How Jared Owen Builds 3D Videos That Last  🔗 **Source:** [How Jared Owen Builds 3D Videos That Last](https://share.snipd.com/episode/9c830f68-e062-4ade-aeb2-30d1d507663e) ## Highlights - **How Jared Started With Free Blender Hobby** - Jared started with Blender as a hobby because it was free and accessible, letting him learn 3D without expensive software licenses. - He merged childhood dreams of Disney animation with coding curiosity, which led him to make educational 3D “how it works” videos. Transcript: Jared Owen So 3d animations on how things work uh i'd like to show and explain things uh it kind of started with the i would see an animation for something done with 2D and I'd be like, oh, if that was In 3D, we could explain that way better. And so that was kind of how it started. And yeah, we do all sorts of things on there. It started with really small things around my house, but the animations have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger over the years, probably too big. And I've had to kind of scope it in, but that's, yeah, that's the main thing the channel's about. Travis What's kind of interesting because you did start around a little bit over 14 years ago. And I'm trying to think of, like, that the software at the time, when you look at it compared to today, of course, is kind of silly. It's like, oh, that's cute. I can do that on my phone now, but, I mean, at the time, like, you had to have a pretty expensive computer. The software wasn't necessarily easy to understand. What made you want to do that as your first YouTube channel, other than the fact that like, you know, you said I saw some 2D stuff and I thought it'd be, that seems like a high barrier to entry. Was that something you were already doing anyway? Yes. Jared Owen So the software is called Blender, which is actually, I still use it today and everything like that. But yeah, Blender is open source, which means it's free. You can, you can go download it. You do need to have a halfway decent computer, especially if you're going to render the images and stuff like that. ([Time 0:01:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4b32853a-6034-45b4-8764-a7d520b21145)) - **Evergreen Topics Outperform Trends Long Term** - Evergreen topics keep accumulating views years later, unlike trend-driven videos that fade after a short spike. - Jared realized early that topics like 'Statue of Liberty interior' continue to satisfy persistent curiosity and perform long term. Transcript: Jared Owen And that's when I realized like, oh, chasing the trends will die quickly. But if you can get something like the Statue of Liberty, where people are like, oh, how does that work on the inside? How do you climb? I mean, people are always Googling that people always want to know. So there's always, yeah. So it wasn't a plan originally, but pretty quickly there, it was like, okay, if I can make a banger video, this will still be getting views years in the future. ([Time 0:06:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/28c7ca1d-d325-47e0-8725-af7ce7e64b2e)) - **Design Videos To Get Suggested Traffic** - Aim to get YouTube to suggest your videos, not just rely on search, because suggested traffic massively amplifies views. - Tie evergreen content to timely events or bigger creators to piggyback suggestion spikes. Transcript: Jared Owen Yeah, like you mentioned there, the search traffic. Sure, let's get it if we can. But what's even more powerful is if YouTube suggests it. And so like, for example, we made some space stuff with the International Space Station and stuff like that. And so when current event current events happen, when a crew dragon launches, when something really big like that um sometimes i'm not even looking up in the news and i i'll look in my Analytics and all the space videos go and so that's that's when i'm immediately like whoa what's going on right now there must be some big event um so yeah if you can get youtube to actively Suggest the videos, that's where it's most powerful. Sometimes another big YouTuber, um, like I've had Mark, Mark Rober and a few other big ones when they make a topic, you know, uh, sometimes I'll piggyback off of that. I'll, I'll get a little bit of boost, which is amazing when, when it happens. ([Time 0:07:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d06af79-f6b3-40ea-9b49-084eb972a945)) - **Pick Topics You Actually Want To Make** - Prioritize projects you’re motivated to finish because personal drive speeds production and prevents stalled edits. - Also favor ideas that echo past successes and test thumbnails/structure from top-performing videos. Transcript: Jared Owen Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes I hit it right on the dot sometimes not but they're like for example the super bowl was held at a stadium i think in 2019 which we did a video on amazing views