As I sat eating my overpriced and entirely underwhelming tacos on Tottenham Court Road, I was feeling pretty down about being a professional YouTuber.
I’d spent all day rushing around the capital speaking to myself on camera only to be left disappointed with the footage and, to cap things off, with the dawning realisation that I’d agreed to join a team building event later that evening.
I hate team building and forced fun. Why had I agreed to it?
As it turns out, it all ended very well indeed. After some sleep. And one of the most intense mornings of work the next day I’ve ever experienced.
So, what went wrong on Wednesday? It wasn’t the content I’d created, at all - I was actually pretty happy with the narrative and the way in which I’d worked London’s landmarks into what could have easily been an incredibly dull review of smartphone charging accessories.
The issue related to the quality of the video and audio I’d shot - particularly the latter. I’m trialling a new vlogging setup, you see. As much as I’m now a big advocate of simply walking around with an action cam and decent wireless clip-on mic, some videos call for a higher degree of quality. However, I’m past the point of carrying my expensive Sony FX3 and Rode VideoMic Pro+ around in public, which is why I’m giving the Sony ZV-E1 camera and the tiny ECM-B10 mic a go. This combination of a compact full-frame camera and equally compact, battery-less mic appeared to be the perfect solution.
I’m sure it is - if you don’t rush the setup process.
I made two glaring errors before heading to London. The first was to set most of the camera to auto in an attempt to avoid any faffing about with settings during filming. For those interested, the settings were auto ISO, a constant aperture of f2.8, and the S-Cinetone colour profile.
The result? Overexposed footage.
The second error was to rely on the ‘NC’ setting on the rear of the ECM-B10. This, according to Sony, should act “as a noise cut filter to effectively eliminate unwanted sounds by digital signal processing”. It didn’t. Instead, it left me with one of the most unpleasant audio tracks I’ve ever heard; imagine weird fluctuations in volume and dynamics and an odd echo chamber effect, and you’re getting somewhere close to what it sounded like once offloaded to Final Cut Pro.
Filming YouTube videos is hard enough in the studio, but shooting them in the field adds multiple layers of complexity. There are changeable conditions, a race against the clock for decent light, and the need to boost your self-confidence when filming yourself in public. What you don’t need after all of that is crap footage.
Thankfully, the footage, in this case, is salvageable, and shouldn’t impact the performance of the video, but it doesn’t meet my standards, which is, I think, why I was so pissed off during that miserable taco-eating session. The fact I’d agreed to attend a team building event put on by a brand later that evening was the icing on a very miserable cake (although, I should note that I’m extremely grateful for the invite - and it turned out to be a great evening!).
The other reason for my dip in mood was that I knew I was behind with another big video. Upon returning to Leamington Spa after my tour of London, I knew I’d need to rise early and finish my Google Pixel 8 Pro review. And by “finish” I mean “start”. Despite having shot some b-roll and grabbed what I hoped would be enough sample photography a few days before, I hadn’t filmed a single piece of a-roll, and I knew the edit would be an absolute pig of a job.
The next day, I stumbled out of bed at 6AM, cursing the late train that resulted in a gone-midnight bedtime the night before. After a much-needed coffee, I headed to the studio and began working on a video which I knew I needed to publish by 3PM that day. I shot the a-roll and then spent several hours piecing together the myriad of footage from multiple cameras in an attempt to create a coherent review.
With half an hour to go before the desired publishing time, the video was finished, uploaded, and processed by YouTube. A short while later, it climbed to the top of the charts of my most recent ten videos. As I write this, it’s still at number one, having garnered more than 24,000 views and 157 new subscribers in just 16 hours.
Boy, did I need that.
To be clear, this wasn’t the main video I shot while in London - that disappointing footage is reserved for something else. But I did shoot part of the Pixel 8 Pro review while wandering around the capital, which means the time spent there wasn’t wasted at all. Even if the other video tanks, the few short minutes I spent filming the section of my Pixel 8 Pro review made the entire trip worthwhile.
This is the life of a YouTuber. It’s a rollercoaster. I’m not sure how one deals with it, or whether you even need to deal with it; in my experience, you really do have to take the rough with the smooth (I promise I’ll quit with the clichés in a moment) if you want to progress, learn, and avoid the trap of making the same mistakes twice.
I won’t use that ‘NC’ setting on the Sony mic again. I’ll never again rely on too many auto settings on a proper camera. I won’t pass judgment on an event I’m yet to attend and which I agreed to attend. These are lessons learned this week that will make for better videos in the future and a much happier YouTuber out on the road.
It’s rarely all roses, but I absolutely love this job.