After watching lots of fishing videos on youtube it seems like there is a convention of plotting that is spectacularly similar and yet super boring...i have added my criticism and ways to improve this genre in italics. I would encourage some other creative workshopping to make your vids more appealing....
Here's the typical story arc:
Show some kind of wake up
I don't care about you waking up. Happens to the vast majority of us every goddamn day. I particularly don't care to see an alarm shot of what time you woke up. This means that you somehow thought it was important to actually film the clock after you woke up and pretend then you woke up, which makes me think you are a moron. Even more so if you actually show yourself with eyes closed. I have no suggestion to this other than cut this scene, it is blatantly dumb. Unless the first thing you reach for is a pill bottle.
Getting in the vehicle, sometimes with coffee or a snack, sometimes without
A joyless excursion seldom corrupted with drinking say milk straight out of the jug with it splashing all over the film-maker and their clothes. No milk-stache, nothing, no humor, ever, in the history of time, on this scene. I would gladly watch 20 minutes of bacon frying with a voiceover on correct or maladapitve methods of cooking bacon combined with speculation on high density vs low density lipids and the fisherman's suffering from occasional angina or heartburn than the conventionally stumble to "the rig" and climb in it scene. It's as though we can't fill in the gaps of how you woke up and amazingly enough made it to the waterside that you have to actually show it, in detail, and narrate it? Ohh, thank god you filled the gaps in, I never would figured how the transition from sleep to streamside could possibly work....WTF is that! At least the Angina discussion sets up some drama later, it is called foreshadowing.
Drive the vehicle and talk to the camera while driving
This is blatantly ridiculous, keep your eyes on the goddamn road, turn your camera off and don't be "that guy"
Alternatively, hit something, get out of the car, inspect the damage, relate how you have a cousin who knows this guy Ray Ray who can take care of this here rig with some bondo and buffing, even though the damage is substantial and potentially structural. Do not speculate on what was hit, you don't care, we don't care, but we are now interested in Ray-Ray's back story....
Sometimes music is playing
The music is generally some conventional middle ground nonoffensive stuff. It should be a self-help tape playing in the background. "I will not film myself or the road ahead while driving".
Still, if you can't break the illegal "film while driving" bullshit, the repetitive sounds of the structural damage should be acknowledged from the prior scene and commented on with speculation that is wrong "sounds like a tie rod....." there should also be close up of the temperature gauge running hot, too damn hot, steam should be occasionally noted from beneath the hood. At least at one point, the driver should check that steam and confidently return to the vehicle and say something like "it's probably the alternator."
a scene where the vehicle drives past the camera, telling us that the filmer had to get out of the vehicle, place the camera, reverse, and then drive forward again to where the camera is, and then beyond it, where they clearly have to stop, get out of the vehicle and return to pick the camera up (this technique sometimes, and I would say inexplicably, occurs later from an imaginary person on shore watching the self-absorbed protagonist's boat as it zooms by. I mean this cinematic auteur actually had to get out of the boat, place the camera, get back in the boat, motor back to some neutral and off camera site, wait for their wake and bubbles to go away, and then motor back up past the camera etc etc etc....) That's engine hours spent recording what I argue would be nonsense
If you're gonna do that scene, the self help tape voiceover should be this:
"Stay in your goddamn vehicle and leave your camera off. If you have to reverse to pick up your camera you suck." Alternate is to actually drive over and crush the camera, that to me would be satisfying, particularly if herky jerky slow mo is used with the camera crush....or in the boat scenario, the boat strikes an immutable fixed object with the pill bottle, the drone, the rod, the take out box full of nachos etc flying out, along with the fisherman, into the still and bubble- free waters
Suit up or boat up or wander through scrub to stream/lake/beachside again with camera posed to show route and progression
this scene would be better if the go pro shows the overgrown path ending up coming to the backside of a gas-station, entering the convenience portion and examining the hotcase food with questions like "what kind of cheeses you got for the nacho plate?' or "So how does the two for one deal work?" and "yeah the super big gulp cup...what flavor slushy you call that?" with barely audible gas Station technician responses that are repeated by the filmer, for clarity.
Line up.
