Store
How to plan YouTube videos (feat. Notion) // Getting started on YouTube in 2021 (Pt. 1)
Wondering how to plan a YouTube video? In this first episode of my series on Getting Started on YouTube in 2021, we will talk about finding an idea, creating a schedule using@Notion to write and outline, write a final script, and plan your b-roll. This class is meant for beginners starting out on YouTube, but veteran YouTubers might find a thing or two on how to plan their YouTube videos.
🔗 Complete Script https://www.notion.so/DJI-Mavic-Air-Review-828517282dac444598a030d1fc6f0a16
✨ WATCH NEXT ✨
- 10 Truths about starting in 2021 https://youtu.be/ialdZd6sQLA
- ND filters for your phonen https://youtu.be/JZJUabiHz50
- Best phone gimbal? https://youtu.be/w433VjjA--0
✋ COME SAY HI!! ✋
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford (http://bit.ly/lba_instagram)
- TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@loic.bellemare.alford
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/loic294
- Facebook: https://fb.com/lbaphotographie
#gettingstartedonyoutube #planning #notion
📖 CHAPTERS 📖
00:00 - Intro
00:43 - Finding idea & writing them down
01:48 - Organizing my idea + @Notion setup
03:54 - Creating a schedule
04:56 - Writing an outline
06:19 - Writing a script
08:20 - Planning the B-Roll
10:00 - Conclusion
🖼 SHOP FOR PRINTS 🖼
- My online store: https://store.lbaphotographie.ca
🎶 MY MUSIC 🎶
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
📸 GEAR I USE ON YOUTUBE 📸
https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo https://geni.us/dji-pocket-2-combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card https://geni.us/sandisk-extreme-128gb
- Canon 6D Mk https://geni.us/canon-6d-mkii
- Google Pixel 4a https://geni.us/google-pixel-4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM https://geni.us/canon-lens-24-105
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-16-35
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-70-200
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD https://geni.us/vanguard-veo-265cb
- DJI MAVIC AIR https://geni.us/lba-dji-mavic-air
🌍 MY PERSONAL WEBSITE 🌍
Oh, hello everyone! You might think it's kind of weird that I filmed this intro while walking but this is actually where I find most of my inspirations for my YouTube videos. Let's roll the intro and talk about how I plan all of my youtube videos. For those of you who are new to this channel i'm Loïc Bellemare-Alford, a young photographer and filmmaker on a journey to become better at this art. This is the first part of a four-part series on how to create your first YouTube videos from planning to publishing. In this first video, we're going to talk about how I find my ideas and how I plan my videos including how i schedule them, how i write a script and how I plan my b-roll. Before starting to plan your video, you actually, need to find a subject for your videos for this I find most of my ideas while taking a walk, usually with my dog, listening to other videos or podcasts or simply reading your comments on YouTube and listening to your suggestions. What is very important is that you need to write it down right when you get the idea and for this I use Notion the reason this is so important is that even if the idea might not seem good right now it might evolve into something much better later but if you don't write it down you're probably just going to forget it. I concentrate on selecting video ideas that I actually want to make and watch. If I get inspiration from another YouTube video or a podcast I don't copy what they said but try and find my own take on that subject because that's what makes it more interesting for people. Another thing is that I always try and make series out of a certain subject because this way you the YouTube algorithm can suggest more than one video when somebody finds my video on that subject on youtube which increases the chances of that person in the end subscribing to my channel. Now let's talk about how I organize my ideas inside of Notion. You can get the PRO plan for free if you're a student but I use the free option and it's more than enough for my needs. I want to be clear that you don't need to be using notion that's the software that I prefer using but if you prefer using Google Keeps, Apple Notes, Google Docs, ClickUp or whatever else other software that works best for you, use that one instead. Now let's set up our notion project. So here we're going to click on add a page we're going to name this "YouTube Videos". Then we're going to come at the bottom and select "Choose a template". We're going to select a type of database and be a "Table" and this can allow us to sort our videos, filter them, and do much more things than just having one page at a time for each video. Then we'll come here and click to add our first video. So we're going to name this "first video idea" and then we could start writing our script right here. So we could write just our script but instead of doing that we're going to right away add a property and the first property we're going to add is going to be a type of "Date" and we're going to call it "Publish date". So we're going to come here and rename it to be able to sort our videos by the "Publish date" of that video so that's going to be very powerful. The second property we're going to add here is going to be a type of select and this one is going to be renamed to "State". And this is going to allow us to know where we're at for that project. So if we're going to come here