How to set up Auto Pay for London ULEZ and Congestion Charge? Here's my step-by-step instructions for how I autopay ULEZ and the London Congestion Charge Zone payments. It's not a walkthrough tutorial video, but I actually pay the Congestion Charge and ULEZ by setting up a TFL London Road User Charging account with Transport For London on their website. Then I can start the Auto-Pay for ULEZ and Congestion Charge!
There's a bonus when I call the TFL Helpline for Congestion and ULEZ payments because I'm worried when our drive into the Zone does not show up on my account. They tell me that it takes 3 days for the visit to show up (It actually was the 4th day for me) and if you crack and pay for the trip, it will appear on your account and you won't be double charged by the Auto Pay.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
I know you don't want to do this, and I definitely do not want to do this, but I'm going to set up auto-pay for the ULEZ and congestion charges in London.
I'm sure you already know this if you're looking this up on YouTube. I didn't know it; I don't live in London, and I found out the hard way. London has a congestion charge in the centre. Inside and outside of that, there's a thing called ULEZ. People have a go at me for pronouncing it that. It's the ultra low emission Zone. I think some people call it ULEZ. I call it the ULEZ charge, and people have been making fun of me for calling it ULEZ.
Is it ULEZ or ULEZ?
It’s ULEZ.
So, ULEZ?
Yeah, U like the letter U.
Oh, okay. I've been saying it like the Wii U.
No, it’s ULEZ.
Okay, I'm gonna call it ULEZ.
If you have a vehicle that is not compliant, then you have to pay money. The rates that you charge and the times of day and the days they change every year, there's a link in the description to show you the very latest.
I'm doing this because I got fined. I didn't even know that there was a ULEZ Zone. It was before all of the latest publicity, but even now, we live outside London, we don't hear that much about it, so it might be a shock to you to find out through a letter in the post with a big fat fine, and that's why I made this video where I walk through how to pay ULEZ if you have been in London.
That link is in the description if you just want to pay it as a one-off. I got so many bad comments in that video, saying you're a traitor, how dare you pay this terrible charge, and I get it, I get it, but I got fined and I paid a fine, and I don't want to get fined again.
When you sign in to pay the ULEZ or congestion charge, it doesn't tell you if you have driven in the zone at all; you've got to guess, and it's down to you to say the days that you were there, even though they've got all that data, they're not going to share it with you.
Signing up for autopay on the Transport for London site gets around that, I hope. Let's scroll through the details. I'm doing this using just my mobile phone; you can obviously do it on a computer. The link for this site is down in the description of this video, so you can follow along and sign up too if this is something you're interested in. Oh, by the way, I'm Neil; hello, this is the Dad Delivers Vlog, where we try new things to make our families happy, and the new thing I'm trying today is not getting fined by the mayor of London for driving our terrible car.
Here's the site, and I'll scroll down so you can see the details. It actually explains what autopay is. There are two types of autopay, there's one for fleet cars. I wish. So I'm just going to be getting the personal version. Up here, it says the benefits of autopay, so that if you forget, it will pay it automatically. We're driving into London tomorrow, so I really hope this works; I can't afford another fine. There's apparently protection from penalty charge notices while you're registered, and you can register up to five vehicles. Again, I wish. And a few rules, you've got to be over 18, and I've got to link a payment card. Now there used to be a fee for this, which is why I haven't done it before. I think it was about 10 pounds a year. I didn't want to pay that because we don't drive into London that often. Wonder why. But with this autopay now, there's no annual fee. I'm going to set up autopay personal.
There are more details on this page, but I'm pretty sure that I need to set up an account. Yeah, it says it here, you've got to set up a London Road User Charging account, and I'll just need my vehicle details and my bank account details or my payment card details.
I'm going to click on the start button here. Now, it wants me to sign in with the account which I've not set up yet, so I'm going to click on "sign up."
On “create an account,” you've got two choices, basically personal account or business account.
Next, it wants our name, our email address, our address, and telephone number, and then it wants us to set up a six-digit PIN.
Next, it asks if you want updates on products and services. They've also got mobile phone text alerts. I'm ticked for mobile phone receipts, so I'm hoping that it will tell me if there's any problem or you know that they're actually the payment has gone through when I've traveled in the congestion charge or ULEZ Zone. You can also choose how you want to receive receipts. I'm choosing immediate because, again, I want reassurance that the payment has actually gone through.
Now we get to create a password, and it says “you're not finished yet”!
To continue with your application, please sign in, so we're going to do that now.
Next, you get to find your vehicle, and obviously be careful typing in your registration number, and you can add a tag for that, my car. But it tells me here and now that congestion charge should be paid and ULEZ should be paid, and I'll hit the terms and conditions, make sure that's ticked.