Watching someone thread line or tie on a fly or explain fly selection is excruciating. Unless they have a tremor, then I am interested, on account of having a tremor myself. Like some version of fallibility makes it way more interesting as in will they get better? vs. How much worse will it get? Generally these vids are made by young men whose entire documentation of their journey generally makes them- they think- look good, when I am thinking "you are a fallible moron just like me, it's just your chances of failing are a mite to a lot lower than my own"
I would love to see it the other way around- close up of the baggy eyes on awakening. Failure to find any coffee left in the bag. Crappy/moldy bread heels to make PB&J, no PB anyway, fridge near completely empty, amazingly bad waders made more of aquaseal than anything else, comments about chest pain coming on with the fly tying, can't thread the eye...lots of expletives.
cast
I don't care to watch you casting, and if I did I would say you false cast way too much, even it it wasn't true, just on general principles. At the very least one of the casts should snag something interesting, like a coconut. with the filmer saying something like "oh look, a cocunut, I pretty much always get a coconut or two here, though it is really dependent on the wind and tide" and leave it at that. Cocunut needs to be pronounced two different ways in the same sentence (see for other ideas about morons above)
catch a fish with crazy jiggled difficult to see stuff
All I am thinking is this fish will die. And that fish is way to small for a grown-ass adult to be filming them catching it. Better version would be rod bowed, grunting, fish escapes, fisherman describes radiating pain from chest wall to left arm and shortness of breath. "I should take some nitros but I left them at home...or wait a sec, maybe there's one or two left in this here pill bottle" now I am really interested...see notes on fallibility and morbidity as inclines for suspense generation
Listen to excited grunts or panting
How come we don't hear the grunts and panting when you wake up and put your waders on? Back to that fallibility question... it would be so much better with a detailed, monotonous explanation of how "my hiatal hernia generally goes in and out dependent on the angle I get these waders on, so I have to take it pretty carefully otherwise I could pretty easily throw up my coffee and egg sandwich...." maybe a couple of dry heaves and exaggerated swallowing action....a line like "I can't tell if that was a little nugget of puke or maybe a caper, out of context they can taste pretty similar..." well that sort of narration is green and gold....
see you got me hooked with that scenario particularly with this "I supposed it maybe isn't the hernia, but the angina instead...still something's gonna kill me and if I die fishing....or eating a hot case meal at a gas station... well that's how I always imagined it...I'd go down with some gas-station nacho cheese dribbling into my stubble... but you know, smiling as I lay dying, what with hot cheese-substitute all over my chin"
watch fish get handled awkwardly while landing/releasing
Recurring thought: "this fish will die" or "that's a grown ass adult catching a tiny fish and filming it"
Better to see a fumbling for a pill bottle that is empty, no nitrostat sublinguals, nothing....panting getting more rapid, maybe the vomit gets expelled this time rather than swallowed
repeat the catch
Good lord all these fish will die
Then watch the fisherperson make a lunch or meal of some sort:
watching someone make a meal over a camp stove and then watching them eat it is visual punishment. I would prefer to see hotcase food at the gas station. Or alternatively like a massive tongue swollen and eyes puffy anaphylaxis to some bush tucker plucked and eaten with confidence by the filmographer who was amazingly and spectacularly wrong in their outdoor survival skills. Paralytic shellfish toxin ingestion will have me absolutely riveted...particularly with said mentioned risk of coronary artery disease and an absence of angina pills
then maybe more fishing
you know the b-roll comes after the meal, it is never as good. At least call your parole officer or sponsor (or both) at some point to check in...even a call to the missus, with like the topic being when Grandma needs help putting the window airconditioner unit back in.... or something along those lines.... some mundane and yet brutal honey-do "those in-window units are pretty damn heavy you know..."
On drones....
Oh man where to start. see I get that drones basically upped the game by like a thousandfold. But so much comedy potential for drone work.
drone decimated by raptor
drone stuck in tree, fisherman films self trying to get it, angina worsens in tree climb, takes rod with him, fisherman falls out of tree, limbs are damaged on the tree and fisherman, rod is definitely snapped in several places, says something like "well that's why they have lifetime warrantee..."
Drone retrieval through disastrous casting with broken rod and no retrieval, somehow the fly line is wrapped in the still operating prop, guy's getting potenitally spooled, starts playing it and laughing maniacally, saying typical you tube vid shit like "I can see my backing...."
Drone retrieval via throwing cocunut and coconut repeatedly at it, all that rains down are drone parts sequentially bashed off the unit by the flying coconuts
Drone malfunctions and starts chasing down fisherman who is running away from it terrified, clutching his chest.
Really arty shot of drone filming gas station with voiceover describing in detail the gas station's conventional stupidly obvious anatomic layout saying things like "Under the canopy there's my rig, and the pumps that fill it with gas...you can't see it from this angle, let alone the damage we took this morning... look over that aways... near the HVAC....those there are the exhaust fan units to get the fry smoke out...it's a direct shot from there to some golden nuggets of hotcase goodness"
Then back to the vehicle and drive back home
I would far prefer to see the ride back home on a horse, or a moped or some new vehicle, say an ambulance, with zero explanation, just to have a little mystery. Or better yet the gate is closed and the vehicle is locked behind it, unable to get home, and the fisherperson melts down, like complete breakdown ala "Busy Bee" scenes from Best In Show with Parker Posey losing her mind...
