- What's up everybody? Peter McKinnon here
and today we're talking about Instagram Stories. It's an incredible part of a platform that is being highly underutilized by just about everybody
out there that's using it. But there's one guy that
is taking advantage of it, and today we're gonna meet him. (upbeat instrumental music) ("Schoenefeld Original Mix") So several weeks ago we did a video on how to crush your Instagram game. In that video we talked about Instagram Stories a little bit. Not too much, we barely
grazed the surface. But we talked about how you
can put a little more effort into it, and how you
can edit those stories on your computer, things like that. Now my friend Jesse, who
you are going to meet here in a second, he takes
that to a whole new level. And I'll let him explain it to you and his process behind all of that. But when I saw these stories,
and I've been watching him do these since November,
I just thought to myself at some point I need to
get him on the channel to teach you guys how
he does what he does. And to show you guys what he does because I think it'll inspire you. There's always room to grow. There's always room to improve. And Jesse's a testament of this. He's definitely taken something that everybody uses and raised the bar. And he's gonna keep raising the bar, and I think we all need to be raising the bar for ourselves and
for everyone around us. So that is the purpose of today's video, and I hope you guys love it. And with that being said I'd like to take a quick minute to thank our sponsor for today's episode which are
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little code box at checkout, you save 10% off your first purchase. So, woo! What are you waiting for? Let's go. (grunts) - Ow. Was that how you do it? Hey what's up? My name is Jesse, and I am a filmmaker. I'm a photographer. And lately I've kind of evolved into an Instagram story teller. Instagram story-maker person. Right now, Instagram Stories
is my primary form of delivery for the things that I want to make for the things that I love making. And I was already on Instagram
and then Stories came out. I realized that people were
under-utilizing it, you know. Everyone was just looking
at their phone, talking for 15 seconds, or they were showing outfit of the day in a boomerang. Because I'm a filmmaker I thought I could do what I do, and I could put it here. I can tell a whole story in 15 seconds. I can have a beginning, a middle, an end. I was shooting on my iPhone. I was editing in iMovie on my phone. I was adding music. I was shooting time-lapses. And it was just my day-to-day life. It was nothing exciting or extravagant. It wasn't mountains. It was walking to my studio,
which is just my place of work. It was making eggs for my daughter. It was nothing excellent, but
I wanted to tell those stories in a way that I didn't
see anyone else doing. So I took that 24-hour deadline, and I used it as motivation
to make something everyday. I can't procrastinate on it
because if I don't make it, it doesn't happen. So the pressure of creating
this long-form vlog, or travel lifestyle video, was gone. It was totally lifted because
I only had to fill 15 seconds, and then it was gone. And then it would just disappear. So I get messages from
people all the time saying: "Why are you putting so
much work into this?" "Why do you spend so much time "editing these videos everyday? "They're just gonna disappear. "They're gonna be gone tomorrow. "What is even the point, I mean." I think Instagram Stories could
totally be what you make it. It can be a super condensed
version of a vlog. It can be your daily
life edited fast-paced. Or it could be your version
of Vine, rest in peace. It can be what you make it. It doesn't have to be boomerangs. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to just be screenshots with stickers on your face. It's not just another version
of Twitter where you can make an announcement about
another thing you did. It really is a platform for filmmaking. You can make a 15 second
any thing you want, and it's still gonna disappear tomorrow. And I love that because it
means you can't procrastinate. If you're gonna make them,
you have to make them now. Hey it's a beautiful beach day. I'm with Pete. (beeps) (yelling) Clean this off. (yelling) - [Pete] Werd. It's very wet and cold (laughs). - What are the tools then that I use then for these Instagram stories. As you know I started with an iPhone. I was shooting them on my iPhone,
editing them on my iPhone. Film my face, film my
feet, film my friends, edit together a little story. Quickly I realized I kind of
wanted to do something new, something different, so I
bought this friction arm. And I put a little phone mount on it. And what that meant is that I
could mount my phone anywhere. So that meant that I could shoot
time-lapses out the window. It meant that I could shoot myself walking towards the camera. And it gave me a whole new way
of presenting these stories that wasn't just here's me, here's life. But I'm a filmmaker, and so
naturally I was obsessing over how can I make this better? How can I make it different? How can I stay above the boomerangs, coffee, selfies, sippy cup. And so I started shooting
them on this little guy. So this is the Canon EOS M5. I love this little thing. It's tiny. It's portable. It fits in my bag with the microphone on. It's got a little flip-out monitor so that I can see myself
and what I'm doing. So the key here is actually
to shoot it vertically. And it's a really weird mind
shift to try and hold your camera this way and to film the world in a 9x16 aspect ratio. But I really think it's worth it. I think it's worth it
because I'm a strong believer that you should create
content for the platform. So this video that I'm making
it's for Instagram Stories. It's optimized for Instagram
Stories, and it's gonna look best the way people
are consuming this content. People are watching stories like this. People don't want to turn their phone every time they switch the story person. So I started producing
content for the way people were watching this content. (grunts) (instrumental music) (laughs) (yells) My butt is so wet. (laughs) So a big mistake that I
see a lot of people make is that they film it this way. They film it the way
you should film video, and then they crop out the center. The problem with that is though is you're gonna miss things. You're gonna miss the edges of your frame. You're gonna miss part of your composition because in your head you didn't realize how narrow 9x16 really is. So when I'm holding this
