Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Getts.
Joseph, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My name is Joseph Getts, and as a kid growing up in New Hampshire, my parents exposed me to hiking and the outdoors at a very young age. I fell in love with the White Mountains and the outdoors, but I didn’t realize how much I appreciated the beauty of New Hampshire till I went out of state for college. After going to school and living in New Jersey for six years, I returned home to New Hampshire and rediscovered my love for hiking, swimming, kayaking, fishing, skating, snowboarding, and just all things outdoors. I found work in the brewing industry which affords me a flexible schedule and allows for many hiking days and countless adventures each year. I began creating YouTube videos in the fall of 2017 to document my outdoor adventures and to share the brilliance of New Hampshire and New England with everyone. I also take my 5-year-old Belgian Shepherd pup, Dexter along on all of my adventures! My YouTube channel name is Getts Wild which is a playoff of my last name “Getts” and “Wild” is in reference to the outdoor adventures that I embark on.
The name of the brewery that I currently work for is Great North Aleworks, located in Manchester, NH. I manage the Tasting Room and have been with the company since its launch in August, 2015. We are currently one of the largest craft breweries in New Hampshire and distribute our beer throughout New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Has it been a smooth road?
When I first set out to create Getts Wild and my YouTube channel, there was a steep learning curve since I was unfamiliar with almost everything. I didn’t go to film school, I had never used a professional video editing software, and I didn’t know how to compose a proper video. I knew that I would need proper camera equipment though, so I spent a lot of time researching and weighing endless camera gear options. Since my videos were all going to be made outdoors, my equipment decisions were all based around the need to film in potentially unpredictable weather conditions. I also knew that I would need a powerful computer to be able to run the video editing software, so I bought all of the different components and had friends help me put together my own desktop computer. I could go further in depth with equipment, but that would be a separate discussion altogether.
I learned a lot of what I didn’t know just from watching YouTube videos and from doing my own research. When it came to the technical details of using new software, I was able to watch tutorial videos from Lynda.com to learn new skills related to videography and editing. The whole project was quite overwhelming and challenging for me and this entire process occurred over a long period of time. From the time that I decided I wanted to make videos to the time that I published my first video on YouTube, over a year had gone by.
The actual process of filming and putting the videos together is extremely time consuming as well, and I have found that I put in 20+ hours of editing time alone to make a single 15-minute YouTube video. Hikes that used to take me 4 hours now take me 10 – 12 hours because of the filming that I do and the time that I take to get the shots I know I’ll want to incorporate into my videos. Everything takes time, from flying my drone, to creating time lapses, to setting my camera down to walk by it only to run back to pick it up. It can be hard to find the motivation sometimes to get started on a new video because of the amount of work that I now know is required. If I create a video, or anything for that matter, I want it to be something of high quality and something that I am ultimately proud of, and that takes time and dedication. In the end, when I have a finished video that I can share that provides entertainment and value to others, it is an incredibly rewarding feeling.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Getts Wild story. Tell us more about the business.
Getts Wild is yet to become a company. Right now, it is a brand that I am developing that represents pure adventure. For me, adventure includes all of my outdoor activities, but largely hiking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. My videos thus far have solely been based in New Hampshire, though I will soon be publishing a series of videos from a family backpacking trip last September (2017) through the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. I am focusing primarily on creating high quality videos of each of the 48, 4,000+ foot mountains in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
The White Mountains of NH receive over 6 million visitors per year, more than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined. I am creating informative and entertaining videos for the portion of those visitors that are interested in hiking in the White Mountains. When I first began seriously hiking the NH 4,000 footers a few years ago, I immediately took to the internet in search of websites that would give me information about the mountains and about the specific hikes that I wanted to do. I also went to YouTube to try to find videos of what the trails looked like, but I couldn’t find anything of quality or of much value. The videos that I am creating are simply videos that I wish existed years ago when I was looking for hiking resources and information.
My videos provide information regarding trail conditions, trail intersections, trail distances, elevation gain, etc. The information is coupled with music and cinematic scenes that help break up the information and give the videos flow. I think the big thing that sets my videos apart are the shots I can get with my drone. Aerial video gives people a completely new perspective on the mountains and simply provides stunning views never seen before. What I am most proud of is the value that my videos provide to all sorts people, not just hikers or outdoorsy and athletic types. There are many people that are not physically able to hike and climb tall mountains, and I love that I can bring everyone along for the adventure through my videos.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In 10 years, YouTube will still be around. Video content is only going to continue to grow and become more of a driver for businesses of all kinds. With that said, YouTube is becoming increasingly crowded and there is an immense amount of competition and saturation in certain areas. The most important thing to remember for video creators is to provide value. Video content must be original, authentic, high quality, and generally provide a solution to someone’s problem. Content creators will be able to survive and even thrive in competitive categories if that criteria are met on a consistent basis. It’s easy to make one or two quality videos. It’s much harder to do that over and over again. Those that can replicate quality will always succeed.
I do think that video may change with the emergence of virtual reality and new camera technologies. Virtual reality is still in its infancy and greatly undeveloped. It may be way of the future for a lot of industries, not just YouTube and content creation.
Contact Info:
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/GettsWild
- Email: joseph@gettswild.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gettswild
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gettswild
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GettsWild
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