we can configure the options so we're going to add five states we're going to add "Idea", "planning", "filming", "editing" and "published". Now that we have the states created, we're going to come back inside of our table here and we're going to go into more advanced options and go here and we're going to sort by publish date. So we're going to come here and select our publish date field ascending so now our videos are going to be sorted by the publish date we assign them to. If you're interested in learning more how I set up my own Notion for my YouTube videos it's actually much more complex but also much more powerful but I can make a full video on it so definitely let me know in the comments below if you're interested that I make that video. I think that one of the most underrated parts of planning your videos is actually having a precise schedule. When i started out YouTube I would just create a video whenever I wanted and never really had a consistency inside of the videos I created. What is very cool is that if we use Notion, we can actually create different types of view for the same data. So if we come inside of here we're actually going to be able to create a new type of view and create a calendar view. So now if we create the calendar view we're gonna call it "Calendar" and we're gonna create the view. Now we have a calendar and we can actually view our ideas right here inside of a calendar which is very powerful because you always know in the calendar what's up coming next. The reason this is so important is that it allows you to know what is upcoming inside of your video and plan accordingly. So for example if I had an exam or something like that at school, I was able to pre-record some videos and be sure that I always had videos every single week and it made it much easier to manage everything in the end okay. So let's talk about the most important part of this process and this is creating an outline for your video. So for this we're going to go inside of Notion, open our document and we're going to click the option to add a to-do list because I love having a to-do list that allows me that while I am filming the video to check off the items that I finished filming. For this video we're going to be creating a review on my dji mavic air but remember that even if you're not creating a review for a tech product, the process of creating a video is still going to be the same, so this is still valid whatever the type of video you're creating. Now if you come back inside of Notion we're going to create an outline. And for a review we're going to have an intro, then i might want to talk about the size of the drones and I'm going to write here size of the drone. I'm probably then going to want to talk about the image quality, talk about how easy it is to use, so the ease of use, and finally end with a conclusion. One very important thing is that your videos should reflect your thoughts because that's why people are watching your video. If I'm making a review of her product i usually don't watch other reviews because I don't want to be influenced in the end when creating my video and only talk about the points that other people talked about I want to talk about the points that are important for me and that might be important for my subscribers. i think a big question when talking about planning videos on YouTube is actually whether you should write every single word down or you should simply use a bullet point list. I use both depending on each video so it's a really case by case for each video and it's really what you want to use in the end and what is best for you. So for example when I made my video about "10 truths to become youtuber in 2021" I didn't have a full script for that one, only a bullet point list, because I already knew pretty much what I wanted to say and I really wanted that video to feel more genuine and like if I was talking to a friend or something like that. So only having bullet points was much better. On the other hand when I create a review, so like what we're doing right now, I would usually always script out the full video for that one because I want to be very factual and be right on what I'm saying. So it's very important for me to write down everything to be sure that when I'm delivering it, I'm actually saying what I want to say and I don't get something wrong in the process. Another reason that is great for me to write a full script is that English isn't my first language, so writing the full script in English allows me to be sure that I'm saying the things I want to say and that I'm saying them in the way I want to be saying them. So this is very important for me, even if sometimes it takes two to three hours to write down the script, i still think that most of the times it saves me a lot of time when I'm filming the video. There's one part that I always write down and that's the intro. You might not know, but most people quit after 10 to 20 seconds. I can lose up to 40 percent of the people watching my videos just in the 20 first seconds. So it's very important that you're 10 for seconds you catch the attention of people and tell them what you're going to be presenting inside of the video. So that's one place where I always write it down to be sure that I'm telling them in a concise way what they should expect inside the video and keep their attention for longer and increase my retention rate. In the end, if you're starting out on YouTube, I highly suggest that you write down the full script because it's gonna save you so