Well I have been waiting for a long time to talk about my YouTube Career. This was a period of my life that spanned 10 and a half years and involved grinding out video and content.
The Early Years (2005 – 2008)
The journey began back on December 9th, 2005. I remember the date as I commemorate the auspicious occasion yearly. It started as I needed to do a project for High School. I was in my last semester in in school and I needed 40 credits to graduate with my High School Diploma. As someone with Autism I wasn’t suppose to but that is a different blog post for a different day. My teachers gave me an option to get the credits. I could either create a pitch for a new TV show or make a sample episode of a show. Deciding on the sample episode, I decided to try make a pardoy of The Amazing Race. But, as things tend to do in life, nothing went according to plan.
During my team’s production meetings, the we found some aspects to difficult so the plan changed to an entertainment show highlighting local events in Durham Region, Ontario. So after the presentation in the class (which went amazingly well), my team and myself continued production on February 13th, 2006. At the time I was not on YouTube yet. March 19th, the project was on hold again. I ended up getting really ill and found myself in hospital for 4 days. The doctors had to perform a surgery to remove a blockage. I almost died for the second time in my life. This health blip put the production on hold until mid April.
Once things got rolling we recorded the 2nd episode and continuing on right through to the 16th episode the following year. As time went on, drama ensued amung the production team and our show, Durham Entertainment Today, only saw one full season filmed. Our second season was left with only 3 episodes recorded. The series stopped on January 10th, 2008. After more production team issues, I started up ‘The Entertainment Man Talk Show’. This was the start of my first ever YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/thedirector015 which still is online!
The Longest Web Series I Have Ever Done! (2008 – 2010)
The Entertainment Man Talk Show had a very successful 8 episodes. From the feedback, everyone loved the first season of the series on YouTube. That following fall, I renewed the series for a second season which had the longest running number of episodes at 42. In Season 2, saw the expansion of the team and the return of the co-founder Eric of The Video Projects Team. We also grew the team by 3 additional staff members. The series saw another renewal for a third season.
For the first time in the show’s history, we got permission to film in a old firehall, a jail and live on stage for a theater performances. Season 3 saw a lot of on location filming during good weather. When the weather turned, we decided to stay put in the studio. Once the Season 3 finale a live broadcast finale on Stickam.com, ended I made the announcement that the series would go on Hiatus.
The Hiatus:
I took the hiatus to attend college and study pre-media. I was hoping it would help me advance my YouTube career. During the hiatus I lost the majority of my original team and gained 3 news people. Brent would replace the other camera crew that left the team and Justin would help me build the studio sets. I did a Bringing Back The Entertainment Man Talk Show at the Toronto Islands to get ready for my triumphed return. Also during the hiatus I did random updates and blogs and interviews to fill the void.
My Return & Final Years on YouTube (2012 – 2016):
I return to YouTube and The Entertainment Man Talk Show with really high hopes. A big stumbling blog was getting my audience back after being off the air for a 2 year period. During my time at college, I was introduced to better editing programs. This made the projects look better then they were before. We also introduced a full theme to the show at the end of Season 4. Season 5 and 6, Larry took over and did an amazing job until him and Eric quit and another staff member was let go. During June 2015, the last ever episode was filmed. There was plans for a 7th season but due to the team departing I decided to shut down production on June 21st, 2016.
It was at this time that I started to vlog. At one point, I managed to upload 600, maybe 700 days worth of vlogging in a row. Why did I leave Youtube? There were a few. Mainly because after my staff left I just didn’t have the help I needed. It wasn’t because of hate or negative comments. I had very minimal hate but my departure from Youtube wasn’t because people made fun of me for being Autistic. I really didn’t care what people thought. My theory was that haters will hate. I am very grateful for my time with YouTube and learned so much about myself. Looking back, I have no regrets after leaving the platform.