Next, I'm going to put in the card details, or if you're setting up a direct debit, you can put in your bank details here. So now it says autopay is a bit dark now, night time is setting in. Autopay is set up, one vehicle. You will now be charged automatically every month for each registered vehicle that travels within the congestion charge zone. Now it says it's going to issue monthly statements. I'm a bit worried about this because I want to know on the day that I'm actually paying it, so I'm hoping that when I drive into the zone, I'm going to get an email on the day to say, "You're good, you're paid, we get it."
So, should we test that now? Let's drive into London. It's a bit speeded up. I don't drive quite like this. I have my days, but this is actually speeded up, and you can see the exact moment where I'm about to cross over into the ULEZ Zone, crossing the threshold into the ULEZ, polluting London as I go. I'm so sorry, London. I'll make it up to you somehow. I'll plant a tree or something.
I actually grew up in London; I learned how to drive in London, but I thought I'd be nice, so I let this kindly old man cross the road with his walking frame, and watched... yep, see that moped driver just: “No! I'm just gonna keep going for it!”
Yeah, thank you. I went to him, and I think he thought I was complaining about the old man crossing the road, the arrogance of it. Anyway, we kept driving in, and we arrived in London's Olympia for a really terrible Lego brick Festival. It was rubbish; it was twenty quid and just stalls selling Lego, old Lego for inflated prices. But I have checked my London Road User Charging account, and there's no details there.
It's now Tuesday, so it's now two full days. I thought my autopay account would show when I've gone in there, so now I'm worried about whether or not I've got to pay manually. I don't know what the autopay covers, so let's call now Transport for London. We're going to call their helpline.
[On the phone call]
Are you calling to pay to drive in London?
No.
Please tell me your 9 or 10 digit account number.
Two zero zero.
Good evening, thank you for calling Transport for London.
I wonder if you can help me about autopay, please.
Do you have an account?
I do, I just said the number out loud.
Okay, is it the one ending zero?
Yes, that's the one.
How can I help you today?
This is the first time that I'm doing this. I set up my London Road User Charging account on Saturday, and then on Sunday, I drove into the ULEZ Zone.
Okay.
And I've gone into my account, and there's no sign of, you know, there's no charge, yeah, so, and I'm seeing things on the account that say, "You must pay the ULEZ when you travel in," and I don't know if I need to do anything because of my travel on Sunday.
Okay, so your autopay is all set up.
It will take 3 calendar days for that journey to show on your Auto Pay, so by tomorrow, that would be the third day. So that charge should show on the auto pay tomorrow because it’s the third day.
Brilliant, brilliant, because I was worried that I'll run out of time to pay it manually if it doesn't turn up tomorrow.
In the future, if you use that vehicle to travel and you make another - a manual payment - that charging will not be added to your Auto Pay because we do not double charge.
Brilliant, so if I pay it manually, I won't be like double charged?
No, if you pay manually, it will show on your auto statement. So what you need to remember when you travel is to count three calendar days after the travel date, and then you log into your account, and then you should see that charge added to your account. It will show you your registration number, the street where the pictures were taken, and what time and everything there, all the details of the journey. That's when we will upload your statement, and on each, you will see how much you need to pay and when we're going to request the payment by. That should be seven days after you receive the statement.
Now, here's the fun fact: the ULEZ pay to drive in London is based in Darlington, not London, because I guess London is too expensive to run it from there, for some reason.
It's lovely to meet you. Thank you. If you leave a thumbs up or a subscribe if this video is helping, it really helps me to run this channel. But I do more fun things like this! Here's what YouTube thinks you would love to watch next. Can you please help my daddy get 10000 subscribers? Just click on his face. Alright, this is gonna be the proper one, right?
With the release of @MrBeast Feastables here, we jumped in the car to go and try and find the chocolate bars... It was easier than we thought but we did hit a couple of fails along the way. Thanks Mr. Beast! My son's a fan of the Feastibles but my review isn't so glowing. And at £2.50 per feastable which is $3, it might be a while before we do this again.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Which is launching with three flavours: original, almond, and crunch!
Right, shall I do the intro? Hello, welcome back to the channel. I am concentrating 100% on the driving, but this is the Dad Delivers Vlog, where we try new things to make our family happy. And this is mental! What are we doing right now? It's in the rain, it's Saturday night, and I saw this on my LinkedIn of all places. I'm not sure that LinkedIn is the right place to make this kind of announcement, but yes, look! Mr. Beast is... he's been badly photoshopped in front of a random red telephone box that's clearly British, where he says that Feastables—I don't even know what Feastables are.
They're made with only five ingredients but still taste amazing.
But... but Feastables are available in the UK, but the announcement was a day ago, so I've now come out with my son. Hello! Hello! Thanks for coming, because obviously, we're both Mr. Beast fans. But we thought, well, will it fly off the shelves in the way that yeah Prime did for who's it Logan KSI Paul, the two Punchy men? So we thought we'd go out and get some Feastables because I'm sure they're going to be delicious and nutritious. It's the new Prime! It's Prime in... in solid form. It's solid Prime, but Prime's really easy to get now, isn't it?
