Today I finished all the base English scripts for my videos! I'm starting with 10 videos in each language, so I made 10 English scripts. In the coming days, I'll translate these scripts to the other languages in which I'll make my videos.
Here are the names of the first 10 tricks I'll teach: 1. Putting the string on the yoyo 2. The basic throw 3. The sleeper 4. Walk the dog 5. The creeper 6. The Eiffel Tower 7. Rock the baby 8. The forward throw 9. Around the world 10. Braintwister There are several other tricks I may teach in the future, but I'll start with these for each language. One challenge I'll face is naming the tricks in the non-English languages! Many of the trick names only work well in English, such as "the creeper," which is meant to rhyme with "the sleeper," in part because it is traditionally learned shortly after "the sleeper." For some of these tricks, I may make up my own names for the tricks, such as calling "the creeper" trick "老鼠“ in Chinese, which means "the mouse." Other tricks may be easier to translate, such as "walk the dog," which translates simply to "pasear el perro" in Spanish. In the coming days, I'll translate each of these scripts, then start producing videos! I've been spending much of my time recently studying for the 8 AP exams I'm taking, so once AP exams end soon, I will have much more time to dedicate exclusively to this project.
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Besides making more scripts, I spent part of today doing research on what setting up a website in China involves. If I want my website to appear on Chinese search engines ranked such that people can actually find it, I have to have my site hosted in China. However, to host a website in China, I must meet three criteria: the registrar of the domain name must be Chinese, my organization must be registered with the Chinese government, and I must apply for and be accepted to hold a Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology license that allows me to run a website in China. This is an extensive process that often takes several months. In addition, considering that 98% of web users in China access the internet from a mobile device and often access websites through apps such as WeChat, it's important to effectively integrate a website with these apps to make the website easy to use for real Chinese people.
These steps are certainly not impossible! However, I think the extensive process of creating a website that is fully prepared to compete in the Chinese market is slightly beyond the scope of the project I hope to accomplish during my independent study, which is simply creating a multilingual resource that people can use to yoyo. For now, I think I'll focus on making a series of videos in English, Spanish, French, and Chinese, and posting them to a multilingual US-hosted website that I make and youtube. If I want, I can always go deeper down the China certification rabbit hole this summer. Even if I don't make a China-hosted site, it will still be valuable for me to post videos in Chinese on how to yoyo that can be accessed on regular google. As of now, there still exists no coherent series of videos in Chinese on google on how to yoyo, so for the thousands of Chinese speakers living outside of mainland China, my videos could still prove very useful. In addition, I began creating the template of my website on Wix! I appreciate that Wix has such streamlined multilingual website functionality. I decided to use a "gaming" template for my website, because I think the gaming templates convey precisely the sense of professional yet playful enthusiasm I'd like to associate with my website. I plan to take a few nice pictures of my yoyos with the camera that I'll use to make my videos, and I'll post these pictures on my website as decoration. Some of the pages I intend to put on my website include a page with all the tutorial videos I've made, a forum on which people can ask me questions, perhaps a series of common questions that new yoyoers might ask, and a brief text-based description of what yoyoing is and how to get started, for people who prefer reading when possible. One thing that's important for me to think about is how I'll engage each culture with my videos. Besides my native English-speaking culture, I want to engage cultures that speak French, Spanish, and Chinese, so it's important to be mindful of cultural differences. I'm certainly no expert in tailoring videos to fit specific cultures, but I have a few thoughts for things I'll focus on for each culture. One big thing I intend to look into for my Chinese videos is getting the Chinese version of my website registered with the Chinese government so that it appears on Baidu, the Chinese version of Google. Chinese censorship laws are strict, so any content that appears on Baidu must first be approved by the government. Although many Chinese people use VPNs to access the US version of Google, over 90% of all searches in China are done through Baidu. As a result, it will be vital to get my site listed in Baidu if I intend to engage a significant Chinese-speaking audience. My website won't contain any remotely controversial content, so I doubt the content of my website would cause any issues. The process of getting a website registered on Baidu is something I'll look into more in the coming days. Another thing I'll be especially mindful of in my Chinese videos is speaking with correct tones. It's easy to accidentally say something completely different than I intend to say when I mess up my tones due to excitement, and saying the wrong thing could prove to be very confusing in the middle of a complex trick explanation. Fortunately, when I hear recordings of myself speaking Chinese, I can usually pick up on the places where I say something I don't mean to say due to tone issues, so I'll be sure to pay special attention to tones when I'm making videos in Chinese.
