Before I delve any further, I would like to say that it has been a WONDERFUL first 5 years as a Tier I (First Year) & Tier II (Dedicated) lift filmer! I have definitely experienced my ups & downs as a lift filmer, but let’s recap with the 3 best experiences I’ve had as a lift filmer which have contributed greatly to my YouTube Channel:
3 | Hartford & New Haven (December 2017)
We went to Hartford & Cromwell in October 2017 & again in December 2017 for the 2017 close-out family trip in preparation for the 2018 trip to Atlantic City. Possibly, my favorite highlights of the trip were the two Otis lifts at my hotel (one I got stuck in for 3 minutes). The other Otis lift I didn’t get stuck in received a fresh modernisation by Otis from Series 1 to Series 2 by the second visit two months later. Both lifts scored a 4 / 5 rating on the General Chicago’s Lift Character Report, signifying that they were great lifts. Everything from the green-style buttons to the arrow-style indicators & the fact that this type of Otis mod is more used in high rise Marriotts made these lifts super interesting, coupled with their epic motor & what they were before. Pictures of the lifts are down below:
We also went to New Haven Connecticut the same day as we went to Hartford Connecticut to film the SUPER IMPRESSIVE 411’s (That video received tons of views). My favorite lifts from the two assets I rode in New Haven were the set of 3 Otis Elevonic 411M lifts at the Omni hotel in New Haven, which were full of character because of the way they accelerated & they just ran like rockets. These lifts are 3.9 / 5 stars on the General Chicago Lift Character Report & for good reason: They are super fun to ride. They have level 5 appearance & level 4 run character.
2 | Borgata & Tropicana Hotel (July 2017 & February 2018)
Perhaps, another big hit to my YouTube Channel were my first two trips to Atlantic City. The first trip was where I visited the Borgata Hotel & took some rides on some of the fastest lifts in the hotel, located at the Water Club Tower. These lifts did not go as far as other lifts in the hotel did but they went a pretty substantial distance of about 100 meters traveling a speed of around 300 meters per minute. They were super fun, had awesome fixtures, awesome cabs & a lot of character to them. Add to that they were Otis, my favorite brand of lift. 3.8 / 5 star lift character report.
The next trip, I filmed all but 3 of the lifts at the Borgata hotel. They were fast & extremely fun to ride too, especially the lifts going all the way up the tower. Those Elevonic 411’s felt like absolute rockets. Read about my whole experience here.
The Tropicana Hotel was another huge asset to my YouTube channel. Before I get into the nitty gritty, I would like to say that the Tropicana Hotel is probably one of the most epic hotels to film lifts in all of New Jersey, not just Atlantic City. Each lift has a personality of its own which makes the Tropicana so much fun. Unfortunately, some of my favorite lifts in the hotel are getting modernised in 2021.
West Tower: Some things I liked about the west tower of this hotel were the fact that these lifts were installed originally as retro Elevonic 411’s with DC generators despite being installed in the mid 90s, the way they jolted when they started moving, the clunking brake sounds from the top floors & one of them being a WIND-O-LIFT (moving so quickly as to produce a wind sound when traveling at maximum speed). More of the positive things to say about these lifts were the slamming doors as well as the super hard acceleration & the partial modernisation by Schindler which involved replacing the old Series 1 buttons with new EPCO Signature buttons in 2003 when the Havana Tower lifts were being installed. All-in-all, despite being super scary & super unreliable, these are my favorite lifts in New Jersey & it is unfortunate they are being modernised within the next few years as the original character will be missed greatly.
Stray 330A: This lift was the most boring lift in the entire Tropicana hotel, but it was passable compared to a Schindler 3300 which would have ruined the Tropicana vibes altogether.
We also stayed at the Tropicana in August 2018, but that’s a disaster story I’d rather not tell. At least I got to ride almost every lift in the hotel including lifts I didn’t get to ride during my February 2018 trip to Atlantic City. I didn’t get to film much, but what I filmed was acceptable for the amount of adversity I experienced outside of filming lifts.
