Hello Uncle Foreigner

In this week's look at how we make our China vlog, we talk about filming on location, and the different approaches we take to getting it done. By the by, we talk about Internet disruptions at the very beginning ... and then our connection came back right after we were finished filming! So this video when up right as planned.

Videos referenced:

• New channel trailer: https://youtu.be/OHCe0cZ30eU

• Keep your freakin' money: https://youtu.be/9v92pO50nI0

• Nine months of Uncle Foreigner: https://youtu.be/25kvnPdOQAg

• Fish mint in Chinese cuisine: https://youtu.be/YzWR1014Mxw

• Taobao scams: https://youtu.be/WpE9Iiiqz7Y

• Field notes: https://youtu.be/S5xuc5qdsQY

• Last week's "Giraffe": https://youtu.be/jvRaGemK4Hw

• Christmas in China: https://youtu.be/neH9wMbDtVo

Uncle Sez what?: How's your uncle?: The babies are crying 2:13 • Conducting business: YouTube channel trailers 4:54 • Commentary: Fish mint, Taobao, and Field notes 16:02 • Homeschool film school: On location filming 34:04 • Watch it!: "Documentary Now!" 53:48

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

Uncle Sez is our weekly look into how we make our China vlog. This week we talk about how to do a good on-camera interview. We also look at that tricky line between what's popular among other YouTube creators vs. what the viewers are actually looking for and watching. And ... the Asian squat.

That Atlantic article: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fhealth%2Farchive%2F2018%2F03%2Fcan-you-do-the-asian-squat%2F555716%2F&event=video_description&v=kzqFCb_u5ZE&redir_token=w7fQLx2ZmDtIexRxdLAJZkH62Nl8MTU1NDc4OTQ1MUAxNTU0NzAzMDUx

Uncle Sez what?: How's your uncle?: An uneventful police visit 2:05 • Conducting business: Don't fall for false "genre conventions" 7:40 • Commentary: A giraffe, a dragon, and 100 names 16:40 • Homeschool film school: Getting a good interview 34:58 • Watch it!: "Russian Doll" 45:07

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

How we do you put creative work away when you're finished for the day? That's our topic of discussion on this week's Uncle Sez — How we make our China vlog.

Uncle Sez what?: How's your uncle?: Last days of vacation 2:24 • Conducting business: Why maintain a website? 8:30 • Commentary: Noodles of success 17:49 • Homeschool film school: When work is done for the day 32:44 • Watch it!: "The Death of Stalin" 44:00

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

In this week's discussion of how we make our China vlog, we talk about the changes we made to our workflow in order to make it more manageable. And we share stories of chatting with strangers during filming!

Uncle Sez what?: How's your Uncle: Chinese New Year continues 2:02 • Conducting business: Schedule changes and more 7:11 • Commentary: Easy up that workflow 27:32 • Watch it!: "American Vandal" 46:00

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

This week in our discussion of how we make our China vlog, we look at the structural differences between a television show and a successful YouTube video. As well, we talk about the different strategies we tried for pushing our boundaries in the different vlog stories that we posted in the past week over on Hello Foreigner.

Uncle Sez what?: Happy Chinese New Year 2:00 • YouTube is not TV 7:28 • Pushing our artistic boundaries 21:30 • You should watch "Corporate" on Comedy Central 37:30

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

One month after our China vlog migration began, we crunch the numbers on Hello Foreigner, and find that the rebranding has been a total success. Better thumbnails, better SEO, and better sharing links means people actually see our work this time around.

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Uncle Sez is a weekly chat about the making of China vlog channel Hello Foreigner. You can find those videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

It's our weekly look at our lives as artists in China, where we will discuss our filmmaking process and more.

Out topics this week: Why we're not live streaming, and choosing impressionism over service journalism.

Watch the videos we're talking about over on Hello Foreigner: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag

It's our weekly look at our lives as artists in China, where we will discuss our filmmaking process and more.

Out topics this week: Keywording, and vlogging as more than just a talking head.

The videos we re-posted last week on Hello Foreigner (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftjeM16I5qqLnCc1iIH8Ag) show us branching out from the studio, and we explored a couple different techniques to make videos that were more than just my face talking at a camera. It makes the production process way harder, but we are generally much happier with the results.

This episode, we share the Hello Uncle Foreigner origin story and talk in depth about how we defined ourselves and created our different series.

Going from an idea that "Hey, we could do this vlogging thing just as well as anyone else. Better, even!" to a fully functional channel with several different shows ... this took some work. Here, we talk about that process, as well as why it was important to us to be able to create a framework for what we were doing overall, as well as a sort of "elevator pitch."

See where it all started at HelloUncleForeigner.com.

Of course, there's also some behind the scenes anecdotes from our latest video, "Mega-Shorts": https://youtu.be/KHTiX3yUNCI

And some recommendations:

* GLOBIK Cool, fun China content: https://www.youtube.com/user/GLOBIKvi...

* Bird and the Bee, or all of Inara George's music, but specifically her Hall and Oates cover album: https://youtu.be/KHTiX3yUNCI

* Author Peter Hessler, writes incisive non-fiction about living abroad.

No Vomit Report this week. But we all feel good about that. And, In Chinese, the phrase I was struggling to find was 噼里啪啦 (pili pala) and it's the sound of fireworks. (Which, I guess this is my tacit recommendation for ChineseClass101.com -- They're the rare online Chinese learning outfit that has decent lessons and the intermediate level.)

Live, from Luzhou, Sichuan, China ... we're talking about China vlogging.

This week we share the details of our workflow: pre-production through post-production and promotion. And also, how did we do that green screen on Lamma Island?! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnpjZHDgvHc)

We're back with stories of the Uncle Foreigner life, featuring Channel Milestones, Behind the Scenes Tidbits, The Vomit Report, Entertainment Whispers, Local Luzhou News and more.

Live, from Luzhou, Sichuan, China ... we're talking about China vlogging.