Maleok here with a fresh interview with YouTube content creator UberDanger! We caught up with him to talk about the technical side of content creation. UberDanger is a content creator and League of Legends player. He has been called, "The best director in League of Legends" by some. Here is what he had to say about how he brings his videos to life!

In your own words, what would you say your occupation is?

UberDanger: I produce videos for a video game called League of Legends. My job is to maintain and grow an audience on YouTube.

What are the stages of video creation, and where do you get your ideas?

UberDanger: At first I would say the first stage is just thinking of the video. Whether it's a concept I already had in mind or something I need to plan out beforehand, it starts inside my head. From there I like to write the ideas down. Often times I will come up with some funny or weird at odd times. It's almost always when I wouldn't normally be able to write things down. I'm not gonna lie, half my inspiration has come to me while I was taking a dump. *laughs* I actually have a notepad right by my toilet because that is where the inspiration hits! So first I will get a general idea or concept of the video and write them down. Sometimes people just make their videos in one sitting from beginning 'till end. For me I often like to plan it out, before I even record or edit any of the video.

I like to figure out how the video will be built up. That's things like the pacing of the video and figuring out what goes where. Purely because I want to create one coherent piece of media that people can enjoy. Then it comes to recording. Since I play League of Legends I need to get some footage. This can take anywhere from a couple of hours, or games, to a couple of weeks if I want to get some REALLY funny clips. Then comes the editing process which entails me actually creating the video. This would probably be the part of my job that I would consider a "job". It's the part that I need to force myself to do. Playing a video and recording it, or thinking of good ideas is not difficult . So anything to do with splicing the footage, cinematic editing, audio, uploading and tagging is the "hard" part.

Do you have any training with video editing techniques/software, or did you learn on your own?

UberDanger: Yes I do. I was lucky, when I was growing up my dad worked for a film studio here in Denmark. He taught me how to edit from a very young age. Although it wasn't anything super comprehensive, it was enough to get me started. I was at the point where I could make things on my own if I wanted to. I at least learned the basics, if nothing else. Now there is something interesting about my YouTube channel, I am going to admit this here for Team Dignitas, it was not originally about League of Legends.

There is an entire hidden part of my channel which is unlisted, it's all old Call of Duty and Minecraft videos. Those were from back when I had less than a couple thousand subscribers. Actually I am going to give you a video for the people to see. Enter at your own risk, this is 14 year old me giving a tutorial on Minecraft. It is something to behold. Things like that I could record and do slight editing, and my channel really grew from there.

How did you initially start playing League of Legends?

UberDanger: When I came into the 9th grade I switched schools. There are only 10 grades in Denmark with zero counting as a grade. Usually you can graduate after 9th grade but at the particular school I was at you could not. So I switched to a school where I could come out with a diploma after 9th grade. I was in a new class trying to make new friends. I was always decent at being social so I started talking to the people in my class. It was a really good environment, with probably the best class I have ever been a part of. I soon found out that the vast majority of the guys in my class played League of Legends.

I've played a fair amount of video games in my day so I thought I would try it out. It seemed like the one thing they were all playing and it was a good social activity we could gather around. At first I was absolute garbage, I remember my very first game was on Gangplank and I picked him because I liked pirates. I remember my team being like, "Why are you building Ability Power?" and me saying, "I like my abilities, I want them to do more damage!". After I learned the game a little more I had to pick a champion that I liked and work at them. My friend told me about Cho'gath and after explaining to me that he was the one motherf***** who just walked around eating people to get huge I just thought, "Alright, I'm kinda feeling that." He was the first champion I bought and, I could be wrong but, I think I played him for about 600 games before playing any other champion. Basically that's how I got into it, all my friends were playing it and I just joined in.

What made you decide to make League your main content medium?

UberDanger: At the given time, I only made League videos because that is the game I was playing at the time. This was after a brief hiatus from YouTube. However one of the reasons I continued making videos for League of Legends was because there were people watching them. I recieved a lot of engagement on those videos. It became pretty apparent to me, rather quickly, that this is what people wanted to watch and this is what they were subscribing for. Whenever I tried deviating from that, my subscribers made it pretty clear that they prefered League of Legends content.

They wouldn't really watch the other stuff and I wouldn't get the same engagement. League of Legends is so big now that it's not just a game, it's an industry. I think it's one of the few mediums where you can make content about just one game and have such a huge following. It's my favorite game, I don't play anything as much as this.