Read about my whole experience here.
1 | LA Trip (December 2019) - for Year 4 anniversary
This trip counted towards my official graduation trip & celebration trip for getting through the Fall semester of my first semester of college with a flat 4.0 GPA. To keep it brief, here are all the lifts that I filmed:
Schindler 700A | Glendale Hilton
Schindler 300A | Glendale Hilton Carpark
Montgomery Traction Unit | Disneyland Carpark
Otis Series 4 211 LVM | Disneyland Rides | Anaheim
Mitsubishi Sigma AI 2200 | Embassy Suites Glendale Hilton
Fujitec Overheads | Hollywood & Highlands | Hollywood
Otis Series 1 Hydros | Ronald Reagan Presidential Library | Simi Valley
12/23/2019 was the single best day in my lift filming career so far aside from 2/3/2018 which was the second best day. I broke so many records that day, such as filming my first high speed traction in a mall, filming & riding my first ever true Fujitecs, riding my first ever AI-powered lift, riding my first-ever Mitsubishi & glass Mitsubishi along with glass overhead with 2-speed doors. The records I broke that day were unimaginable by even a long stretch!
This trip was the reason LA is now my 2nd favorite out of 76 hand-picked dream/favorite cities to film lifts in the USA. My favorite lift of the trip were the Schindler 700A’s in my hotel. Read about my whole experience here.
Each of the 3 experiences were the reason my channel is where it is today & I could not have done it without the support of my subscribers.
Going into Years 6-10
I am very excited to start a new chapter in my lift filming career. With that I have new programs to announce:
Clinton Township Times
The Clinton Township Times consists of the newsletters, Instagram posts, journal/blog posts, TikToks, Instagram Reels & brochures consisting of a stripped down snapshot of the top 3 best & worst lifts from a single lift galore. This is for when I film a bunch of lifts & pick the top 6 which made the biggest difference of my premiere. It is these lifts which get spots on the brochures. I write the original hard copy journal post in a Google Doc before publishing the finished copy onto the Clinton Township Lift Filming journal at https://officialclintontownshiplifts.blogspot.com/ & then copy/paste the same paragraphs into the voice-overs for the lift galores using Balabolka TTS, brochures, weekly newsletters & postcards. This is to make channel operations & branding more efficient & effective.
Chromebook Initiative
Over the first 5 years of my lift filming career, I have experienced pivotal setbacks which have influenced me to change the way I go about managing my YouTube channel. My biggest goal by the time I hit 10 years on the community is to be able to manage my entire channel operations from only my Android phone & a low-end Chromebook. I have become flexible with brand fonts across my YouTube channel, however, the brand color is always soothing green. I have moved my websites over from Weebly to Google Sites to promote ease & reliability, being able to edit my websites with zero problems should the Wifi become spotty. I have also moved my image editing software from Pixlr to Canva as it is more versatile & flexible. Kapwing is an emergency alternative on a Chromebook for if Windows Movie Maker cannot be run & is my go-to for if I have to edit videos quickly on a Mac.
My channel is cloud-run meaning I can find alternatives on the web which serve the same purpose as the Windows desktop apps I use for video editing & voiceovers. This will reduce the quality of the content that goes up on my YouTube Channel but it is a viable alternative to having nothing to work with should my Windows PC’s break down.
Reels & TikTok Program
For lift galores in the future, the top 3 best lifts from the entire week get promoted in a quik TikTok which will then be mirrored over to Instagram Reels to save time & energy. If I have a bad lift galore where the lifts are stopping on every single floor no matter which lift I ride, a TikTok or Reels will substitute a fully-fledged lift galore for the week. My first Reels & TikTok have experienced massive success already due to having almost 400 views on each video, therefore I will keep doing lift galores in this format where full-fledged lift galores are impractical for the type of adversity I experience during a lift filming event.
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