So here's a spoiler. We do actually get a Feastable bar, but where will we get it? Will we get it in the small convenience store that's in the middle of nowhere, or do we get it from the giant mega Asda that's open 24 hours a day? So let's go to the first Spar, which is here in this petrol station. We've got to find the Feastables if they stock the Feastables, which we don't even know. So here we go with the first location, our nearest Spar, and I don't think this is gonna go well. Shall we ask?
Wow, that... right, so the Prime is a good sign that they've got other YouTuber products.
It’s two pounds!
Is it? Oh, oh my god, oh, it's there! It is! Well, that was easy. But how much is it? How much is it? Yeah, which flavor do you want? Got milk chocolate, milk chocolate.
Yeah, I would like some. I really want some.
Two pounds fifty! It’s from America.
It has come all the way from America, and I feel like we should look for others though. Wait, look, you can scan for prizes.
Oh, can you?
We might win a car.
So, you're scanning the... are the barcodes individual? Are they unique?
60 grams of chocolate. You know this is one dollar over there.
I don’t know if you heard that. That's 60 grams of chocolate. It's only in the... for two pounds fifty.
He knows that because Prime went up in the UK, then maybe his chocolate will...
I think in dollars it's about three dollars, three dollars a bar for 60 grams of chocolate, three bucks!
You went for the milk chocolate?
Yeah.
Devour!
Thank you.
Good.
Yeah.
Now, I thought it would be worth buying 10 bars of it, so you could sell them. But do you think it's going to sell out?
Well, should we get more bars and sell them? Okay, can I try some?
Uh, it tastes like American chocolate.
Which tastes like cooking chocolate.
There's no chocolate in this, it's just sugar.
It does taste like chocolate, but I feel like it's more chocolate than milk.
I'm a huge Mr. Beast fan, but that sucks. Oh, I can have another bit. It's too much chocolate. There's not enough sugar. 60 grams of chocolate. I think this like pound for pound like salmon would be cheaper than what I'm about to eat.
Oh, you can look at the um the ingredients. Oh, do you know what the ingredients list is quite small? That's why it tastes disgusting. So there's cane sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liqueur, whatever that is, chocolate liquor, milk, and vanilla powder, 44% minimum.
It's got so little chocolate in it.
How much per 100 grams? It's like three quid per 100 grams.
Yeah, it's quite a lot. Which is 30 pounds per kilogram, and I think the salmon is 12 pounds per kilogram. Oh, come on, have you scanned? I want you to enter for the prize. So there's the um QR code.
Okay, should we go somewhere else then? Should we see, yeah, where else these Feastable bars are? Asda? Okay, let's go to Asda next. We drive 20 minutes, um, all the way to this beautiful place. It's, uh, see if you're watching this in the states, maybe this looks like a Walmart to you. This is Asda in the UK. It's a gorgeous place, and it's Saturday night, so this is like our big trip out, which is kind of cool, isn't it? Do you think they'll have more bars here or less bars? You can see the kids there, there are kids coming out, looking happy, and they've got, they're filming themselves, everyone's filming themselves. They were YouTubers, weren't they? They're definitely YouTubers. They're dressed like YouTubers.
So it would be the chocolate aisle, wouldn't it? You want some Prime as well?
Well, I think we need some Prime to take away the taste. Yeah, the milk chocolate Feastable, the 60 grams, thank you.
I saw Taki... Takis for Seven quid, like a small bag of Takis. What are Takis? There's something you only get on YouTube. Yeah, they're American. Yeah, they're blue, they come in different colors, but they taste so good. That's all I want. All right, got some Prime, but no Feastables.
Lots of chocolate that doesn't cost £2.50 for 60 grams, okay. It's not in the chocolate aisle, but it was probably going to be at the end of an aisle with a special display. I think it's by the counters. I might be, it's gonna have a special display, isn't it? They might even just put it up yet. I've just realized that's a Mom... Mum said no Prime over there. That is a Mum said no Prime because it's in somewhere random like that's Mom said no. I think, I think you're right, it's gonna be like next to the tills, isn't it, or at the back? They don't make it easy. They make you walk through the shop to find it.
Excuse me, hiya, do you know if, um, there's Feastables, the Mr. Beast chocolate bars? We had two, um, side frames, one, but we haven't got any left. All right, do you know how it went? How fast they went? They went as quickly if they were gone in like three days. All right, thank you. That's okay, thanks. Three days, they've been out. They've been out for three days. LinkedIn lied to me, for a start. Jimmy lied to me. How did he lie to you? Well, he said it's out today, about one day ago. No, but did you look at the date of the post? Well, I'll have to check now. Okay, great. Well, that's us propping up the YouTube economy then.
[Music]
We knew it, we knew that Asda would fail us. I want to know what happened to the display because that display would be worth something, wouldn't it? A Mr. Beast what? But I don't know how you'd get a massive cardboard display out of the Asdas. Should the thumbnail be us holding bottles of Prime? Let's do that. Let's do that. One final place to go, and that is the um A Little Spar in the middle of nowhere, even more in the middle of nowhere than the last Spar. Oh, this is... it's getting cold. I'm cold and tired, and the buzz from the 12 grams of chocolate I had is wearing off.