while The super bowl was happening but the day after the views like died and so in hindsight i was like okay that was a good learning experience but that video is almost dead now um just because Nobody cares um but yes strangely my number one criteria is whether i'm motivated enough to do it because i've i've chased some things before where i'm not as motivated and i think it Takes longer because i get to the computer in the morning and i'm just like do I really want to finish this? Like I need to. So let's keep going. So yeah, me, me being motivated, but then also what's done well in the past. Sometimes I can tell from thumbnails on past videos, how the video is structured. To be honest, I'm still figuring it out. It's not like I've got it all figured out, got the system. I know this video is going to hit 10 million views in the first month. Um, sometimes I think it'll do well. It doesn't. Sometimes I think a video like, oh, this isn't going to do well. And it takes off and I'm like, Whoa, okay. ([Time 0:08:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c3d25a91-76d2-4fa0-82a5-d8bee5284be7)) - **Quitting With A One Year Runway** - Jared gave himself roughly a one-year financial runway before quitting his software job, budgeting tightly and selling a house to extend runway. - Contract work discovered via YouTube helped bridge income early in the full-time transition. Transcript: Jared Owen Yeah, yeah. And in fact, my story is somewhat similar. We we sold a house. I you know, I've done the math. I was like, okay, if we budget, if we try and figure out if I'm making absolutely no money, how long do we have before I hit the panic button, and I need to go find something full time again. And we figured out it was about a year. And then I was like, okay, during that time, if I'm able to, you know, start making, you know, even a couple hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, then that timeline extends even more. So I'd done all this math. I showed all these charts and things like that. But I ended up getting some contract jobs, people seeing my stuff on YouTube and emailed me and said, Hey, do you work for hire? And, you know, I was, I was like, what does that even mean? Work for hire? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So yeah, I, I had made enough money that I was like, okay, I can make this work. I'm going to have to work really, really hard. Um, but yeah, we'd given, we'd given it about a year, um, if I was making absolutely nothing. And then if I could prove that I could slowly fill the bank account back up and it ended up working out. ([Time 0:11:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d7fbbddf-527e-47f8-b3c0-7d66d8901772)) - **Sponsor Fits Came From Trial And Error** - Sponsors fit Jared's channel best when they serve a global, digital audience (VPNs, software) rather than physical products with uncertain conversion. - He gauges sponsor success mainly by whether they return with another offer. Transcript: Travis Cause you mentioned sponsorships before you wouldn't think like looking at your videos that you would, you would have an opportunity for sponsorships because you know, you're educating And it's animated and like, how would you even, so can you remember the first couple of sponsors that came to you and what you thought when that happened to someone's like, I want to pay You money, but something in your video, what were your thoughts behind? Jared Owen Yeah, I was, I mean, I was always hoping to get to that point. Cause you've seen bigger channels, um, and things like that. But I think product placement has been a little bit of a challenge with these videos just because there hasn't, you know, I have like, for example, years ago, I did how a, how a Nerf gun Works. I'm like, oh, that's perfect. I'll just pitch the Nerf gun at the end of the video and stuff like that. Some, you know, it's trying to figure out the audience that will actually purchase because if I do a sponsor and it doesn't actually convert, that sponsor, you know, says thanks, but They don't have any return offers or anything like that. And so I've had a couple of those where I'm like, darn, it must not have performed very well. But yeah, trying to find the right audience. It seems like with mine, I've got a little bit more of a worldwide audience. And so doing a digital product seems to do well. VPNs, things that don't have to be physically shipped. That seems to be a little bit more successful on my channel. Whereas others I've seen where they're selling physical products up the wazoo. And so, yeah, it's still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. And sometimes the only really data I have on that is whether that sponsor comes back, whether they say, hey, let's do another one. And they either up the offer or keep the same. I'm going, okay, it must not have been too