TWO New BLMA Videos

[John]

I think the marketing major wins ... he has you all talking about his video ... Let's face it, there is nothing more important to a  model train manufacturer than to have his video be the buzz at TheRailwire, where he reaches a massive 200-400 people per day .. LOL

[tom mann]

Craig:  if you next video didn't have BLMA anywhere, and just said "coming soon", we would talk about it for 15 pages. ;D ;D

[wm3798]

I'll add my kudos to Leo's.  Craig does an outstanding job of reaching out to the masses via new media.  Walthers started a couple months ago with theirs, but I haven't seen anything since.  It would be nice to see more from the manufacturers this way.  I mean, what does it cost, really?

Craig got to spend a great day running trains with some buddies, shot some nice video, clipped it together (however erratically he wants!) and posts it on a free venue.  And we get to not only see the product, we get to see it in motion, doing what we hope it will do at our house.  That seems like a pretty good investment.

Lee

[DKS]

Well, as someone who actually worked as a video producer and post production engineer in Manhattan for several years, I'd have to agree that the layout tour video could have been cut a little better. But even though I would have cut it differently, it's well-produced and has a professional polish. Very well done, Craig. And the bottom line is that it does the job, even if the cutting and pacing could be improved. My $.02, FWIW.

[bicknell]

On the issue of length, I disagree.  I posted a 10 minute video of this same layout earlier in the year and that video has OVER 26,000 views.  The point of this new video isn't necessarily to sell TopGons, rather, to bring something new to modelers and showcase a great layout with awesome motive power.  Here is the first video shot of Tim's layout on a run day earlier this year:

One thing that annoys me greatly about YouTube and Blip.TV is that pretty much any activity counts as a "view".  If people start watching your video it's a view, no matter if they stop 20 seconds later or watch the whole thing.  Also, if you use links, embeds, or others that start playing automatically that counts as a view, even if the user scrambles to shut it off after 2 seconds.

I'm not suggesting your numbers are reflecting this phenomena, I have no way to know.  I really wish the sites produced two numbers, "number of loads" (not views), and "total minutes watched".  If you have a 5 minute video, 10 people watch it, and total minutes watched is 45 then you're doing good.  If it's 3 minutes watched you have a dud, even though there are a lot of views.

I had a longer video on Blip.TV at one point and it was generating a lot of views.  However I also started to get e-mail from folks that it was too long, and they couldn't watch it all at once.  I suspect at least some of what would happen is folks would watch some portion (a minute or two) say at work, decide they didn't have time for the whole thing, come back later and restart it at home fast forwarding to where they left off.  That creates two "views", even though it's just one person watching the whole video once.

Still, 26,000 views means you are doing something right, so keep it up!

[JDouglasFisher]

I watched all 3 videos, and definitely enjoyed the 10 minute BN Layout one. (wish there was more, would've really enjoyed to see how the layout was configured, closer look at dispatching, enjoy early years BN equipment, etc.)

5 starred that one.

As for critiquing videos, I don't like to comment on other peoples work, only their content. I have quite a few videos on YT myself, but almost all are politically motivated (and hence, no interest to the people here...)

But my fat face is out there thats for sure and my elected reps know me well.

Hey Craig, any chance of getting a more in depth layout tour of Tim's layout? I know it don't make BLMA money, but sure as well is a wonderful layout that I would like to see more of.

J.

[Craig Martyn]

OK...now we're all one the same page here and I appreciate the kind words.  Again, it was a fun night to shoot the video, and it's there to spread that fun with my friends and customers on Youtube.

As time permits, we plan to do a lot more with Tim's layout.  In fact, Tim has asked that we do "Hollywood days" during which we run the railroad, with dispatcher, with the intent of capturing some awesome meets, crew talk, etc., etc.  As you can all imagine, shooting multiple angles takes a LONG time, and the layout itself takes at least 30 minutes to roll over at normal cruising speed for the terrain. 

Next up will be the PS-4000 video, and for that, we'll be visiting a friends awesome N Scale layout!  Stay tuned...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow, those Douche-9s even make the "bwoop".

I love all the other BLMA stuff sprinkled in.

I agree the cuts were a little jumpy, the kinda felt "abrupt" in some instances.

And even though it was a BN layout, enough of the scenes still felt "familiar" having spent lots of time seeing these things out here on the east coast.

Really cool.

[ljudice]

Great video - reminded me of the angles and editing you see in a Pentrex video...

Craig, have you played around to get closer, more dramatic - ie. looking up shots. I really like the look of some of the Trains videos - you should take a look at them and see if they could be emulated.

Lou

[Robbman]

Wow, those Douche-9s even make the "bwoop".

It's Crap9... get it right...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow, those Douche-9s even make the "bwoop".

It's Crap9... get it right...

Maybe down there... but up here in the civilized world, they're douches

[Dave V]

Wow, those Douche-9s even make the "bwoop".

It's Crap9... get it right...

I thought it was Trash-9.

[Ryan87]

Wow, those Douche-9s even make the "bwoop".

It's Crap9... get it right...

Maybe down there... but up here in the civilized world, they're douches

A toaster by any other name....  ;D

[Chris333]

It just hit me what these videos are lacking... girls!

[bicknell]

It just hit me what these videos are lacking... girls!

Isn't that model railroading in general?