much time once you're outside and filming the video. I wrote down the full script for our example video so I'm going to link in the description down below if you want to go and read it and get ready for the next episode where we're going to go out and actually film it. Another important thing inside of my videos is actually planning the b-roll and the locations where I'm going to be filming and this is going to save so much time. When I started making my videos, I would actually not plan all of these things and I would just go outside and film the video. But then I would come back in start editing the video, I would realize that I'm missing so much content that I had to go back outside and film some more b-roll. For b-roll I recently changed how I actually identify it and for this now I use comments inside of Notion. And this allows me to highlight the part of the text where I want to have some overlaying b-roll and then I can add a comment exactly what I want. So one example inside of our video is going to be showing the size of the drone. So for this one, I want to have a shot of the drone in my hand to have a reference of how big it is. So I'm going to be able to highlight the part of the text where I want to be showing it and then simply adding a comment "show drone inside of my hand", so when I go back and look at my script while filming i know exactly what shot I need to be getting. For the location it's much easier. What I do is simply add some text before every section of my video and simply say where I'm gonna be filming that part. It doesn't need to be precise but just a general idea of where I'm filming it so that I know what I should be filming between the two, so if I want to film some b-roll in that video while I'm moving around, I'm gonna be able to plan that before uh going out and shooting the next scene. So it's much easier to be able to manage all of it. Another little side note is that i really enjoy filming my videos outside but there's also a good reason for that because i think it makes it much easier for people to understand how we're going to be using the products in the real world. So photography and filmmaking is a lot of time outside, not behind a desk, so i think it's much better to do a review of the products outside or talk about the subject outside because that's actually where you're going to be using the products or developing your skills for photography and filmmaking. I hope you enjoyed this little video on how I plan my videos and that they give you an idea on how you can plan your own videos. If you enjoyed this video, please let me know by hitting the like button below and also consider subscribing for the next part of this series. and also for more content on photography and filmmaking see you in the next one. Bye, bye.
Video Links
- 🔗 Complete Script
- 10 Truths about starting in 2021
- ND filters for your phonen
- Best phone gimbal?
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford ()
- TikTok
- My online store
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound
- https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card
- Canon 6D Mk
- Google Pixel 4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD
- DJI MAVIC AIR
- http://bit.ly/loicba
What is this video about?
I've always found my best video ideas in unexpected places—usually while I'm out walking with my dog, listening to podcasts, or reading your comments. The key is writing those ideas down immediately, before they slip away. Even if something doesn't seem perfect in the moment, it often evolves into something much better later on.
In this first episode of my "Getting Started on YouTube in 2021" series, I'm breaking down my entire planning workflow, from the initial spark of inspiration to the final script and b-roll checklist. The goal is to make this useful whether you're brand new to YouTube or you're already creating and looking to tighten up your process.
I use Notion to organize my ideas, but the system itself matters less than the structure. I set up a simple database with properties like publish date and state (idea, planning, filming, editing, published). The real power comes from creating a calendar view so I can see what's coming up and maintain consistent uploads. Without a schedule, I used to create videos randomly, which made it almost impossible to build momentum or give myself breathing room for other commitments.
When it comes to writing, I've found that the approach depends on the video. For my "10 Truths about Starting in 2021" video, I only used bullet points because I wanted it to feel conversational—like talking to a friend. But for technical reviews, I write out every word. The intro especially gets a full script. Most people drop off in the first 10–20 seconds, so those opening words have to hook people and clearly signal what they're about to watch.
Planning your b-roll ahead of time saves more time than almost anything else. I used to go out filming, come back, realize I was missing crucial shots, and have to go back out again. Now I highlight sections in my script and add comments with specific shots I need—like "show drone in my hand" for scale reference. For locations, I just jot down general areas so I know where I'm filming each section and can plan transitions between shots.
I've included a link to the complete script for our example video (a DJI Mavic Air review) so you can see exactly how this looks in practice. In the next part of this series, we'll take everything we've planned and actually go film it.