Thumbnail

Thumbnail

Hey guys!

As the days of our production come to an end, I was the one editing the last portion of the video and tweaking any final touches. This meant that I would also be the one who would upload the video to Youtube for our final grade. As I had never previously uploaded a Youtube video before, I went into the 'managing channel' side and saw one option I would need to fill out was a Thumbnail picture. 

I did some research to see how a thumbnail should be, as I had never made one before. 

I went on wyzowl.com/youtube-thumbnail-size/ and found quality recommendations for someone first starting out and what/how they should make their thumbnail. Everything down to the exact resolution the picture should be saved in was disclosed on this website. I knew before doing my own research I wanted the thumbnail to be simple, straightforward, and attractive. And after doing my research, I found that these three traits are exactly what viewers want to click on. 

Before I thought about going out of my way to create a thumbnail, I thought why not just use a random part of the film and have that as the picture. Then, after doing research, I thankfully found out this was not the best thing to do. 

Here are some of the main key takeaways from that website, that I used to curate our thumbnail for "Little Town". 

After reading through the website and having a better understanding of how I wanted my thumbnail, I made a quick outline of what I overall wanted it to look like :

1. Less is more
2. Picture including Mia
3. Have title name 
4. Simple editing
5. Aesthetically pleasing

Since we had not previously thought about taking pictures specially for a thumbnail, I went through all of our raw footage and came across a shot of Janey (playing Mia) riding her bike as a camera in a car follows her. I especially liked this shot because the sun was directly hitting Janey, enhancing the entire image overall. 

Here is me going through the footage and screenshotting a part of a clip to use as our thumbnail:

Then, I went to VSCO to further enhance the picture.
Here is a before and after of the thumbnail from VSCO:

BEFORE VSCO

AFTER VSCO

Then, after having the proper filter and color adjustments on the picture, I wanted to add the title of the film "Little Town". I explored fonts from dafont.com and ended up downloading the 'Royal Acidbath Outline". 

After I installed the font, I was easily able to add the title onto the picture, save it, and upload it as my 'Custom Thumbnail' on Youtube!

Here is the final product: