CosiCast 2016 Lookback

From all the tragedies, YouTube’s crap, Trump, and more, this year has been one with many problems… However, there’s been good things also including great new games, Scientific and Medical breakthroughs, and even more.

However, none of the above is the focus right now. Instead let’s take a moment to lookback at how I’ve improved the video content I make! This is the 2016 Lookback at CosiCast. (formally CosiTube and before that my name)

NOTE: Not all videos of 2016 are included for a few reasons.

  1. Some are just too big to try to edit like the Undertale Anniversary video.
  2. None of the videos I upload for archival purposes are included as they aren’t my content. This includes things like the Pluto TV Bumpers and Election News Opens.
  3. None of the channel updates are included. Only the 4 main series (Shorties, Promo Promotions, In 60 Seconds, and Fan Music Videos)
  4. Left out a few for quality reasons (either low-res or has a watermark as examples)
  5. None of my music as you can’t hear them with the Lookback music on top so what’s the point.

Timeline

Anyway back to the point at hand… Let’s recap how I’ve improved my content this year!

Winter Early 2016

Early in the year I was using an editor named Adobe Premiere Clip on a BLU Energy X Plus. This was a problem for a couple of reasons… First, Premiere Clip had many bugs and the videos weren’t as polished. Second, that phone had little space and the app downloaded all projects (even old ones) offline and if you deleted them, you could never make changes.

The first video of the year in January was the 3rd version of my Stamp on the Ground mashup. 1st one had just Gravity Falls, 2nd added Star vs the Forces of Evil, and the 3rd one added many other things I liked to make a “life mashup”.

Spring 2016

Jump to April and I received early access to an Android version of an iOS only app named Replay. This was awesome as it made way fancier videos than Clip and it had less bugs. The main issue was it had a forced watermark but that was only temporary for the initial betas.

The first video edited with Replay was The Seven Falls FMV. Since my device was so low powered still, I couldn’t use basically any of those fancy effects and was forced to use 480p footage to not crash my device. A couple of videos later with the Star vs Bad Times FMV, Replay updated making those fancy effects work better on devices like mine and removed the watermark as it got renamed to GoPro Quik which I am still using currently.

Summer 2016

Jump to June and I started using another app by the same people as Quik called Legend to make animated text titles. The first use was in the Stranger in the Stars FMV. This video was also the first I made a custom thumbnail for which I made in MediBang! Paint.

Later that month was the launch of Pravox VARIETY and a shit in my videos. I started to do less comedy or music mashups and instead do more promos for either creators or Pravox VARIETY itself. This was when I made the first “Now on Pravox” promos which evolved into Promo Promotions.

Fall 2016

Jump to September and this is when a big shift occurred! First I got a new phone (the Nextbit Robin) so I could finally used 1080p footage with no issues or render bugs. Second, I introduced the first of the 4 series with the Turbo Flowers FMV! Before this I just called most of my videos “Mashups” but their was two distinct styles of Mashups so I split it into both FMVs and Short Edits.

At the start of October, I launched the second of the 4 series, In 60 Seconds, with the Google Phones video for the Pixel launch. Later that month, I renamed Short Edits to Shorties and also combined the Fan Promos and Pravox PRESENTS promos into Promo Promotions as I shut Pravox Networks down due to nobody using it.

This was also around the time I switched from using my name (Brandon Giesing) to CosiTube as the channel name to give it a brand.

Winter Late 2016

Finally, we are now at the end of November with the Hyperdimension Neptunia Shorties! This is when I started to not just improve the content itself but how my content is viewed!

All of my content (so excluding archival stuff) now will have custom thumbnails following a consistent template (made in Canva) with Cosi on an outlined quarter-circle in the corner, each show has a logo that appears on that thumbnail, titles follow a consistent format (“Video Name | What it’s based on | Series Name”), and lastly an outro with music and end cards to go to the latest video or others from that series.

Also I decided to change the name again from CosiTube to CosiCast to make it less “YouTube-focused”. Alongside this, I started using other sites alongside YouTube including Vid.me as a mirror for videos (in case #WTFU strikes), Coub, Instagram, Twitter, and Rabadaba for video previews and even sometimes Early Access.

So this year has been great for my content and I hope next year will be even better! So what’s coming next year? Well I don’t know for sure yet but here’s some ideas!

  1. Doing more of the current 4 series (especially In 60 Seconds as I haven’t done many of them) which is a no-brainer.
  2. Possibly try another attempt a weekly or bi-weekly series like The Weekly Prime.
  3. Expand the content I base from. Currently I’m basically in a bubble of Gravity Falls, Star vs., Undertale/Glitchtale, Creators (like The8BitDrummer, Lost Pause, etc.), and Neptunia but with a limited pool to pick from, I run out of ideas easily.
  4. Possible new series that aren’t scheduled (like the current 4). One idea I’ve had for a while is “React Recap” where unlike traditional “Blind Reactions” I would analyze a video and points made by other reactors. (So for instance say I did one on the Glitchtale S2 premiere… Many people were speculating on who the shadowy figure was at the end (Spoiler: it was Betty). I would have gave my thoughts on who it could be and why while also discussing what the other reactors have speculated and why their points could be true.

Either way, thank you guys (and girls) so much for watching my content! While I rarely get comments so I don’t know how many people actually watch, if you do I’m glad you keep coming back for more. I hope you have a great holiday season!