bad. Let's do it again. ([Time 0:16:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f8ae5a46-373d-4399-a8ba-a1b311bfc0d7)) - **Use Contractors And Automation To Ship Faster** - Speed production by hiring contractors, adding rendering machines, and automating repetitive tasks with code. - Jared built a small render farm and coded tools to cut render times and move toward a monthly release cadence. Transcript: Jared Owen Would love to put out videos every two weeks, you know, just the animation side of things has, it's, is what takes so long. It's yeah, it's not a strategy. It's, I think it's definitely hurt the channel just because I know the YouTube algorithm favors channels that post more often. That's just how it works. And so it's something for years I've been trying to speed up. I started hiring contractors consistently about two years ago, which has been going well. I feel like we're kind of ironing out the process and things like that. But the rendering out the animation, you take it from that cartoon-like state and actually render it out into the final final animation which is what you see on my channel that has taken A long time with uh my one computer that i had 10 years ago sometimes i would have that running 24 7 for like four days oh my gosh you know i'd have fans on it and everything like that yeah yeah And then once i got a little bit more budget i was able to upgrade even more and more. And now with AI and stuff like that, I'm able to code tools to be able to, I've got several machines here at home. I've got family members and friends that have machines. And so that process, even in the last couple of months, we've sped up considerably. So there's, the goal is to get it down to once a month and kind of see what the pipeline looks like, see if we have some people working on the current video while we have others getting ahead On the next one, trying to get that pipeline going. ([Time 0:19:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3fcdf33b-7fdd-4920-a3fa-811403187291)) - **Treat AI As A Tool Not A Final Source** - AI is useful for tooling and research but remains unreliable for facts; always verify with primary sources or experts. - Jared uses AI for coding and initial research but cross-checks obscure details with NASA docs or human experts. Transcript: Jared Owen It's I think most people are a little, they're using it and freaked out by it at the same time, just by how, how it's changing and stuff like that. But the video generators, you know, when I saw those come out, I'm like, Oh, could I, could I use them? And I think the answer is yes. Uh, I've messed around with them a little bit, but I'm still convinced that you need 3d software to be able to get the exact thing that I want to be able to, you know, open this up, show what's On the inside. Um, but yeah, as far as that, mostly been sticking with the traditional animation route, using 3D animation. But the thing that I've been using more and more is coding tools with cloud code and things like that. My background in software, we're able to take anything that's tedious, you know, what are we doing over and over and over that's really repetitive, write a tool for that. And so that's something daily that I'm doing there. But you mentioned the research aspect of that. That's, it's been interesting because a couple of years ago, you know, I would, I would use AI to figure out like, Hey, can you show me all the decks in this cruise ship? Show me what's going on here. And I would compare it with like a spec sheet or something like that. And it was half the time it was about 50% correct. It would just, it's gotten considerably better, but you cannot, you cannot trust it a hundred percent. That is true. And so we've, we've had it done before where we've verified facts and obscure NASA documents or things like that, that AI did not know at all. ([Time 0:21:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6e56a44c-76f6-454c-8f35-07dfb7372333)) - **NASA Provided Expert Feedback On Drafts** - NASA reached out after finding Jared’s videos and offered expert feedback and astronaut contacts to review drafts. - Those critiques improved accuracy and prevented harsh comment backlash on technical errors. Transcript: Jared Owen Yeah. I did the whole thing where I was like, is this a scam? Is this, is this for real? I looked him up on LinkedIn. I was like, no, he works at NASA. This is, this is for real and everything like that. But yeah, they're, they're basically trying to get a better public outreach, you know, with, with space companies, like, uh, SpaceX and stuff like that. NASA gets kind of a rap of like, they're kind of old, they're not really doing anything cutting edge. And so they're trying to basically change that, like, Hey, look at all the stuff that we're doing. And so, um, we love to basically just tell, tell the story of