Here's the typical story arc:
Show some kind of wake up
I don't care about you waking up. Happens to the vast majority of us every goddamn day. I particularly don't care to see an alarm shot of what time you woke up. This means that you somehow thought it was important to actually film the clock after you woke up and pretend then you woke up, which makes me think you are a moron. Even more so if you actually show yourself with eyes closed. I have no suggestion to this other than cut this scene, it is blatantly dumb. Unless the first thing you reach for is a pill bottle.
Getting in the vehicle, sometimes with coffee or a snack, sometimes without
A joyless excursion seldom corrupted with drinking say milk straight out of the jug with it splashing all over the film-maker and their clothes. No milk-stache, nothing, no humor, ever, in the history of time, on this scene. I would gladly watch 20 minutes of bacon frying with a voiceover on correct or maladapitve methods of cooking bacon combined with speculation on high density vs low density lipids and the fisherman's suffering from occasional angina or heartburn than the conventionally stumble to "the rig" and climb in it scene. It's as though we can't fill in the gaps of how you woke up and amazingly enough made it to the waterside that you have to actually show it, in detail, and narrate it? Ohh, thank god you filled the gaps in, I never would figured how the transition from sleep to streamside could possibly work....WTF is that! At least the Angina discussion sets up some drama later, it is called foreshadowing.
Drive the vehicle and talk to the camera while driving
This is blatantly ridiculous, keep your eyes on the goddamn road, turn your camera off and don't be "that guy"
Alternatively, hit something, get out of the car, inspect the damage, relate how you have a cousin who knows this guy Ray Ray who can take care of this here rig with some bondo and buffing, even though the damage is substantial and potentially structural. Do not speculate on what was hit, you don't care, we don't care, but we are now interested in Ray-Ray's back story....
Sometimes music is playing
The music is generally some conventional middle ground nonoffensive stuff. It should be a self-help tape playing in the background. "I will not film myself or the road ahead while driving".
Still, if you can't break the illegal "film while driving" bullshit, the repetitive sounds of the structural damage should be acknowledged from the prior scene and commented on with speculation that is wrong "sounds like a tie rod....." there should also be close up of the temperature gauge running hot, too damn hot, steam should be occasionally noted from beneath the hood. At least at one point, the driver should check that steam and confidently return to the vehicle and say something like "it's probably the alternator."
a scene where the vehicle drives past the camera, telling us that the filmer had to get out of the vehicle, place the camera, reverse, and then drive forward again to where the camera is, and then beyond it, where they clearly have to stop, get out of the vehicle and return to pick the camera up (this technique sometimes, and I would say inexplicably, occurs later from an imaginary person on shore watching the self-absorbed protagonist's boat as it zooms by. I mean this cinematic auteur actually had to get out of the boat, place the camera, get back in the boat, motor back to some neutral and off camera site, wait for their wake and bubbles to go away, and then motor back up past the camera etc etc etc....) That's engine hours spent recording what I argue would be nonsense
If you're gonna do that scene, the self help tape voiceover should be this:
"Stay in your goddamn vehicle and leave your camera off. If you have to reverse to pick up your camera you suck." Alternate is to actually drive over and crush the camera, that to me would be satisfying, particularly if herky jerky slow mo is used with the camera crush....or in the boat scenario, the boat strikes an immutable fixed object with the pill bottle, the drone, the rod, the take out box full of nachos etc flying out, along with the fisherman, into the still and bubble- free waters
Suit up or boat up or wander through scrub to stream/lake/beachside again with camera posed to show route and progression
this scene would be better if the go pro shows the overgrown path ending up coming to the backside of a gas-station, entering the convenience portion and examining the hotcase food with questions like "what kind of cheeses you got for the nacho plate?' or "So how does the two for one deal work?" and "yeah the super big gulp cup...what flavor slushy you call that?" with barely audible gas Station technician responses that are repeated by the filmer, for clarity.
Line up.