Although I don't think it will be as challenging to make my site accessible to people who live in Spanish speaking countries, considering that (I believe) most of them use Google*, I still want to be mindful of fitting in with popular Spanish-speaking internet culture. From my limited experience with Spanish-speaking youtube culture, it seems that popular Spanish-speaking youtubers are especially focused on appearing enthusiastic and energetic. As a result, I'll focus on doing my best to channel hispanohablante vitality in my Spanish-speaking videos to keep my audience engaged. French youtubers, on the other hand, while still energetic, tend to speak in a slightly smoother, calmer way. Popular french youtube culture seems to focus just a bit less on enthusiasm and a bit more on confidence and professionalism. This could be related to the traditional public formality of French culture. One fascinating difference between Spanish and French youtube culture that I've noticed is differential use of the second-person singular pronoun, especially in tutorial videos. In both Spanish and French, there is a formal and informal second person singular pronoun (tú and usted in Spanish, tu and vous in French). Interestingly, most Spanish videos that involve teaching something refer to the viewer as "tú", while most French videos that involve teaching refer to the viewer as "vous". My perception of this differential usage could simply be a result of my limited exposure to French and Spanish culture, but as of now, I plan to use "tú" in my Spanish videos and "vous" in my French videos. Once again, I hypothesize that this difference could stem from the fact that broadly speaking, relations between strangers in French speaking areas are often slightly colder than relations between strangers in Spanish speaking areas. In addition, I've been thinking about the platform I'll use to build the actual website that contains my videos. For now, I'm leaning towards Wix, because I like Wix's aesthetic appeal and general format. However, I'll need to do more research on whether it's possible to use Wix for a Baidu site, and I'll be doing more research on Wix in general in the coming days. *My belief that most Spanish-speaking countries use Google could be incorrect; if anyone reading this knows of other search engines that Spanish-speaking countries use, please correct me! I spent much of today thinking about how to best teach these tricks and beginning writing English scripts. To learn about effective video teaching styles, I went through several of my favorite yoyo websites and watched videos on them, taking note of what I liked about each video and what I didn't like. I found that one of the most important things was always that I had a clear view of the string. Some videos were poorly lit, which made following the tutorial tough. I'll make sure to angle my lights effectively to provide my viewers with the best possible view of everything I'm doing.
Equally importantly, I found videos in which the presenter was obviously excited about what he was doing much more fun to watch! Interestingly, I also found such videos easier to learn from, because it was easier to stay engaged. I'll definitely try to spread that same type of enthusiasm for yoyoing in the videos that I make! I also worked on creating some base English scripts of several fundamental tricks that I'll teach. From here, I'll be able to translate my English scripts into other languages without worrying about building new scripts in each language from scratch. I've been thinking more about the relevance of this website in the present global climate, and I think there's no better time to make a website on which people all over the world can learn a constructive, enjoyable skill for free than during a pandemic. Many kids my age are sitting at home with little to do except stare mindlessly into their phones for hours. With my website, I want to give people all over the world access to an alternative! Yoyoing, I think, is such an effective alternative because it teaches us that we can grow profoundly with practice. When we see an advanced yoyoer do cool tricks, our first reaction is often disbelief that we could ever rise to that level. However, with practice, any of us can indeed rise to that level. The realization that we can improve even beyond our wildest expectations with the proper mentality and practice is the core of what yoyoing is to me. This message is especially relevant during this pandemic, when many people throughout the world feel that all their goals and plans have been put on hold. Perhaps learning the new skill of yoyoing will make this pandemic a slightly more hopeful time for someone in the world. I'm so excited to be beginning this project at last! For several years, I've fantasized about creating a website through which people all over the world can learn to yo-yo, and I'm thrilled to be getting started. I spent part of today preparing a corner of my office for filming. In order to make high-quality videos, it's important to have a high-quality location in which to create the videos. Characteristics of a good location include good lighting, ample space, and a background that is interesting but not too distracting. After a few hours of cleaning up, I created the following filming space: I placed a few filming lights to the sides to ensure that there is clear lighting for all my videos. This is important, because some of the tricks I'll be teaching involve manipulating the string in complex ways. It's important that my viewers can see the string as clearly as possible. (To help viewers see the string, I also plan to use brightly colored string, possibly like the string below.) I also set up some other skill toys in the background, like juggling balls and Rubik's cubes. I think that having an exciting array of other skill toys in the background fits really well with the purpose of my website, which is helping people realize that there are infinite possibilities for learning anything. In fact, I may end up making some more tutorials in the future in multiple languages for how to use some of these other skill toys!
In addition, I also reviewed the multi-media knowledge that I gained from the multi-media production intensive last fall. To make a high-quality video, it's important to understand the relationship between shutter speed, ISO, and aperture, and how these things affect exposure, image graniness, blur, and focus. I'm sure my multi-media knowledge will come in handy in adjusting the camera to provide optimal videos during different kinds of tricks. Some of the tricks that I teach will involve the yo-yo rapidly moving, like the breakaway, where the yo-yo is thrown to the side. However, other tricks will involve intricate finger movements, such as the Eiffel Tower picture trick. For tricks that involve the yo-yo moving quickly, I'll probably lower the shutter speed to minimize blur and get a smoother image. However, for tricks that involve intricate finger movements, I might lower the shutter speed slightly and lower the ISO, which will make the video less grainy so that people can see details if they zoom in. In addition, I may utilize the camera's optical zoom to make the steps of intricate tricks clear. Finally, I made my first script and got started with the French, Spanish, and Chinese translations. I had to look up several specialized words that are relevant to teaching yo-yo tricks, and I put all these words in a digital deck of spaced-repetition flashcards. I'll study these words every day, and I plan to learn all the new words that I end up using in my videos. Tomorrow I plan to make a few more scripts and their corresponding translations! |