So, a few months ago, I was watching some videos on ways that I can create additional income streams so that I can afford to retire at some point.
Usually, when watching these sorts of videos, most of the suggestions are sort of weak... they require a lot of investment or huge amounts of marketing or simply luck. Some of the suggestions are things I've already tried (or do) and the expectations presented aren't reasonable.
Then, someone suggested making "rain videos" or other "sleep videos." I often use these videos to help myself and though I know there is a lot of competition on this one, I also know that variety helps on this - i.e. I don't listen to the same video each night... so there is still a lot of room to grow.
With this, my new YouTube channel, Freya's Moods was born.
I learned how to use a piece of free software called ShotCut and how to take video clips and sounds and put them together to make 5 and 8-hour videos designed to help you relax or sleep.
As everyone has a different definition of what makes them relax, I am developing a wide variety of videos, sometimes without music or with a black screen if you need that.
Mostly, I'm using videos from Pixabay or Pexels combined with music from Freesound, but often, I use my own video shot with one of my own cameras.
Here is one that I've used my own video and sound for.
This video was very simple because I had enough natural sounds to make the video good to begin with. All I had to add was a beautiful piece of music from ShortRecord at Freesound.
Despite the simplicity, making the video itself often crashes my computer because it is pushing my poor machine to its very limits.
Once I have the video file to the correct length (8 hours for a sleep video, 5 hours for a meditation), then I have to render it. Each render takes between 3 hours (for one with a black screen) to over 5 hours (for a full video with multiple audio tracks.)
When my videos are ready, I have to make thumbnails for YouTube and then upload the videos - which takes a few hours per video.
At the point of writing this post (31st of July), I have 26 projects completed and uploaded, making a total of 71 videos.
My most popular video thus far is this one:
The original video is called Gaia from Erosvideos at Pixabay. Bird and waterfall background is “dawn-2” from tonant from FreeSound. The music is “ambient guitar x1” from frankum also at FreeSound. Someone else has used the same video for a meditation video, but that's okay. It's what Pixabay is for, right?
My most popular project is this one:
Inspired by the haunting loons I listened to while camping, it sends me to sleep very quickly. The original video is from Paolo Sandionigi at Pexels. Loon calls are from Jennifer Jerrett at the National Park Service and Spanac at FreeSoundsLibrary. Music is “Dreamy Ambience 01” from Klankbeeld at FreeSound.
This one is 10 hours long - which has proven to be too hard for my computer, so I went to 8 hours for sleep videos.
Eventually, I hope to record loons myself for another video where I include water sounds as well.
Please visit me at Freya's Moods... subscribe to my channel and "like" your favorite relaxation and sleep videos.
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter
