Mr Red Blob

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Mr Red Blob

Mr Red Blob is a YouTube channel about the adventures of a red blob and his many friends. It is aimed at children and is aimed at making fun videos.

Project Summary

Software: Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Dreamweaver CC (Code View), Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Fonts used: Love Ya Like A Sister

Technologies and Frameworks: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (jQuery & Bootstrap were used on the original site)

Time spent: Approximately 20 hours (not including time spent making videos)

YouTube channel launch date: August 2016

Original website launch date: January 2017

Website & logo redesign launch date: December 2019

Website

Laptop/Desktop

Tablet

Smartphone

(Screenshots done using Chrome Dev Tools, frames automatically added by Chrome Dev Tools.)

YouTube channel

129

subscribers

Go to YouTube channel

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Videos

Video Thumbnails

Logo

A hand-drawn blob with two eyes and a smiling mouth

This is the old logo at the maximum resolution available (I drew it in Microsoft Paint many years ago.) It fitted it's purpose for a time, but it started to become troublesome when I tried to use it in situations without a white background and in settings where it needed to be larger.

A red circle with two eyes and a smiling mouth

This is the new logo created in Adobe Illustrator CC. Unlike the old logo, the new one has been designed to fit into spaces big and small.




How I make the videos

Hardware

Recording Audio

Most of the time, I use a set of sound effects or ones that I find on the Internet (that I can use without attribution for free.) When I do record something specific (such as my voice), I use my iPod touch, since I have found this has the best microphone with minimal background noise.

Shooting

For my early videos (in 2016) I used an old Panasonic camcorder to shoot the videos. The maximum resolution you could get from it was 480 x 360, although this was sometimes downgraded by the editing software (see below.) You can probably tell which ones were shot with this camcorder.

From November 2016 until August 2017, I used a Nixon Coolpix A10 camera to shoot my videos. It allowed me to shoot videos in High Definition (HD) for the first time (since the videos are made up of static photographs.)

From late 2017 onwards, I use my Canon EOS 1300D camera to shoot my videos. This probably explains why most of my videos from then onwards can be viewed in 4K! (Windows Movie Maker limited exporting video to 1080p (Full HD) whilst Premiere Pro exports at the highest resolution available by default.)

Software

Distribution

From 2016 onwards, I have always uploaded my videos to YouTube. But in early 2021, I started uploading my archive of videos onto Bitchute, Odysee and Rumble, which are similar to YouTube, but either don't have or attempt to solve the problems that YouTube makes for content creators.

Editing

In 2016, I used a piece of software called HUE Animation to edit my videos. I found this software to be good at the time, but as my videos became more complex, I needed something more flexible.

From January until August 2017, I used Windows Movie Maker to put together my videos. It did have things that HUE Animation didn't, such as support for higher-resolution images, but it did eventually stop working altogether, so I was forced to find an alternative.

From August 2017 onwards, I have used Adobe Premiere Pro CC. It was quite a learning curve at first, but I did eventually get used to it, and I liked it so much that I used it for other projects as well. (You can probably tell by comparing the Harry Potter video and the Christmas 2020 special. The second one is much more polished!)

Thumbnail Creation

Until September 2020, we just chose a picture from the video and used that as the thumbnail. But I have recently started designing thumbnails for my videos using Adobe Illustrator CC to better summarise what the video is about. As I'm writing this, most of my Mr Red Blob videos now have custom thumbnails, but I hope that in time all of my videos will have custom thumbnails (especially the older ones from 2016/2017 where it is harder to find the original images.)