'Fun Science' videos. Charlie covers a lot of bases with his videos. I mean, he is a 'professional internet human,' so I guess he knows what he's doing.

Most recently, Charlie has been focusing on short films. He's decided to really put a lot of effort and determination into making them and has even set up challenges for him himself concerning them for this year. So far, 'The Tea Chronicles' and 'OFFLINE' are the results with more to come.

'Duet With Myself'

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Jamie Jo

Are you ready to hear about a girl so talented at art that she literally got hate for painting fast food so realistic it was thought to be a photograph? Because that's Jamie Jo, aka BananaJamana on YouTube.

Jamie Jo talks pretty fast and seems to have a hybrid American-British accent, but she is from Michigan and just recently has moved to England where she shares a flat with fellow youtuber, Doddie Clark [doddleoddle]. Jamie Jo just seems like the sweetest person. I'd love to have her as a friend, although that friendship might just kill me with jealousy of her art talent. I can't really art, so I'm extra appreciative of those like Jamie Jo who can.

BananaJamana has right now about 67,000 subscribers, so I'm definitely saying she's one of the hidden gems of YouTube.

'Art Overload'

Jamie Jo makes mostly art videos and they're so cute. Generally she films herself from different angles painting or drawing or whatnot and speeds it up for the videos. She adds cute music, commonly songs by youtubers, and edits nicely. Her videos aren't those draggingly long art videos where you watch for 20 seconds and then skip to the end to see the finished product. She's amazing to watch and I'm in awe with every video.

Sometimes Jamie Jo also uploads vlogs or other kind of videos as well.

It is indeed a painting.
'GIRL PAINTS CHEESEBURGER'

[See, it's not a photo! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fMtQEUKe5w&feature=youtu.be Jamie Jo was getting so much criticism for this painting being fake that she uploaded a clip of her painting the food in real time. The fact that she's just honestly good enough for the disbelief says something in itself.]

'Adventure Time Cake'

Her most popular video is 'Adventure Time Cake' which is a wonderful little video of her making what turns out to be a giant and extravagant cake themed around the popular cartoon Adventure Time. As of the time writing this, it has over 281,000 views. Her next four most popular videos are her painting youtubers AmazingPhil [video], danisnotonfire [video], ItsWayPastMyBedtime [video], and KickthePJ [video].

'Painting AMAZINGPHIL'

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Tim Hautekiet

Roll Intro.

I feel like I say this for every youtuber I write about, but Tim H. is one of my favorites. [As in, if we're talking about major crushes on YouTube, Phil is my primary crush and Tim is my secondary crush.]

He's another one of those British guys; another one of those amazingly talented British guys on YouTube. Tim has a lot of different videos on his channels. He does skits and vlogs and action videos and reflective videos. His main channel, Tim H, has about 95,600 subscribers, and I'm actually very surprised he doesn't have a whole lot more. This means he's definitely one of the underrated youtubers in my opinion because he has a passion for writing, acting, directing and producing, and it's very evident in the quality of the work he puts out.

His most popular videos are a trilogy of 'Evolution of Music,' which are three videos with Tim and friends in a car and singing [and dressing up to] popular songs of the decades. Each video has over 600,000 views as of now.

'Evolution of Music'

'Evolution of Music 2'

'Evolution of Music 3'

The biggest project Tim has been working on recently is 'Project: Library.' Project" Library was in the works for a long time before the trailer was released promising a four part YouTube film. Each episode was released a week in October 2013. The creators of Project: Library were Tim, Benjamin Cook, Tomska, and Jack Howard. Together, they worked with The Multiverse and many other YouTubers to make the incredible production. It has an amazing script, acting, filming, editing, production...just everything. Project: Library is something that gives YouTube a great name.

Project: Library is about a library that must be shut down because of loss of interest, but two workers, characters played by Jack and Tim, find that there is an overdue library book with a fine total of one million pounds. This could save the library, so the owner of the library launches a full-on operation to find one Michael Foster [played by Daniel J. Layton] and a children's book called 'Rory the Dinosaur.'
You should watch the trailer. It's a lot more epic than my description.