out with the screen, I see exactly what you're going to see. I don't worry that you know I'm gonna be chopping off my ears. When I point at something, I know my pointing finger is in the shot. The next thing that I
upgraded was the microphone. So I was getting so much
wind noise originally when I was shooting just like this. I picked one of these guys up. This is a Rode Videomicro. It's an incredible value for the money. You stick it on. It comes with the little dead cat. Sorry. (meows)
(chuckles) You plug it in, wind no more. It captures my audio perfectly. It sounds great. And a lot of people probably have no idea that I'm using a microphone. But what they notice is that
they never hear wind noise. (grunts) So I met up with my friend
Pete here again today to make a video about making
these Instagram stories. And part of that is bringing cameras up into stupid places so. (instrumental riff) Wait what? Sorry, I'm. Can I also get small creamy
chocolate chip iced thing. A small is good, counting calories. And a double chocolate doughnut. - [Woman] And anything else? - Um, gym membership J-K. So it's kind of a sub-conscious
thing that I think really elevates the level of your stories. If you want to learn more
about audio techniques, you probably recognized me
from a video Pete posted the other day in the
description (chuckles). We hear this kind of stuff all the time, which is I don't have that life. Like I don't have an exciting day. I'm not jumping out of helicopters. Or I'm not standing at
the base of mountains. What am I gonna film? The truth is, my life
isn't that exciting either. And so what I did is I
took my regular life. A lot of that is walking
to and from my studio. And I decided that I'm
gonna shoot that everyday, and I'm going to try and
find a different way to try and tell that story every day. And sometimes that's with Jazz music, and sometimes that's hip-hop. Or sometimes it's through
time-lapse with stop-motion. Sometimes my walk is
raining, and I play with it. Or sometimes it's sunny,
and I play with that. Sometimes I'm holding my camera, or I'm setting up my camera,
filming myself walk by. Sometimes I'm skateboarding. I'm longboarding. I'm biking? I never bike. I stopped biking. And I started noticing there
was these repeat things that happen every day on this walk. I wanted to turn those into characters. So there's a rope that I duck under every single day walking to my studio. And I just decided I want to include that in as many ways as possible. And so sometimes I'll duck
under while I'm talking. And sometimes I'll skateboard
under it from afar. Sometimes it'll hit me in the face. And sometimes my hat will fly off. So I started taking things
in my life and adding personality, giving them a character role in these stories. One example is Soylent,
which is space food that I drink everyday. And it's weird, and it's silly. And people think it's gross. But I really like it, and
so I've been trying to find different way to show myself
opening bottles of Soylent or drinking bottles of Soylent
or telling you I'm gonna cook breakfast and just
pouring into a cup. (rain falling) - It's cold and rainy outside. I'm gonna make some breakfast and do some work. Breakfast. Sweet taste of space food. Oh and by the way, this next
story I shot it yesterday. So sue me. So I'm using that on a daily basis as the content for my stories. It's not exciting. It's not glamorous. But it's giving me creative freedom and creative control over my own life. I'm taking these pretty mundane
things, walking, drinking space food, and I'm turning
them into characters, and I'm making it unique. And it's making my stories unique, and people are noticing them. And I'm amazing. (chuckles) So I don't need to be buying
tickets across the world in order to have a lifestyle
that I think is worth sharing. I can just take my current
life and show it to you every day in as many
different ways as possible. And it's honest, and it's raw. And it's really fulfilling to
me because I'm getting to do the thing I love, filmmaking, photography, and I'm doing it everyday. And then it's just gone forever. And I even think there's a
sort of comedy in putting all this work into something
that's just going away because it's just all about going the
extra mile and doing the work that other people don't want to do so that your work can
stand out above the crowd. And I've noticed that since
starting these back actually in November, I have a bunch
of friends that are starting to do this same thing,
which is exciting to me. But it's also encouraging
and inspiring to me, and it makes me feel somewhat competitive. Like I want to raise the bar even higher. I want to do better than
anything I've ever done before. I want to put in more work. I want to composite myself
through a time-lapse, all for a 15 second story
that's gonna be gone tomorrow. So it's all of this stuff. It's the gear. It's the time. But more than anything it's
the work and the willingness to actually do something different than everything else you see. Don't look at my stories
and make those stories. Look at your life and tell those stories. Because that's what
people are interested in. That's why they follow you
because they're interested in you and what you do in your perspective. - So that's it for us today guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. It was really really fun video to make. I've been wanting this information. I've been wanting this topic
covered for quite some time. Basically for as long as I've seen Jesse's Instagram Stories. But I'm super pumped that he
was gracious enough to come on to this channel and teach us
everything about what it is that makes his stories unique. So I highly recommend
giving the guy some love. Go follow him on Instagram. Follow his channel. I'll put all the links below. I sincerely love his content, and it's just a pleasure
to watch on a daily basis. Hit that like button if you got
something out of this video. Smash it if you so desire. Subscribe if you aren't already. You can hit the bell to be notified every time I upload a video. And join the notification squad. With that being said, thank
you again so much for watching. I appreciate each and every one of you. And, and I will see you
guys in the next video. (whooshes) - It's a bit chalky. - Gonna try the chocolate one? - Yeah. That's got a bit of a weird aftertaste. - Little bit. It's space food. - I much prefer this one. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's all yours. - Change these. - Oh, yeah. (chuckles) (instrumental music)