what happened. And sometimes they've been able to connect us with astronauts, engineers who've been able to look at our rough drafts and be able to critique them, be able to say like, hey, what you said Here is mostly correct, but you didn't show this. And so that's been huge. Because as you know, when you post something on YouTube and it's incorrect, the comments are terrible. You just get hashed in them and everybody tells you you're wrong. And so we try and get it correct beforehand. So having those contacts at NASA has been super helpful. ([Time 0:25:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c87aaf4c-1b24-4373-90b7-5bb70050661d)) - **A Single Video Can Take About 200 Hours** - Jared tracks creation time and estimates ~200 hours per video, with burnouts after five to six hours per day lowering productivity. - He switches tasks mid-day to preserve output quality rather than forcing more low-quality hours. Transcript: Jared Owen Two months. I have been tracking the hours that like, it takes me personally. And I usually hit somewhere around 200 hours or so. I'm trying to crunch that down and just figure out like what, what parts do I need to be doing and what parts can I have somebody else help out with? But there's also a threshold there throughout the day where I'll get up and I'll work on the video. And usually five or six hours in, I'll just get burnt. And like I could force myself to keep working, but the productivity just hits a dive bomb. And so it's at that point where I'll switch gears. I'll try and do something else productive, try and work on some of those other like business owner things that need to get done. So that that slows down the videos as well. ([Time 0:27:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/28c0a0f2-59a9-4cec-bc04-2debb0bd321e)) - **Plan Asset Needs Before Animation Starts** - Plan projects by listing needed assets early: buy or commission 3D models, reuse previous scenes, and map character and scene needs. - Jared drafts actionable next steps (modeling, scripting) to avoid back-and-forth delays. Transcript: Jared Owen Okay i'll tell you what i've thought about i don't know if we'll ever actually do but what's inside the uss enterprise from star trek you know oh okay i love this already so walk us through Travis This like okay how are you visualizing this how are you coming up with the story arc how are you getting where are you going to research things tell me everything yeah yeah so the first Jared Owen Thing i would think of is okay how much Star Trek have I've watched? How much could I, how much, how much could I, could I think of what would actually show? Would we show the bridge? We show the engine room. We show what are all these things. And then I'm, I'm instantly thinking of, okay, 3d model. Is there a good one that we could purchase? Or do I need to think ahead of time? Cause it'll probably take one of my contractors, you know, a bunch of hours to be able to put something together and a lot of backing forth. And so I'm immediately thinking, how do we get to that polished 3d model that we can use in the animation? And then, you know, okay, we're going to want a space scene. We're going to want the earth in the background, maybe a couple other things. And so I'm thinking a lot ahead to what previous videos have we done? Could we use 3d models from those previous ones? Reuse is a huge thing. If you've already done all this work to create a 3D model, a 3D scene, can you leverage that work again? That's something I'm trying to get better at because sometimes we're a one and done. But yeah, then from there, trying to figure out like, okay, well, if we want to show a scene on the bridge, maybe we'll show the camera zooming in and we'll show the ship coming apart and Exactly where the bridge is um do we want to show it empty probably not we want to show some characters on there okay so we're going to need some characters in starfleet uniforms we're Going to need some of these things and then then i'm thinking ahead to okay we need a video expert who could tell us tell us if it's correct or not and so that one would be a little bit different Because if it's, you know, the Statue of Liberty, I'd reach out to the park service there for somebody that works in it every day to an engineer, but to, for the USS Enterprise, I'd probably Want to find like a super geek that like knew it inside and out that had seen all the episodes that would be able to tell me like, oh, this actually isn't correct. This is correct. Yeah. Those are some of the things that would go through my brain. How long should the video be? Because you're, you kind of train your audience to, do they expect five minute videos? Do they expect hour long videos? And if you all of a sudden switch that up and your audience isn't expecting that, it'll, some of your super fans will watch no matter