How long does it usually take from the conception to the release of a video?

UberDanger: So this will depend on the video. Some of my videos will take me several weeks to complete. I know for a fact that some of my "Full AD/AP" videos took over 100 hours of work on a singular video. Whereas some of my other videos, for example like my new series "Should you Play?", I can make a video in 2-3 days. Sometimes it's as short as one day, if I work from the morning 'till I go to bed. I would honestly say that 20 hours is the average for my shorter videos. For my longer videos the average is between 60-150 hours of work. That is kind of why I make some of the shorter videos that I do, so I can take that extra time to work on my bigger projects while still having weekly content.

What programs and software to you use for your videos?

UberDanger: I use FRAPS and Bandicam to record. Bandicam is not lossless but the file sizes are a lot smaller. I use motion JPEG codec which works well when I need to do a lot of recording for one video. I use FRAPS when I have the disk space and when I have everything planned out, because FRAPS does look better. In terms of editing software I use Adobe After Effects for any compositional stuff, and I use Sony Vegas pro 2013 for general editing. For audio recordings I use Audacity, that's what works for me. Let's throw Photoshop in there too, sure why not.

Do you feel pressured to get your content out regularly?

UberDanger: I have been starting to feel that lately yes. I want to make at least one video a week, that's my personal goal. Although as I am speaking to you it has been over 2 weeks since I released a video. The pressure does get to me, but at the same time I value my enjoyment of making YouTube videos, even from a business perspective. Honestly though, if there are a lot of people angrily asking me to make a video, that will put less pressure on me than a lot of people who just genuinly want a video. There is a big difference for me between, "Be a good YouTuber and release videos!", and, "Hey I really like your videos when is the next one coming out?".

What is the biggest issue you find with your content creation?

UberDanger: Damn...I don't know if I'm having any issues man, it's been going pretty well. I don't think there are any "issues" but I do wish I could streamline the workflow so I could do it more effectively and release videos more often?

So something like a team of workers?

UberDanger: Yes actually. I am in the process of getting an office in the UK where I am hiring at least one employee, that I know of, in the next couple of weeks. He is going to be part of the team when it comes to making videos for my channel. I've kinda realized that at this point there is no way I could get more production value in my videos and still release them somewhat often. Especially now that convention season is coming up. I am gonna be busy traveling and missing out on a lot of production. So if I want to move up to a Keyori level, without a team, and be releasing 2 videos a week I am going to need to sacrifice quality for quantity.

Just simply hiring an editor doesn't work. It takes them awhile to get accustomed to working with you, understanding your sense of humor, and your community on YouTube. So if they decide after a couple of weeks that they don't like the job, I need to hire a new editor and teach it all again. So I decided to hire someone who I know is already familiar with all of that. I'm hiring my friend Complex, who has been in a bunch of my videos, as my first employee for production on my channel.

Do you see yourself continuing to do this for a long time?

UberDanger: Yes. I really really love my life right now and everything that has to do with YouTube. If possible I would like to make it last forever, but if nothing else I would like to continue doing it as long as I enjoy it. I think it is at a point where I can sustain myself even if I started making videos that the majority of my audience didn't care about. Let's say one day I decide that I didn't care about video games anymore so now I'm a vlogger. It goes without saying that I would lose the majority of my audience, but I still think that I would maintain a large enough audience to still do this as my job. So I have no big future plans, I'm just continuing to do exactly what I'm doing.

Uber's godlike hair

You have been called by some, including Sky Williams, the best director in League of Legends. What do you think about that?

UberDanger: My boy Sky! Shout out to Sky right now, he has been such a good friend to me lately and has been helping me through some tough times. As for people saying that, I really really appreciate it. I am just happy people enjoy watching the weird crap that I make. *laughs*

Finally, is there anything you would like to say to your fans and to those who haven't seen your content before?

UberDanger: Absolutely. First of all to my fans, thank you for taking time out of your day to watch all the weird things I make. I hope you will continue to enjoy watching the spiraling descent into madness that is my life, in real 1080p format. To all my fans-to-be or...*whispered* ex fans...Hopefully, if I am lucky enough, some of you might look at the weird things that I do on my YouTube channel. If not, I still love you.

Thanks Uberdanger for your time! This was one of the most entertaining interviews I have done yet! Keep doing what you do my friend, it's working.

UberDanger's: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.