Project: Library-

PROJECT: LIBRARY Episode 1: Overdue
PROJECT: LIBRARY Episode 2: Dinosaur
PROJECT: LIBRARY Episode 3: Collateral Damage
PROJECT: LIBRARY Episode 4: The Final Chapter

There are also bonus videos on The Multiverse's channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDmSnqbQcsmmrPzwxbYhXx5yoB2g32Sho
These include a prequel, the background story to one of the characters, and other videos.

Here's an article the UK's Huffington Post wrote about Project: Library: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/joel-tennant/youtube-uk_b_4098920.html

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Dean Dobbs

Dean of Jack and Dean has two other youtube channels, one being www.youtube.com/deandobbs and the other, www.youtube.com/adeanaday.

Adeanaday instead of being daily videos like it sounds, actually turned out to be home to a collection of videos in a series Dean made called 'Harmless Things.' The Harmless Things videos are various clips of everyday life and are exactly what they're said to be: harmless. The videos on adeanaday are random and insignificant, but nice in simplicity and peaceful with how Dean stitched the videos together.

The other channel, the newer one, has videos of various things including songs, vlogs, and one answer video to the annual Nerimon survey Alex Day puts out every year. That video can be found here: 'Dean Does A Survey'.

Dean is a really nice person and funny as well. He and his friend Jack have been promising many more Jack and Dean videos this coming year, already having delivered a great sketch called 'Dead Girl.' In fact, they've just finished filming a new one.

When I think of Dean, I think of his fluffy fringe and his adorable accent-how he's got one of those British accents that pronounces 'th' as 'f' so 'fank you' comes out, but I also think of how sweet he is. In omfgitsjackanddean sketches, Dean plays the more 'stupid' and 'innocent' and 'wacky' character, but it is a character. Even though he doesn't change his name for sketches (and neither does Jack), Dean isn't a scripted Dean. In fact, the first time I met him at VidCon, I asked for a picture with him and then another person asked and he politely told the person that I had just asked and he'd get to the other in just a minute after he had posed with me.

I remember Dean fondly. As I mentioned in the blog post about both Jack and Dean, I found myself riding an elevator in the convention hotel when they got on at floor five. I did happen to make the elevator ride a bit awkward by asking them for a picture when we got to the lobby, but when Jack said to me 'Now you've gone and made things awkward, haven't you?' I made a reference to one of their videos that got me a giggle from Dean. "I'm sorry-it's just that you're crazy internet famous.' *Dean giggle* 'Yeah, we are.'

I think I've gone on more of a personality tangent on Dean because he isn't as available as Jack is on YouTube. Jack has been making more videos and working on projects and appearing in other videos, but Dean has kept more to himself with a new video popping up randomly. Now that the Jack and Dean team is back together with lots of energy, we'll being seeing a lot more of Mr. Dobbs, but he is quite a personality on twitter. [www.youtube.com/deanitsomfg]

Dean's YouTube channels: Dean Dobbs

adeanaday

Dean's twitter: www.twitter.com/deanitsomfg

Jack and Dean's YouTube: www.youtube.com/omfgitsjackanddean

Friday, February 14, 2014

Jack Howard

Jack of Jack and Dean has his own channel in addition to the one he shares with his buddy and it is simply called after himself: Jack Howard [www.youtube.come/jackhoward].

Jackums, as I like to refer to him as, is quite a character. I believe that he is one of those genuinely funny people-the kind of person who doesn't need a script to get a laugh. The slogan he tags on to his videos is 'pretending to be funny,' but he's always funny to me, so I guess something's working.

Jack is always around to tell us a good story or share observations or opinions he has. He also brings thoughtful subjects to the table which I admire because I love intelligence. He's got an undying love for Spiderman, even using the character as the subject of the dissertation he wrote to graduate from the University of Lincoln this last year. I do have to be honest and admit that writing my high school senior thesis on Superman did cross my mind more than once as I have the same kind of superhero love as Jack, just for the investigative reporter instead of the photo journalist.