Watching someone thread line or tie on a fly or explain fly selection is excruciating. Unless they have a tremor, then I am interested, on account of having a tremor myself. Like some version of fallibility makes it way more interesting as in will they get better? vs. How much worse will it get? Generally these vids are made by young men whose entire documentation of their journey generally makes them- they think- look good, when I am thinking "you are a fallible moron just like me, it's just your chances of failing are a mite to a lot lower than my own"
I would love to see it the other way around- close up of the baggy eyes on awakening. Failure to find any coffee left in the bag. Crappy/moldy bread heels to make PB&J, no PB anyway, fridge near completely empty, amazingly bad waders made more of aquaseal than anything else, comments about chest pain coming on with the fly tying, can't thread the eye...lots of expletives.
cast
I don't care to watch you casting, and if I did I would say you false cast way too much, even it it wasn't true, just on general principles. At the very least one of the casts should snag something interesting, like a coconut. with the filmer saying something like "oh look, a cocunut, I pretty much always get a coconut or two here, though it is really dependent on the wind and tide" and leave it at that. Cocunut needs to be pronounced two different ways in the same sentence (see for other ideas about morons above)
catch a fish with crazy jiggled difficult to see stuff
All I am thinking is this fish will die. And that fish is way to small for a grown-ass adult to be filming them catching it. Better version would be rod bowed, grunting, fish escapes, fisherman describes radiating pain from chest wall to left arm and shortness of breath. "I should take some nitros but I left them at home...or wait a sec, maybe there's one or two left in this here pill bottle" now I am really interested...see notes on fallibility and morbidity as inclines for suspense generation
Listen to excited grunts or panting
How come we don't hear the grunts and panting when you wake up and put your waders on? Back to that fallibility question... it would be so much better with a detailed, monotonous explanation of how "my hiatal hernia generally goes in and out dependent on the angle I get these waders on, so I have to take it pretty carefully otherwise I could pretty easily throw up my coffee and egg sandwich...." maybe a couple of dry heaves and exaggerated swallowing action....a line like "I can't tell if that was a little nugget of puke or maybe a caper, out of context they can taste pretty similar..." well that sort of narration is green and gold....
see you got me hooked with that scenario particularly with this "I supposed it maybe isn't the hernia, but the angina instead...still something's gonna kill me and if I die fishing....or eating a hot case meal at a gas station... well that's how I always imagined it...I'd go down with some gas-station nacho cheese dribbling into my stubble... but you know, smiling as I lay dying, what with hot cheese-substitute all over my chin"
watch fish get handled awkwardly while landing/releasing
Recurring thought: "this fish will die" or "that's a grown ass adult catching a tiny fish and filming it"
Better to see a fumbling for a pill bottle that is empty, no nitrostat sublinguals, nothing....panting getting more rapid, maybe the vomit gets expelled this time rather than swallowed
repeat the catch
Good lord all these fish will die
Then watch the fisherperson make a lunch or meal of some sort:
watching someone make a meal over a camp stove and then watching them eat it is visual punishment. I would prefer to see hotcase food at the gas station. Or alternatively like a massive tongue swollen and eyes puffy anaphylaxis to some bush tucker plucked and eaten with confidence by the filmographer who was amazingly and spectacularly wrong in their outdoor survival skills. Paralytic shellfish toxin ingestion will have me absolutely riveted...particularly with said mentioned risk of coronary artery disease and an absence of angina pills
then maybe more fishing
you know the b-roll comes after the meal, it is never as good. At least call your parole officer or sponsor (or both) at some point to check in...even a call to the missus, with like the topic being when Grandma needs help putting the window airconditioner unit back in.... or something along those lines.... some mundane and yet brutal honey-do "those in-window units are pretty damn heavy you know..."
On drones....
Oh man where to start. see I get that drones basically upped the game by like a thousandfold. But so much comedy potential for drone work.
drone decimated by raptor
drone stuck in tree, fisherman films self trying to get it, angina worsens in tree climb, takes rod with him, fisherman falls out of tree, limbs are damaged on the tree and fisherman, rod is definitely snapped in several places, says something like "well that's why they have lifetime warrantee..."
Drone retrieval through disastrous casting with broken rod and no retrieval, somehow the fly line is wrapped in the still operating prop, guy's getting potenitally spooled, starts playing it and laughing maniacally, saying typical you tube vid shit like "I can see my backing...."
Drone retrieval via throwing cocunut and coconut repeatedly at it, all that rains down are drone parts sequentially bashed off the unit by the flying coconuts
Drone malfunctions and starts chasing down fisherman who is running away from it terrified, clutching his chest.
Really arty shot of drone filming gas station with voiceover describing in detail the gas station's conventional stupidly obvious anatomic layout saying things like "Under the canopy there's my rig, and the pumps that fill it with gas...you can't see it from this angle, let alone the damage we took this morning... look over that aways... near the HVAC....those there are the exhaust fan units to get the fry smoke out...it's a direct shot from there to some golden nuggets of hotcase goodness"
Then back to the vehicle and drive back home
I would far prefer to see the ride back home on a horse, or a moped or some new vehicle, say an ambulance, with zero explanation, just to have a little mystery. Or better yet the gate is closed and the vehicle is locked behind it, unable to get home, and the fisherperson melts down, like complete breakdown ala "Busy Bee" scenes from Best In Show with Parker Posey losing her mind...
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