HISTORY
One of my initial intentions of my YouTube channel was to attract the elevator filming community simply by making a variety of good quality content.
There's no better way to show off my channel than to bring you some of my best content!
Considering you came here from my YouTube channel or one of my videos, you probably came here for more than what you have already seen.
Shown below is a video of what might be the most requested elevators to date for me. Other than that, here's a little bit about what Star City Elevators is about and how it has grown over the years.
Considering you came here from my YouTube channel or one of my videos, you probably came here for more than what you have already seen.
Shown below is a video of what might be the most requested elevators to date for me. Other than that, here's a little bit about what Star City Elevators is about and how it has grown over the years.
I have loved elevators since I don't know when, and the fascination has been on and off during middle school and high school. It wasn't until I got to college that I discovered elevator photography. It happened upon a random YouTube search, in which I found one of Musicfreakcc's videos. It was a video of the elevators in the historic tower of the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Chicago. From there, I clicked on other elevator videos, and discovered dieselducy, TheElevatorChannel, suzzex (now CVE9120), and others. I eventually started paying attention to these particular videos and noticed a pattern in them. This was because I wanted to try out filming an elevator myself. I had a camera that had a video function on it, so on September 29th, 2011, I went out and got one rather crappy take of the elevators in my dorm (at the time). I initially decided I didn't like it after I tried to film the same elevators a few more times. I couldn't stand my voice on camera, and filming the elevators felt awkward. I also wasn't too thrilled about being perceived as having a weird hobby yet. It certainly didn't help that the elevators were really busy. After a while, I went out and tried some elevators in buildings I regularly visited on a daily basis, including (in order), Westbrook Music Building, the Scott Engineering Center, and Love Library. I decided after a while that I liked elevator photography if I kept my mouth shut. Unfortunately, I ended up frying my camera because I put the batteries in backwards. It wasn't until my birthday that I got a replacement camera, which is the camera I use to film elevators with today. I then went out and tried out my new camera in one of the city's parking garages (University Square Garage). The camera filmed in full HD (1080p), a first for me. I shot a lot of elevator videos after that. I also threw away a lot of videos because I was holding myself to the standard that made the elevator videos I saw enjoyable to watch. I shot around 100-200 videos, but only kept around 20 of them. I wanted to hold myself to the standard that made the channel I really liked held themselves to. There were also other elevator enthusiast channels that did not fit that standard, and I didn't want to be like them. In other words, I wanted to do what the elevator enthusiast channels that I liked did that kept me hooked on their videos, and avoid doing what the elevator enthusiast channels I didn't like did. I won't mention who the channels I didn't like are because my opinions of some of those channels have changed.
I opened my first YouTube channel filmer394 on January 31st, 2012 in response to an unwanted encounter that happened 5 days earlier (see FAQ). I published my first attempt at elevator photography to that channel on February 5th, as well as the first take on my new camera. I was a YouTube nobody, and the only views my videos accumulated were the ones that I gave it. I refined my filming technique numerous times, and after a while, I ended up sharing one of my videos via video response (you can't do that anymore). Suzzex (at the time) was the first big user to notice me on YouTube. I got noticed by some other people and got a few views and subscribers. Eventually, I made better and more content, and got noticed by other elevator filmers, and gained subscribers and views at a faster pace.
One of my initial intentions of my YouTube channel was to attract the elevator filming community simply by making a variety of good quality content. I decided that this is what I was going to do after having seen some videos of elevators in my hometown, which were not very good. I have also noticed on a lot of the bigger users, lots of the comments were things like "please subscribe." I didn't think I needed to do that, and I also wanted to see how well my content would do alone.
STAR CITY ELEVATORS - CHANGING CHANNELS (pun intended)
On June 26th, 2013, I got sick of my "temporary" YouTube channel name and decided to move to a new account. I had thought up of "Star City Elevators" back in 2012, and I was afraid I would be forgotten if I moved. I decided now or never in the move, and created Star City Elevators. I gave up 30,000+ views and 101 subscribers to start over. I had gotten back 30 subscribers and about 2,000 views in the rest of the month alone! I was extremely anxious to get rid of filmer394 once and for all, so I created an archive of filmer394 and uploaded one to three old videos a day in chronological order by shot date. I finished the transferring on October 1st and notified new, current, and filmer394 subscribers that new content will be coming full time now on Star City Elevators using the trailer video shown below (I uploaded new content every now and then to spark some interest in those who subscribed during the transfer period).
I opened my first YouTube channel filmer394 on January 31st, 2012 in response to an unwanted encounter that happened 5 days earlier (see FAQ). I published my first attempt at elevator photography to that channel on February 5th, as well as the first take on my new camera. I was a YouTube nobody, and the only views my videos accumulated were the ones that I gave it. I refined my filming technique numerous times, and after a while, I ended up sharing one of my videos via video response (you can't do that anymore). Suzzex (at the time) was the first big user to notice me on YouTube. I got noticed by some other people and got a few views and subscribers. Eventually, I made better and more content, and got noticed by other elevator filmers, and gained subscribers and views at a faster pace.
One of my initial intentions of my YouTube channel was to attract the elevator filming community simply by making a variety of good quality content. I decided that this is what I was going to do after having seen some videos of elevators in my hometown, which were not very good. I have also noticed on a lot of the bigger users, lots of the comments were things like "please subscribe." I didn't think I needed to do that, and I also wanted to see how well my content would do alone.
STAR CITY ELEVATORS - CHANGING CHANNELS (pun intended)
On June 26th, 2013, I got sick of my "temporary" YouTube channel name and decided to move to a new account. I had thought up of "Star City Elevators" back in 2012, and I was afraid I would be forgotten if I moved. I decided now or never in the move, and created Star City Elevators. I gave up 30,000+ views and 101 subscribers to start over. I had gotten back 30 subscribers and about 2,000 views in the rest of the month alone! I was extremely anxious to get rid of filmer394 once and for all, so I created an archive of filmer394 and uploaded one to three old videos a day in chronological order by shot date. I finished the transferring on October 1st and notified new, current, and filmer394 subscribers that new content will be coming full time now on Star City Elevators using the trailer video shown below (I uploaded new content every now and then to spark some interest in those who subscribed during the transfer period).
After that, I have returned to a regular upload schedule. In the mean time, I have met up with Vator' Hunters twice, and have formalized many ideas originally developed on filmer394.
The switch to a more professional nature really did help, since "filmer394" was never intended to be permanent anyway, plus, the name itself is hard to remember and sounds hideous.
The rest is just...well, you know.
The switch to a more professional nature really did help, since "filmer394" was never intended to be permanent anyway, plus, the name itself is hard to remember and sounds hideous.
The rest is just...well, you know.