As a tribute to Jack's great content, I'll add that Jack was recognized at the world premiere of The Hunger Games Catching Fire by Jon Kilik, the 'main producer man of the Hunger Games franchise' (as Jack worded it). Kilik knew of Jack's YouTube channel and had used a video of Jack to open up a keynote presentation he had given on the question of whether or not film is dying. Here is the video of Kilik's presentation, and here is the video of Jack that he used in it, and lastly, here is the video Jack made about the premiere and his video being used, titled (sarcastically cockily) 'I Inspired the Hunger Games!'

Also, a little while ago, Jack was sent to Jordan with Benjamin Cook [www.youtube.com/ninebrassmonekeys] for an experience with Syrian refugees in a refugee camp in Jordan. Here is the video Jack made about his trip: 'THE SYRIA CHALLENGE' and here is Ben's: 'The War of the World.'

Jack lives with other youtuber friends including Tom [www.youtube.com/tomska], Daniel J. Layton [www.youtube.com/danieljlayton], and Ciaran [http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfSH5Nrbdd9t4_J_1Gl3DkQ]. He'll often pop up in other people's videos, like baking with Dan or looking like a lamp in Tomska's latest sketch.

Jack says he enjoys every part of the video making process, and he even provides editing services for friends sometimes. But watch out because it's likely that if you compliment the editing on a video of Louise's [www.youtube.com/sprinkleofglitter], one Jack Howard will be the one thanking you instead.

Video Suggestions:

'University Wisdom' [vlog]

'Grown Up Tetris' [vlog]

'No Hands!' [vlog/story]

'Steak & Eggs' [sketch]

'Angry Translator' [sketch]

Jack's YouTube: www.youtubecom/jackhoward

Jack's twitter: www.twitter.com/JackHoward

Jack and Dean: www.youtube.com/omfgitsjackanddean

Thursday, February 13, 2014

AVbyte brothers

AVbyte is a channel I came across just a few days ago, but I was so impressed with the content, I wanted to share a post about it right away.

The creators of AVbyte are brothers Antonius and Vijay who make musical videos every week for their channel. They're super creative and talented, writing songs and making storyboards that come to life in very well produced videos. They expertly cast characters and have costume designers and artists who all throw in their talents for these musicals.

Their channel currently has about 406.5k subscribers and their most popular video is 'Hipster Disney Princesses - THE MUSICAL', which has nearly 10 million views.

You can tell Antonius and Vijay have a passion for what they do. In addition to uploading a musical every week, they also upload behind the scenes for each production as well as a 'comment and reply' video from the responses they get on their latest work.

'Hipster Disney Princesses'

They shoot so professionally and in beautiful locations, many being outside. They film the actors singing and acting and then piece it together and have a recording session so they can mute the noise from the actual shoot, eliminating all the background noise.

Their musicals are about many things like social media, popular characters, and even Draw My Life videos for characters. All the songs they write for the videos are also available to purchase on itunes. [As soon as I discovered the Superman Draw My Life, I added that to my music library. It's just brilliant.]

'DRAW MY LIFE - Harry Potter'

They also sometimes have people with familiar faces in their musicals like youtubers iJustine [http://www.youtube.com/user/ijustine], Hannah Hart [http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHarto], Tom Milsom [http://www.youtube.com/user/hexachordal], and Hank Green [http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers / http://www.youtube.com/user/hankschannel].

I haven't known about these guys for long, but I already love their work and I'm really excited to see what they will make in the future and where their creativity will go. What will they write more songs about?

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Megan Jones

'Song Blog #32 (Silent Nights)'

Megan Jones is a youtuber with a rising fan base at over 21,000 subscribers on her channel MeganGore. A Colorado native, she's a singer, currently at college in Nebraska for music ministry.