Dad, yeah, found it! Oh, well done. Hey, Crunch!
[Music]
Puffed rice. So it's got less chocolate in, yeah, or peanuts. Oh, Deez Nuts. Where they’re making funny jokes. Do you know if many people have come in for these?
Yeah, it's selling quite a lot.
Yeah, I mean it seems quite popular.
Don't think it's got quite the hype as Prime has.
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks for your help. Thank you. You too. So that's a win. We've got the... Do you want the receipt? We jumped right into the car to enter the Mr. Beast contest, where you can win an Aston Martin, and we just... we just couldn't get it to work at all. It felt a bit Shady. You have to put in your phone number, email address, obviously so they can contact you. There are loads of boxes to tick for lots of marketing, which is fine, but we couldn't enter. We uploaded the receipt and we ticked the terms and conditions box, but it just kept telling us to tick the terms and conditions box. So we... we give that a big thumbs down, but we still love Mr. Beast and wish him all the best with the Feastables. I guess it's a win that we even managed to find two bars. So I'm calling this a, uh, I'm calling it Dad Delivers success. My son worked out that I would need three thousand people to watch this video to get the money back. So thank you for making it to this part of the video. Really appreciate it. And right here is what YouTube knows that you're gonna love watching next. Can you please help my daddy get 10000 subscribers? Just click on his face. Thanks. Bye. All right, this is gonna be the proper one, right?
Solomon Jagwe is a phenomenal YouTube creator, writer, animator and filmmaker. His channels explore the tools for animation, AI and filmmaking, which help his audience to create exciting new worlds and characters. In this episode Solomon explains the highs and challenges of making videos for YouTube and running his channels.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
With Nvidia Studio, they updated it where they have artificial intelligence in it that will take your eyeballs, right? They replace your eyeballs using artificial intelligence, and they make them focus on the screen. So, if you could, I could literally be looking over here, but the AI is making it look like I am looking at you. Like, seriously, right now I'm not using it so you're not freaked out.
[Music]
Welcome back to the Great British YouTubers podcast with me, Neil Mossey. Hello! It's the place where we share tips, tricks, and experiences from creators around the world. But very literally today, it's a special edition. We're going Stateside - Great British YouTubers podcast USA Edition. We are meeting writer, filmmaker, animator, YouTuber extraordinaire - Solomon Jagwe.
Hello.
Hello! Thank you so much for joining us on this episode because you have a number of YouTube channels. But your main channel has, I think, 644 videos, 22,000 subscribers, 3.2 million views. It's absolutely incredible. Before we go into the details of your channel, Solomon, what would you say to your 15 subscriber self? What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were starting out on YouTube? I probably would say, "What are you thinking?" You know, because I had no idea what I was doing. When YouTube first came out, I've been on this platform for a long time, actually. And it wasn't until the pandemic that my wife sat me down and said, "Do you know that you're sitting on a gold mine?" I was like, "What do you mean?" She said, "Come, I have a video to show you," and she showed me a video of another YouTuber who set out the cash - I saw the trend. I'm like, "You mean you can make money on YouTube?" And she's like, "Yes, look at what this guy did," and he said, "You're perfect for it." I'm like, "Oh my gosh!" So when I look at where I am now, I'm like, "Why didn't I start earlier?" You know, like, what was I thinking?
That's what I would say to myself.
Are you able to describe your channel?
My channel has gone through an evolution. There was a time when it was dormant, me just throwing videos here and there. The early videos that I did were really just tests with me not saying much at all. Like, if I created a cool video in 3D, I'll just throw it up and then go my way. I didn't even care about subscribers at the time. It was nothing, it was just a platform to... almost like an archive, like something I can go back to, like a time capsule of sorts. Currently, the way the channel is set up is seeing how far I've come in this industry and seeing that I am an immigrant from Africa, having been able to make it to the U.S., have been made it through the defense contractor while creating video games, creating cinematics and animation, and creating films, and then creating an animated series as a one-man team. I've wanted to find a way to help other people who are on a similar path. Like, you can actually start somewhere, and I wanna show people, "This is where I was." You know, at one point in my life, I was a young African boy in a village somewhere, walking barefoot, having no idea what a computer is, to where I am now. And I want to encourage anyone who has a dream out there - the day we are living in an amazing time right now, the tools are on our fingertips right now, you can actually bring your dream to life. Yeah, that's so true, it's so true. And at the moment, Solomon, your main channel, it seems to be how-to's and tutorials in animation and animation technology. Would that be a good way of describing it? Yes, yeah, because one thing that I've always been as an artist is that I've always tried to do things a little bit differently. Like, how can I improve myself? I've never been comfortable or happy with how good I was yesterday. I'm always trying to better myself as an artist. And so, when I look around, I'm always looking around for tools that can help me tell my stories better. Like, I do a lot of facial animation and storytelling that is emotive. And so, I've always tried to find technologies out there that could help me. And when I find it and I'm able to do something really good with it, I share the showcase, and then I show the behind-the-scenes of how I brought it to life so others can learn from that as well.
