I’m sure you’ve all had it happen once; you are on youtube and start watching a video then some undead or demonic face pops up and screams at you. Sure, its annoying, and if you are browsing early morning or late at night it will wake up everyone in the house and get them upset with you. but the ‘goal’ of a screamer is to startle/frighten the viewer.
Which is why it annoys me when a video can’t even manage to get THAT right. I’ve had this happen twice at least, I’m watching a ‘scary’ video that isn’t remotely scary, and it comes all the way to the end and fadeout; then fades back in to show something hideous then screams at you.
To which it gets a total flat face stare. Why? Well for one, any ‘attachment’ to the video is lost at the fadeout; so the viewer is now free to switch their focus. Often to the comments section; or even closing the window before the scream even happens. Second, when it fades in, it gives you a slow visual warning about what’s about to happen before the scream starts. Even if its half a second it gives your mind a chance to brace for it.
Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about how to make a good screamer as they are annoying, but if I had to say what a ‘good’ screamer is, it would have to NOT be loud enough to disturb people at the computer, and should appear in as sudden a way as possible without just clipping into it; such as starting the scream ‘first’ by a millisecond, and then doing a screen melt transition to the image.
And for god’s sake, DON’T mislabel your videos. I know there’s a ‘trolling’ element to this thing, but its only going to reduce your chances of youtube ‘fame’ to get people to hate you.