Megan's channel is full of beautiful songs, both her own and covers...and even parodies. She calls her original songs 'song blogs' and usually simply adds a number when uploading. She sings covers of songs and even takes multiple songs and mashes them together in one epic performance like Fall Out Boy songs and Panic! at the Disco songs for example. She's even pulled various songs together to make a 'WHITE GIRL MASHUP' to go with her last Halloween costume...being a stereotypical white girl.

Still into You Parody

Megan is good to us with comedy even in her songs. She sometimes takes popular songs and gives them new words in funny [and usually extremely relatable] parodies. Her parody of 'Still into You' by Paramore is about being a fangirl...and so is the Taylor Swift parody, 'We Will Never Ever be Together.' See...relatable.

See, one of the things I love about Megan is that she's a fangirl as well as a youtuber...and a fangirl of youtubers even. She loves Dan and Phil and happily ships herself with Dan and so quite a few of her videos hint towards her inner fangirl. In fact, what brought her perhaps the most popularity were songs she wrote about Dan and Phil. The danisnotonfire song found great success quickly and the AmazingPhil song followed, that followed by a song for Crabstickz about the big 'quitting YouTube scare' he gave everyone once. And then kind of came a song for KickthePJ.

Megan got to preform at the VidCon 2013 open mic concert [I was there; she did lovely and she looked beautiful.]. After she was done with the songs she had prepared, she was told she still had time and the audience [myself included...much to her dismay] demanded she sing the Dan and Phil songs. She caved and it did make everyone very happy. [Megan's VidCon vlog #1]

In addition to songs, Megan does make vlogs on her main channel and sometimes also on her side channel, megangorewhy. She updates us on college life sometimes which I particularly enjoy since we're going through this period of our lives at the same time. :j Megan is such a sweetheart and I'm so glad I've gotten to meet her. She's definitely my favorite female youtuber. She's wonderful.

Other Video Suggestions:

'Young Volcanoes' cover [Fall Out Boy]

'Song Blog # 31 (Closer to You)' [original song]

'LEGIT SINGING TUTORIAL'

'COLLEGE LIFE YO' [vlog]

Megan's YouTube: www.youtube.com/megangore

Dreen [my VidCon buddy] and Megan

Megan's twitter: www.twitter.com/MeganflipnJones
Megan's soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/megangore

I first met Megan in line to meet Dan and Phil.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Thomas Ridgewell

'Final Banned University of Lincoln Advert'

Thomas Ridgewell is more often known as Tom and more often again known as TomSka. [www.youtube.com/tomska] Tomska went to the University of Lincoln and made three videos called 'Banned University of Lincoln Adverts' which picked up a good number of views. He has just recently been invited back to the University of Lincoln to give a lecture to current students. He still lives in Lincoln in a shared house with quite a few of his youtuber friends.

Tomska has said that his three passions, 'the three loves of his life' are action, comedy sketches, and cartoons. These can all be found on his channel and he does a great job with every one.

asdfmovie characters

His channel currently has over 2.6 million subscribers with his asdfmovie series being the most popular videos of his. These cartoons are what brought his channel the most success. He voiced the first asdfmovie with his best friend Bing and another guy offered to do the animation for it. That video was such a success that Tom has since made six more asfmovies, three asdfmovie-related songs, and uploaded many asdfmovie scenes that didn't make the cut. The original asdfmovie is his very most popular video and has an amazing view count of over 27 million. The asdfmovies are full of short, funny scenes that don't always make sense, but trust me, they get funnier every time you watch them. [I don't know the magic behind it, but it's there.] The videos have plenty of reoccurring characters like the lovable but deadly mine turtle and the 'I like trains' kid, both of which have their own songs. The most recent asdfmovie song release is 'EVERYBODY DO THE FLOP' which happens to be one of my favorite parts of asdf.

Asdfmovie playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A5849BDE0581B19

[Also if you like asdf, Tom wants to buy a boat so he made shirts.]