One of your videos was absolutely incredible. I hope I explain it correctly, but it seems to be that you had created a script in AI, and a narrator, a human narrator, envisioned telling the story, and it was illustrated by AI. I mean, it just seemed so far ahead and yet so on the cutting edge of where we're living right now. How was that video to make?
I think, just like any artist out there right now, in the moment that we're living in, it is scary, you know, to see what AI is capable of doing, right? And you are constantly thinking of your job security, you're thinking about your style being taken by somebody else and essentially competing with you because someone can literally go into a pitching session having said, "According to the style of so and so," right? And then they present something similar or even better than yours because they're able to do multiple iterations with no effort.
When I did that video, I was like, can I actually... how far can AI really go in terms of storytelling? Can it do the facial animation? Can it do the script? Can I then take that text and then do an audio narration out of it? And I come from an environment in Africa where we grew up with storytellers around us, you know, with our grandparents who sit us down and they will tell us stories. But now we have this platform that can actually do a lot of that, right? And you can take a voice from somebody else, replace it, and so I was testing it to see how far, you know, in a way it was like, can this take my job? Can this technology take my job? And the more I think about it, I'm like, yes, we're going to be very easy to replace. And the reason I say that is because I was thinking about even, you know, the Tesla company, you know, the factories. I was watching a video, and I saw how these machines are able, they own a factory line, they're assembling the Teslas, and there was no human intervention. The only time that there was a need was when there was something that needed to be articulated and pushed into, like, a connection, like, you know, in the engine parts of it, and that's where the robots didn't have the dexterity. And so, as AI is advancing, I see more and more of that happening. And I mean, you can see the uproar right now online.
You guys are happily creating these things with midjourney, but that's on the back of artists who have come before. AI cannot create something out like in a vacuum. It needs to learn from someone, just like us as artists, we have to learn from somewhere to create. But the problem with AI is it's taking someone's hard-earned... hundreds of hours, years of learning to create that style, and then making it so easy for other people to recreate that with no effort. So someone who is like a writer doesn't really have to hire you if they would... if they want to create, like, a book cover, they can just say, "In the style of this person." The engines are getting better and better and better. In like midjourney 5.2 right now, it's crazy.
It's getting better and better and better, and after a while, I don't know if there will come, like, a time where there's a loop where it is ingesting its own what it has learned, like it has now its own database, now it's learning from that, and then you're starting to see things differently. But the offset was, it started off with a database of images that were scraped over the internet to create that. But when I created that video, it really was a test to see how far I could really go, yeah.
It's a really amazing video. I'll link to it down in the description. What is your favourite video on your channel?
Man, that's a hard one. Yeah, I think the most recent video that I've done, using the metahuman animator, of a meta human singing with me wearing a motion capture suit, I think that, to me, is a combination of all the things that I've been wanting to do over a period of time, to get convincing facial animation and be able to express something that is inside, because I really do lean on my faith a lot, and in all my videos, I always finish it with... I'm praying for you guys, you know, please stay safe and all that, because I truly believe in that, I truly believe in the spirit of love, and so that's the first time that I've really created a video and I'm like, it came out like I really wanted to, you know, so I think it is my favourite, but I also love to sculpt.
My most popular video is probably one of my favourite videos as well, being able to sculpt in real-time on an iPad Pro, that is also one of my top favourite videos, I think.
Can you tell me about your other channels? You have more than one channel, don't you? This is funny because the last time I made a mention of AI on my channel, I lost subscribers. Like, artists are really upset that I even dare to mention AI and...
No!
I was like, "Oh my gosh, yeah."
How many subscribers is it significant?
At the time, I think I lost about 10 subscribers in one of the videos, yeah, and it was jarring. I'm like, guys, I usually do these things, like, I look out there for technologies that are coming up on the market, and I share with you, but there was, like, when I say when I talked about AI, at the time, it was right in the heat of the moment, you know, where there was such an uproar, like anger in the art community. I could feel it, it was almost palpable, and I was like, "I understand, guys." So, I made a promise. I said, "Guys, I hear you. I am not gonna talk about AI in the way that, you know, where I'm experimenting with it. I'm gonna create a separate channel so that you guys who don't like AI can still enjoy the content on this channel, and for those of you who feel like you still want to know where this industry is headed, you can go to the other channel." So, I create a separate channel, and it's called Soreel RND. It really is like research and development, and it's about AI. There I unashamedly just go through and test products out there that are using AI and not worry about people saying, "Why are you creating this kind of content?" Because on YouTube, you get boxed in in a way sometimes, it's a good thing sometimes, not, but when people start expecting a certain way, and YouTube also expects it, like when they start seeing a trend on your channel, and then they recommend your content to a specific group of people, those people have a specific interest, you know? So, when that specific interest is threatened, they will leave. They are not gonna stay around because they feel like, "I don't need to be here." So, that's why I encountered that in real time, I experienced it, and I'm like, I understand, let me create something different outside of that. And then I also have another channel for Nkoza and Nankya, which is for our children's animated series.
