Hi folks. Welcome to Motor City Musings, my new automotive opinion channel. With reviews, opinions, events, and hopefully competition. Friends, family, associates, and even our financial advisor have urged me to start a podcast or YouTube channel for years. Now, I doubt there's a person on this forum who hasn't had a Walter Mitty moment watching old Top Gears, and figured they could do that. Well, now I'm having a go. I'm not trying to emulate any one channel or subject. I want to give my opinion, experience, and thoughts on cars and events. MODS, I hope this is OK. The channel isn't monetized, but if this is inappropriate let me know.
Below is my first video. A couple of weeks ago I went up to the Empire Hillclimb in, surprisingly enough Empire Michigan, and shot some video, put it together, and posted it. I plan on another video this afternoon, and then again on Friday. I want to go with a two videos a week format and try to keep it consistent.
I realize I've got a long way to go. I haven't taken any kind of art class in nearly 40 years. I've never tried talking to a camera, although I'm perfectly happy talking to large groups of people. I have almost no equipment. But that's the great thing about today, you can try it with whatever you have, and build from there. I've started with one iPhone, a few year old iPad Pro, an old tripod, a selfie stick, a stick on window camera mount, and a couple of cheap remote mics. About $50 worth of stuff on Amazon. Before last week I'd never tried editing anything, and I'd never even opened iMovie. I see people talking about one hour of editing per one minute of finished content. Honestly, for this first video, it's more like 10 hours per minute of film. But that was learning every step from importing the files onwards as I worked. I realize that the sound isn't very good, again I did what I could with the editing abilities of iMovie, and my nonexistent experience, but honestly I'm quite proud of the result.
I'm looking for feedback on content, presentation, and how to do things.
A quick question for those who may know. I'm trying to understand fair use when it comes to copyrighted material. You'll see in the first video I have some vintage pics of events from over a century ago. I searched for images that I could find used in several places, without any attribution, then used them as picture-in-picture to help tell the story. I'm pretty certain that is OK. What I want to know is how far 'fair use' goes with copywritten images and music. Obviously, I can't add a song by a famous artist or group. What I'm not sure of is, whether I can use a short clip, say 2-3 seconds, as a hook that matches something in my video? Or can I use a cover version in the same way? I'm not trying to rip off a full song, just a tiny clip that would be relevant to storytelling. Also a similar question on other people photo's. I think I'm OK with the vintage ones I've used, can someone confirm? Also, can I use another pic if it's not the main subject, say a couple of seconds of the image floating across the screen, if I have in big bold letters 'Image from XXXXXXXX, used under fair use'. Again, I'm not trying to steal other people's work and claim it as my own, this is just for short clips to aid in the storytelling process?
I'm sure I"ll have a thousand other questions along the way as I learn.
Anyway, here's my first effort. And most importantly, don't forget to like and subscribe, even if you hate me and the content, just let it play through in the background!
https://youtu.be/AluC1yIEiEU?si=Yx4OWja9dWkFtAny