Asdf is the most popular, but you should definitely stick around for Tomska's other videos. I was one of the small percentage of people who found Tom from videos other than cartoons. All his action and comedy videos are well made with great editing and effect skills. He's a skilled guy and pretty sweet as well.

'First Date'

Other video suggestions:

'Salon Shootout' [action]

'The Fallen' [action]

'Baby With A Gun' [comedy]

'Musical Suicide' [comedy]

'Picture Perfect' [comedy]

Tomska's Channel: www.youtube.com/TomSka

Tomska's twitter: www.twitter.com/thetomska

Sunday, February 2, 2014

PJ Liguori

PJ Liguori is one of the 'fantastic foursome,'being chums with Phil, Dan, and Chris. PJ has been on YouTube for a long time with his channel called 'KickthePJ' [www.youtube.com/kickthepj] where he makes vlogs and sketches and art and animation and songs and short films. Basically if you're in the market for creative and whimsical, Peej is the guy to visit.

PJ's channel currently has over 466,700 subscribers or 'tiny planet explorers' as fans call themselves. His most popular video is called 'The Pushover' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtsxR3ZQbec] which includes Dan and has over a million views.

PJ graduated from University this past year and is very much an aspiring film maker. With him being so artistic with any material he can put his hands on, including film and instruments, PJ is the most awe-inspiring creative mind I've ever seen. He loves getting his hands dirty to make props and sets like he did for his recent short film, 'Forever Train' which employed a whole list of YouTube favorites as passengers and interesting creatures. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5o1Kofu6GM] PJ was actually given the opportunity by Blackberry to make this film in London's famous Pinewood studios, so the production is impeccable.

Video Suggestions:

'Smokey Saloon' [sketch] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHgLe9_Vy6E

'I don't wanna live on the moon' [original song] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ftU25GTLNI

'a story about a boy' [animation] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5R91GaIEyY

'Office Space' [short film] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbWnjPRYnBI

'Ultimate Fantasies' [vlog] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9D99ldoO28

'MAGICAL RAINBOW ADVENTURE' [art] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hgRrTo7iCE


Character 'Wiggles the Clown' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh7EI5WlZuI

PJ's YouTube: www.youtube.com/kickthepj
PJ's channel trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3GocvQabUM
PJ's twitter: www.twitter.com/kickthepj

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Chris Kendall

Chris Kendall is a favorite on YouTube for me. He made his channel years ago because he was bored and called it Crabstickz because he likes crabsticks and put a 'zed' on the end, he says. He has over 540,000 subscribers to date. He lives in London and is friends with Dan and Phil and PJ, the friendship dubbed "the fantastic foursome." Chris has got a bit of humor; he's a really funny guy. He does sketches and impressions and vlogs on his channel.

Chris' most popular video has over 1.7 million views. It's his '41 Accents' video and deserves every view because Chris really has a huge talent for accents and impressions. He has lent his voice out for other videos on youtube for cartoons and I could definitely see him having a terrific career as a voice actor or even teacher. His second most popular video is another one like this, 'Internet Animal Impressions.'

Character Becca Hodgekins

Chris has made a lot of sketches and so has made a lot of characters for them. He loves acting and goes all out for these characters, many recurring and becoming classics like his Spanish 'Chrios Kendallas' and Mexican 'Enrique' and most recently, the fangirl 'Becca Hodgekins.' 'Fangirls,' the video in which Chris created Becca is probably my very favorite; it's hilariously accurate in describing fangirls. Becca seems like her own person with the blonde wig, black glasses, and purple hoodie Chris always dons for her. He gives her a specific voice and her personality is amazingly constant. Chris even let this alter ego come out on stage at his performance at Summer in the City, an annual YouTube gathering in London.

Chris has done work for BBC Three, acting in comedy sketches and even appearing in a tv show called 'Some Girls'. Here is a BBC 3 music video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgl25IadVPk] and a Sherlock parody where Chris was Watson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24c5jeHGnsU. He has also been shooting videos with a YouTube channel called 'Bath Teeth'.

'Nazi Gold'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRSDAvXJJ0U