One of my YouTube videos is going to hit a million views sometime tonight

So the writer may or may not make any money as it depends on You Tubes software picking it up. The kids make no money. School Of Rock makes no money. And the only one making money is the guy that recorded it? Admittedly it’s not much money being made however it seems odd only you make money off this.

 

cant we enjoy the music before it gets to be about money all the time. ok chris, buy the kids some cheeseburgers and we'll be straight!

 

Cool Chris! Congratulations! If all that money is burning a hole in your pockets, let's go to lunch

 

cool! congrats...

 

OK, I was just curious. Upthread you mention you got $18 for 7,000 views, but now there’s a million views I would think it’s a bit more serious money? People are watching it because of the young girl singing it, not due to your cinematography.

 

Look at my channel. I have 1300 videos from nearly 400 different concerts. This is the only one that has a significant number of views. The next most popular one has half as many views, the vast majority of a couple of thousand or hundreds.

It's only in the last year or so that I started monetizing. Prior to that I was shooting the shows on spec, hoping to sell a $25 DVD to the parents. I've since moved to a different model, where I do a Kickstarter for a certain amount, and if I raise that amount I will shoot the show and then the parents own the video.

 

Yeah if anyone objects they can go and buy 8 cameras, spend a full day shooting a show, and then weeks editing them and replace me. Realistically, I'm not even making minimum wage on this if you look at all the shows that I've shot.

 

I don’t think anyone would begrudge you making some money for doing this however don’t you feel like you should donate some of the money to School Of Rock if not the actual performers?

 

One last thing - several of these kids have developed genuine fanbases from my videos, and I hope that I may have something to do with launching their professional careers.

The best example is a guitarist from the Chicago School of Rock named Lauren Conner. All these guitar buffs on my channel have dubbed her "Little Red" for both her hair color and the guitar she plays. Check out the comments on this video:

 

Are you honestly serious? I have donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of labor creating these videos (not to mention hundreds of hours creating the Wikipedia page about the school.) I believe my videos of the best promotion that this program has ever gotten. My "competition" is a cell phone being held up by a parent, with blown out video and distorted audio, where mine is professionally cut together high definition multi-camera video with a feed from the soundboard.

I guess it's as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

 

As an aspiring videographer, the time and work to do a video professionally always trumps the low quality work a video from a not-so-smartphone produces. Like some jobs it can be a thankless job and unless you are getting paid for really good gigs, most of the work comes from the labor and time it takes to put these videos together. And its often up to the audience that enjoyed the video to donate (should they desire) to the proper cause and support the performers, not the person doing the behind-the-scenes work in getting the video made. Even with a successful YT channel, the real donors would be the ones that watched and supported the work. The creator just puts the information out there for others to benefit.

 

Good version but the guitars could use a lot more balls.

 

Keep filming. I like to see the youngins jam rock.
A million views is great. I'm sure Priest have seen it by now, I hope.
I have a clip that'll hit 10K this week. Maybe it'll hit a million in 10 years!

 

I hope so. Halford guitarist "Metal" Mike Chlasciak has taught some of the Chicago School of Rock kids at his Catskills summer guitar camp "Mayhem In The Mountains."

Congratulations, and good luck!

 

That put a smile on my face; those kids are alright!

 

Very cool Chris that’s a huge number of views by any stretch of the imagination. People have no idea how rare it is to actually get 1 million views because all they’re fed are the top watch the videos. For an individual videographer not attached to an artist or company to get 1 million views it’s pretty tough. I’m glad you’re making money monetizing from YouTube. They tighten that down so badly I’m not getting a penny anymore at least I made $24 In three years before they shut down us small fry.

 

Part of it is due to my having a huge number of videos, and getting a tiny amount from each. I have 1100 videos on my channel, and most only get a small number of views, but apparently the pennies add up.

But to keep things in perspective, I visited Social Blade.

Apparently, mine is the 137,569th most popular music channel. 1,114,802nd in overall subscriber numbers.

That will keep me nice and humble.

 

So you don't work for School of Rock then? Sorry, I thought you were an employee of theirs. Guessing you at least ask the parent's permission before filming their kids and letting them know you post the vids to YouTube and monetize them?

 

No, I do this on my own.

I've done this for 10 years, and made a whole bunch of parents very happy. When the parents sign their kids up, they acknowledge that they're going to be performing in public, that people are going to have cameras, and the videos are going to be put up on various social media.

The only difference between me and any random person with a cell phone is that I do a better job of it.

 

I honestly believe that a dozen or so of the kids that I've recorded are going to have serious careers in music, that in 10 years people are going to look at these and be overjoyed that somebody caught them well early in their careers. Lauren Conner is a good example. I know her parents and they're very happy with the videos I've created. It may sound mercenary, but she created a "look" and stuck with it, and it's an identifiable brand - and like it or not a considerable part of having a career in music is marketing. She honestly has fans on my channel who seek out her videos. She graduated a couple of years ago and is now pursuing a career with her band Serendipity.

 

Here's another one of the kids I recorded that you're going to be paying money to see in concert, Conner Low:



He was 15 when I recorded this. He's 21 now.

 

I've worked at many venues / with many artists over the years and have never seen one with a rider that allows for anyone to film and monetize the performances unless the artist/label specifically allows them to do so. As you don't work for School of Rock I can't imagine how you're authorized (ticket holders can't professionally film/monetizing Rolling Stones concerts, for example). Regardless, if I was a parent and you were making $ off of my kids performing and posting them on your youtube channel and didn't ask up-front I'd be pissed.

 

The School rents out the venue and puts on the shows. And the parents agree that the performances may be photographed and video recorded when they sign their child up.

Are you really worked up about this or is this just recreational outrage?

My work falls under the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The video goes up, just as it would with anybody with a crappy cell phone video, and gets recognized by the Content ID system. At that point, the copyright holder has three options - leave it be and get a share of the advertisements; mute the audio on the performance or (and this is only been done by one person, Prince) issue a DMCA takedown notice.

The rest of the time, when I hear from artists, they love the fact the kids are learning their music and performing it.

I haven't done any shoots in a year, because there is so little money in it. I did show up to shoot the School of Rock All-Stars, and you know what one parent did? She ran up and hugged me, then post it on social media to let all the other parents know that I would be recording the show.

Most of them consider me the gift horse whose mouth you're examining.

 

Zzzzzz

 

I guess making money off of someone else’s kids without permission is fine by you.