tips?

make a good video. haha...im kinda kidding, but not really. That's just a really broad question. There are endless tips for making good video.

In general though, a decent video has good lighting and good sound. You don't need to have the best camera in the world.

Your video also needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, just like when you write an essay in school. You introduce the essay so the reader knows what it will be about, then you write about the topic, and then you conclude. And it needs to have a point.

Those are so broad tips, but like I said, you asked a broad question.

Make a video with those tips in mind, come back and show us, and I'm sure you'll get more specific tips.

Thumbnails for a Youtube video should be women in bikinis. :)

I think I read somewhere about this little tip.

Make your video funny with a hook and a twist. And by that I mean you need to hook your viewer in the opening five to ten seconds, just like pop songs have a hook. And the videos getting the most views generally have a twist, the action in the set-up turns out to be something totally unexpected. Say, we open with a POV of walking along a sidewalk & hear a big crash, flash pan to nearby home with gaping "car shaped" hole in front; running to home & thru the front door to see the living room is destroyed and the hole continues into the next room; rush past devastation & past wall to see in open doorway the cause of the destruction, a tag team free for all of political candidates with a referee who stands up and says,"As a citizen, it's up to you to decide who wins. So get out and VOTE!" You get the idea, I hope. You want to be leading your audience one way and end up with it all being something else.

But the best advice I have is to get familiar with what's already popular on the site. Keep track of the the "Top Ten" like it is a Billboard ranking of songs. You won't need to do it for long. Just until you get an idea of what kinds of subjects and production styles are currently popular. Then work out your video short with them uppermost in your mind.

Good Luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik0JOiLUZik

Here's one to enter. ;-)

The thumbnails are the exact middle frame of the movie, i think. so make a really good shot for the exact middle of the movie with a strange title and mysterious or funny description.

Women in bikinis - that's goofy. just make a good shot for the exact middle of the movie.