How did that channel come about? That one actually is a product of our homeschooling journey with my wife, and so, my wife is African-American, and I am from Africa, in East Africa, Uganda. And we were trying to find a resource for our kids to learn about my culture, right? And so, the two characters that you see on the website are actually inspired by my daughter and son, and earlier on in the process, they did the voice acting. So, right now, we're going through, like, our actual situation where they've outgrown their characters because my son's voice has deepened, he's no longer playing the little boy, let's say. So, just like YouTube channels go through phases, yeah, this series has gone through phases, where even earlier on in the process, we had, like, a different type of look and feel, we've rebranded, and all our characters now match the comic book characters that we have in our three books that we've made. But it's one of my, that's my favorite project to work on, is that because I love creating content for children, and it's really a testament to my grandmother who I grew up with in the village. Because I remember in the 1979 war of Idi Amin da da, I think most people in the world relate Uganda to Idi Amin, but for me, I was a kid at the time, and I was in the war was going on, and I was in the village with my grandmother, we didn't have any sort of entertainment, and the only entertainment I had was my grandmother sitting me down in the evenings, to tell me stories of folk tales, and she would say the same story multiple ways, and that's how I learned to tell stories. And creating content for children, it's a legacy of sorts because my grandma has passed away, and I am doing my best to pass on that legacy of storytelling, African storytelling, to future generations.
It's amazing, isn't it? Because I, you know, I grew up in a time before YouTube, and the idea that we have something that is accessible for free, forever, globally, is mind-blowing. Once the channel started growing, companies started reaching out to me, and then I got access to hardware that I never could afford before, wow! And so, not everyone, like people in my audience, can afford the kind of hardware that I test, but I show them what is possible. That the next time you're thinking about going beyond the idea that you have, and you have a budget, this is the kind of quality that you can create with the hardware that's on the market right now.
So, brands reach out to you to get onto your channel?
Yes, my favorite supporter, I guess the sponsor in all of them, is... I don't know if it's okay for me to mention this, yeah? Yeah, on your channel. Puget Systems, they've been so helpful, like there was a time when I was struggling to render some of my characters in The Adventures of Nkoza and Nankya, and they put together a system with 286 gigabytes of memory, with an eight-terabyte storage, yes, you know, and I was using the Unreal Engine, I was just... I just couldn't introduce the Unreal Engine, and the Unreal Engine needs a lot of space for the projects. This system changed the way I do animation, I sped up, and it made me create my videos much faster for YouTube, like even there's a character that I created, he's a meta human, almost like a reggae star who was trying to find his way in The Metaverse, and he's trying to get gigs. He's an older guy, he's struggling because he's not getting the gigs that he's supposed to, but he goes out into the metaverse and says, "You know, performing at different events." I embody him and I talk as a YouTuber as him sharing my journey, and the first video that I did, I partnered with Reallusion and we did the "No Metahuman No Cry." That was the first video of him in his course, like his journey out in the world. And once that video became successful, I was like, "You know what, let me do a spin-off of his journey so that people can follow along." And the Unreal Engine and Epic Games changed my trajectory because I, before, I never been able to do, like, a realistic character, ready for motion capture for both the body and the face, and create a character and a personality. And I was actually invited on Purple Beach in the UK as a meta human, and I turned up, I showed up at the event as the master. The Purple Beach team invited me, and they first introduced me as Solomon Jagwe, and then they say, "He has a metahuman friend that he would like to, you know, who's been invited." So, I switched the character from what they were seeing on Zoom to the metahuman, and that was the first paid gig for my meta human, by humans paying him to actually show up as a virtual character.
My gosh, you mean you can actually make money as a digital entity, and so that changed my the way I saw video being in the Unreal Engine and the meta humans, that you can create a Persona that gains value, that I can actually start earning you money.
Absolutely brilliant. And Solomon, aside from the actual animating itself, what are the hardest parts that you find running a YouTube channel?
Being a YouTuber, and I just stumbled into it, so there are people who probably have more professional opinions and who have been doing it much longer than I am, more successful, but I think the challenge is when you have to do things yourself, you know? You have to be the crew and the cameraman, and I see like people like Mr. Beast, they're now production companies. He just has to show up in front of the screen, yeah, it has a whole team, you know, that works with him. But when you are still growing, and that is still... even though I'm at 22,000 subscribers right now, it's still relatively small compared to the bigger channels, right?