what, but others might get deterred if they're expecting A short video and they're they see a half hour video they're going well i don't have time i'll watch this later and then it might never happen and so that's important as well trying to figure Out like oh we've got material for a half hour video but we've got to cut out something what do we cut and so yeah those are those are those would be my initial thoughts that would and i would I would create a document and I would just brain dump, try and organize it immediately. What are the actionable next steps? Can I get somebody 3D modeling it? ([Time 0:30:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/52ff0052-7fd6-41a1-a6f4-6ec3e83c21d6)) - **Thumbnail Strength Decides Clicks Early** - Thumbnails often determine whether a great video gets clicks, so design them early alongside topic selection. - Jared sometimes abandons ideas if he can't envision a strong thumbnail to drive CTR. Transcript: Jared Owen So I don't get hashed by the other YouTubers that are watching this video. Thumbnail should always be thought of very early on as well, because I feel like we've made some really good videos before, but the thumbnail was just not a banger and didn't get the clicks. And so I feel like I've made decisions on whether or not to do a video or not over, do we think the thumbnail is good? Do we think people will click on it? And so, um, yes, that should be very early on in the process as well. ([Time 0:35:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4726942d-e2fa-47ab-8a01-c6da44f83874)) - **Optimize The First 30 Seconds For Retention** - Monitor audience retention closely, especially the first 10–30 seconds, and target keeping over 50% after 30 seconds. - Jared uses retention curves to diagnose intro structure and tweak messaging to prevent steep early drop-offs. Transcript: Jared Owen Would say I'm in the middle. Yeah. There's times when, you know, we've had a really good video, and I'm like, sweet, let's do it again. Let's see what we can do. And then I'm like, hold on, hold on. Go into the analytics. Where's the traffic coming from? What's the click-through rate? It's like, it's a goldmine, And there's always there's always more you could spend so much time in there trying to figure out what worked, what didn't work, what should I do again? Travis So if you have to pick one analytic you look at in a video at any time where I did bad or good, which one are you picking? Jared Owen Probably that audience retention curve. Yeah, because especially that first 30 seconds where it always drops off really steeply. Sometimes you'll look at other videos and you're like, okay, this did not drop off. It's always going to drop off some, but this one didn't drop off as much. Why? But was it the intro? Was it something that I said? I feel like that, that is crucial because if you can hit that, it just makes a world of difference. I mean, obviously throughout the video, you want to make sure retention is good as well. Travis But that, that first 10 to 30 seconds it's just drives me crazy do you have a number that you try to hit because uh this would be interesting to hear like especially since you have videos Jared Owen That do really well not you have a percentage try to hit not specifically um i know i've seen other other presentations where like mr beast and stuff is able to hit insane levels. Yeah, of course, you know, and things like that, I, you know, after the first 30 seconds, if I still have over 50%, I feel like that's pretty good. And I feel like I've had some where, you know, it's been as high as 60 or 70. ([Time 0:36:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5c33fae7-5b32-439e-a9b3-3d70e1d89db3)) - **He Keeps The Final 10 Percent Personal** - Jared resists outsourcing core creative voice like scriptwriting because it can lose his personal style, though he lets contractors get projects 90% there. - He then performs final passes to add the last 10% that feel authentically his. Transcript: Jared Owen Yeah that is an interesting thought that i've you know i thought about things like that and I, it goes back to kind of what I was saying earlier, that my passion is animation. I love doing that. And there was a time when I was like, that I'm not hiring anybody. I'm going to be a one man show and just figure out how to do it faster and faster. But I've changed a lot recently and just like, all right, I will never speed this process up if I don't, you know, get help somehow. But yeah, I'm not sure about the talking head thing. I've thought about that before because it would be low lift, you know, just put B-roll in there, even B-roll. Or even voiceover, voiceover anything. Travis It doesn't even have to have a talking head. Yeah. Voiceover, B-roll. ([Time 0:42:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/731a93c2-53c4-4817-8c71-ff7c4058bc19))