Siloam Proud

Smith, where they met LawnForum.com learned everything started," said Jordan Net- website. "It's a forum know way more about could ever imagine and tips." in-laws live in the and there's another in the area — Allyn Lawn Care Nut — and LT Turf with Hane ep- has almost 350,000 YouTube channel. Jordan Netzel said. there and make a video, followers see it and you get a subscribers) there." said the biggest jump came last July because video — "Top Dress- with Sand for Flat "took off." As of this has had more than of sand all over my he said. "That video whatever reason. I put I woke up the next analytics that it had hour. I was getting no- crazy. … It had 100,000 … That video is still had planned to film LT Turf series this trip to Arvest Ball- Northwest Arkansas team, but have been covid-19 pandemic. their greenskeeper," said. "Whenever things we'll go out there and show us how they care also has talked to managers at the Arkansas. He would like one day at any of the facilities, including Donald Razorback Stadium or Stadium. Making the videos Making the videos that are posted on YouTube require a lot of work in a lot of different areas. There's obviously filming that takes place on each project, but there's also editing, which can take up tons of time, the Netzel brothers agree. Aaron Netzel points to his brother as the one who does the lion's share of the work. "So up to this point, he's done maybe 98 percent of everything, and that's maybe accurate," Aaron Netzel said. "I will say this. When we started, I was in a 'not do anything' phase in my life and he was like, 'Aaron loves YouTube' and 'Get Aaron off his butt.' That played a part of it." Aaron Netzel credited his brother for being the one who is active in chat rooms and forums and making calls to other lawn enthusiasts. "I was always called the elusive left tool," Aaron Netzel said. "People never saw me. I never commented on the forums. I'm like, 'I don't know how com- puters work. I never talked to anybody.' I really think that played a part of it." On the projects themselves, it's main- ly getting a camera and a tripod, turn- ing the camera on and doing the work. "A lot of it, say more than half, has been just put the camera on the tripod and move it around a lot," Aaron Netzel said. "A lot of stuff I'll man the camera and try and get some cool shots." Said Jordan Netzel: "A lot of these You- Tubers, they're the only person doing it as far as I know. We're the only lawn care YouTube channel of two people. Everybody else just puts the camera on a tripod and moves it around a lot and just mows strips then moves it around and change up videos." The brothers also deploy a drone with a camera to get overhead shots. "I think he had the drone before he ever started the channel," Aaron Netzel said. Another rule is everything gets filmed. Even when a newspaper pho- tographer is up on a ladder taking feature photos for this story, it's filmed. "I just remember, especially in the early days, someone would put down the camera and the other person would do something stupid and be like, 'Did you get that?'" Aaron Netzel said. "'No I didn't get that, I thought we were done filming.'" Jordan Netzel said when he went down to Florida to visit Hane, he was given a good piece of advice on leaving the camera rolling. "When I would turn off the camera, something would happen, and (Hane) would say, 'You've got to keep that thing on man. You never know what you're going to miss,'" Jordan Netzel said. "His advice was film everything. You can edit out what you don't want. But you can't edit something you didn't film." Said Aaron Netzel, "Then the more you film, the more editing there is." "It's a double-edged sword," Jordan Netzel replied "It takes longer for edit- ing for sure." "The editing sucks," Aaron Netzel said. "It's so much fun (filming) the videos, but then you put it on the com- puter and you're like 'Aw crap I got to actually make the video now.'" Jordan Netzel wakes up around 3:45 a.m. every morning to make time for editing. "Everybody else is still asleep," he said. "I learned early on that if I wanted to do this, it couldn't interfere with fam- ily time. I had to do it at a time when everybody else was asleep." Aaron Netzel, on the other hand, does a lot of his editing at night. Personal favorites The Lawn Tools each have their per- sonal favorites in videos they released. For Jordan Netzel, it was the video of his son's third birthday party where he turned his backyard into a miniature golf course. "To me it was really personal that I made this miniature golf course for my son's third birthday," Jordan Netzel said. "All his friends came over and all family were here playing miniature golf and it was a great day. I remember the feeling of the day and I associate (that) with the video." Another great family video happened recently when The Lawn Tools built a baseball mound at Aaron Netzel's house and invited over all the kids. "I love watching that video because it's all our whole family just out there playing baseball and it's a fun day and it's a good memory for us," Jordan Netzel said. "It's nostalgic and it's my family and I love it. But that's not one of those videos that's going to go viral or anything. Some weird topics tend to get more views for lawn care." Aaron Netzel said at the time of this interview that his favorite video may be coming up soon in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. "We've got a couple of good ones coming up really soon," Aaron Net- zel said. "We've got a couple of other friends who really love making videos. Others are good at making animation. They're able to do some really cool stuff we would never be able to figure out to do. Said Jordan Netzel: "We'll fine-tune the LT Turf series over time and make it better and better and make it feel more cinematic as we fine-tune our editing skills and videography and everything. That's going to be really cool." Adam Sandler's yard Is there an end goal in sight for The Lawn Tools? Maybe, if you ask Aaron Netzel. "We're not stopping until we mow Adam Sandler's yard," Aaron Netzel said. "That's been our goal from day one." Aaron Netzel is a huge fan of actor Adam Sander's movies, according to Jordan Netzel. "He has seen every movie in chrono- logical order, I don't know how many times," Jordan Netzel said of his broth- er. "I don't know if (Sandler) likes his yard mowed," Aaron Netzel replied, "but I would like it." Jordan Netzel said his brother's wife once asked them both, what is the end goal of the Lawn Tools? When will you think you've made it? "I didn't have an answer for that," Jordan Netzel said. "I don't know. We're just doing this for fun. We'll see what happens. "(Aaron) pretty quick comes up with, 'When we do an LT Turf episode on Adam Sandler's yard, that's when we'll know we've made it.' So I didn't have a goal, but now my goal is to get him on Adam Sandler's yard and do an LT Turf episode." Siloam Springs Proud Wednesday, June 24, 2020 n 7C Herald-Leader with The Lawn Tools popularity in online lawn-care community Graham Thomas/Herald-Leader Lawn Tools." e two have posted more than 100 videos since November 2018 and have Photo courtesy of The Lawn Tools Jordan Netzel uses an implement to sand level his yard. Photo courtesy of The Lawn Tools There's nothing like having a putting green in your own backyard. The length of golf course grass was part of the inspiration behind The Lawn Tools.

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