I don't make enough money to pay a team. I look forward to that, to a point where you can just... it's a business, because it has become a business, and I think the challenge that I'm encountering, and I didn't realize before, you have to see it as a business. You have to have an LLC, you have because you can't, at some point you're gonna grow, right? And you're gonna miss out on opportunities, entities for bigger companies wanting to work with you if you're not an LLC. Like, right now, I'm seeing more traction with bigger businesses wanting to work with me, because I might have an LLC, then when I just was an individual. And also, you don't want your home to be at risk, you know, should something fall out, people will take your property. So that's why it's very, very important to see this as a business as fast as quickly as possible.
And also understanding that at some point you may want to not be the business, you know? You may have to hire other people at some point. So, I've been having to read more in terms of business, of how a business operates, to understand how well I can, you know, posture myself for growth because once I get, once you get to 22,000, new opportunities open up. I remember when I used to see people getting, like, I’d see this little monetary icon on other people's channels, and then when they showed up on my channel, I'm like, "Oh, people can actually give me money by just clicking on that little button." And then now you can tag products in your videos when you have 20,000 subscribers. I never had access to that before, you know? So, then new things that are coming up, where YouTube is looking at these channels that they know they can use to get more ad money, you know? And so it's been a challenge, but I've done better of positioning myself so that channel can grow because if I stay as an individual and not as an LLC, it's not gonna grow. It's just gonna be a channel where companies really want to partner with you, but they don't know how to partner with you, and you don't want to put your home at risk if you have a family.
The other challenge has been the changing landscape of YouTube algorithms and how nothing is set in stone. It's like they're experimenting with us because they want to make money too. They're trying to figure out a way to, like, how do we help these channels get us more money.
"It’s true, they’re holding us upside down, shaking us for money! And so, and also trying to understand shorts, they say you're gonna make money from it, but then I see that there's a window upon once you upload that Short, okay, few hours had passed, yeah, and then it's put on the home and then you see it shoot up and then it's flat after that completely and then nothing happens after that, you know? I'm like okay, so that I'm I'm still getting grasp of how the Shorts work, yeah, but for me, I see there's a bigger goal out there because I want to grow the Nkoza and Nankya brand and then the YouTube channel, I just want to continue using it to inspire other people on the journey. So as this company grows, I want to continue showing people the behind the scenes of how you can run a successful company that creates content for YouTube, for merchandising, partnerships, and all that. I want people to truly grasp when you have an idea how far you can take it, how do you make toys, how do you partner with a toy maker? How does it go from a concept to the Shelf, you know?
Do you have favourite YouTube channels or influences? Yes, yeah, Marques Brownlee is one of my favourite channels because I saw a video of him when he was a little boy, you know? That video is so cool because it shows where he started and he had a little voice, he was just a boy that didn't know how to do, but he was really ahead of his time, you know? And I saw him reacting to that video, so for me, that is so heartwarming because I see my journey as a YouTuber as well. It's a compounding effect, you have to create content, you have to create videos because if you don't create videos, the channel is not gonna grow. YouTube doesn't know you, they need to know you by the content that you create, so if you are just haphazard, then they will not know who to recommend your videos to. But once you do, you do something consistently, then they'll understand what to expect from you and so that they can bring people. It's like a Marketplace, if there's a store on the corner of a market and that store has mangoes every Market Day when people come to the marketplace they know what that stall is gonna do.
When you are able to identify what Niche you have and something that you can do joyously, you know, don't do something that you don't derive joy out of, right? I derive joy in helping other people see what is possible with art and animation because I will wake up and draw, no one has to prompt me, no one, I can draw if I'm watching something, I can draw out in the world if I'm on a train, I'll draw. But I'm always drawing, thinking of how can I bring this to life. So find something that's really, really you're passionate about and you know that if you walk up and no one ever paid you a penny, you would still do that, then you'll be successful in your channel.
So true, so true. And are there any other channels that you watch regularly? I also like William Faucher, he's a like an Unreal Engine expert because I want to get into unreal engine and do the best I can with it. So he's one of those channels that I love watching. Do you have a drink there? I do, oh good, yeah. Should we have a little drink break?"
[Music]
And you too, have a drink with us, please. People will pick up on the vibes on your channel because there's been a video where I've created a video and I was really passionate about it, and someone has left a comment saying "I love you" in uppercase, you know? If you can create that kind of reaction in a person, you know you've hit a gold mine, not a landmine, because you're gone there.
It's positive.
Yes, well, a gold mine because when you create a video that changes someone's life, then you've made a video that is really impactful. And I think the video that has the most views on my channel, the one where I'm sculpting, people were blown away that you could actually sculpt on an iPad Pro, right? Like, people have had their iPads all along, but they didn't realize you could actually sculpt, and people are probably thinking, "I need to go buy a Cintiq to be able to sculpt," and they have the Apple pencils all along. So when I see the comments in that video and how people are reacting to it, I'm like, "My gosh, I didn't know you could do that."
The fact that you can do that on an iPad is amazing, and I could picture people in their living rooms somewhere sculpting away on their iPad. So, it's almost it created a movement of artists who are like, "You mean this has been sitting here all this time, and I could actually use it?" So, that was my proudest video.
Solomon, what tiny improvement would you make to make YouTube better? Something that I encountered by chance is I've always been able, I have wanted to loop a video because sometimes I find like a music video that I want to, I love playing in the background while I'm sculpting or animating and things like that, and YouTube has never really outright had a button of looping. Every other player in the world, I know, has the ability to loop, and for some reason, even now, like how you can, I go to a channel and I look at a video, and there's no loop button. It was only recently that I was on the app, and I had to go into settings that I found it. It actually is in there that you can loop a YouTube video, but it's not on the desktop version, and yet when I'm animating, I'm on the desktop. So that's one thing that I would love for them to make outright, like expose it to the front where you can loop a video. It's actually an opportunity for them to get ad revenue from constantly, you know, the same video if it's, I really like it. Yeah, so please add a loop button.
Yeah, YouTube, do that! That's a genius idea!
Maybe like a recommendation, I would like to be able to recommend my own videos to other people, you know? Like if I see a video that there should be a button on a video that says "recommend," and in there, recommend to all my subscribers. Because when you post a video, only like 10 percent is sent out to people who have notification bells turned on. But you have thousands of subscribers, but only a small, small percentage of them get notified when that video is sent out. So I want to be able to contact my subscribers, you know, like send things out to them and tell them, "Hey, guys, I think this is a really good video you should watch."
Absolutely, that's a brilliant idea.
Is there a video on your channel that you love that doesn't seem to be getting the love that it deserves?
Yes, there's a video that I did, and I thought it was really deep, and it's actually not animated at all. It's I shot it, I went to the beach with my family to Virginia Beach, and I wrote on the ground in the sand, and the waves were waving, you know, coming back and forth eventually, and I remember feeling I was feeling burnt out when we took that trip, and I wrote in the sand, and the waves eventually came and washed away all that stress. And I was trying to encourage other people that, you know, take a moment sometimes to unwind and just, life is more than this, there's life outside of a computer. You need to step away, you need to disconnect, and things like that.
I think that video was really good, but it didn't get any traction. It's so unfair. I will definitely link to it up on the screen and down in the description.
Okay, yeah, it's really good, you know, YouTube never suggested it to you, but I am suggesting it. I'm recommending it to you.
Are there things that other YouTubers do that you definitely won't do?
Yes, I am not the kind to do crazy stunts for views, you know? And I know that's a thing, and I've actually talked to a friend of mine who used to do that kind of thing, and he no longer does it because he's now in a different space. It takes a toll. The pandemic was so revealing, you know? My goodness, it showed us that we need each other more than anything. You need people, and your mental health is so crucial to your growth, you know? You're trying to fit an audience that wants more and more of that, but you as a human being, you're not wired that way. It will deplete you at some point, and I've seen multiple examples of people who are depressed, having been through that. But no, I really value content that has a lasting effect, definitely, definitely.
Solomon, can we have a bit of a gear geek-out? Because I can see in the shot now, I can see a gaming chair, and I can see a really nice microphone...
What equipment do you use for your channel? I rarely actually appear in my videos, right? I don't know if you've noticed that. I rarely appear in my videos because I want people to focus on the content and not me. And even down the road, I want that content to be timeless because we are all gonna get older at some point. We grow hair, you lose hair, and things like that, maybe you have a pimple every now and then, like this one right here. I don't really shoot myself with footage, but every now and then, I'll get my phone and then start to record whatever I'm working on or even mount my phone on top of a tripod and record myself like drawing or sculpting, like the video that I did, but the one that has the iPad Pro.
For the phone itself, I'm using a Samsung S22 Ultra. It has a beautiful camera and it does a really good job. But when I need to show something here, then I shoot with my iPhone 10 to be able to record my Samsung phone. So it's like I go back and forth, depending on which one is right, and this one has a lot of space, and it's still doing its job. You know, I have not upgraded to a new iPhone yet because it does, and it took me a long time to upgrade to the 22.
In terms of gear, again, I had to upgrade my sound because people complained, and I go back and watch some of my videos, and I cringe because I can hear the audio, like, "Ah, come on, Solomon!" And so I invested in a much better mic, and also I use Nvidia Studio, which has a denoiser, and then I get much better audio as a result. And of course, this little guy right here makes a big difference because every now and then, if I'm too close, I don't want popping sounds and things like that.
The microphone and the computers are really what my content is about, and when I need to shoot outside, then I use my S22 Ultra.
I have two computers that I use. One is the Threadripper from Puget Systems that I do all the animation on, then I'm streaming it onto this machine, and this is the machine that I record on using OBS Studio, right? So really what it's doing is capturing this screen, and then I'm putting the screen through a little adapter, I pass it through OBS, and then I'm able to record whatever I am seeing on this another side.
Then I have this microphone connected to this computer. So that's incredible. So you're effectively streaming and recording, and you record the stream rather than stream it live?
Yes, I record the stream. So when I'm recording the stream, I'm really recording a production of what is being done on this particular computer. So you get way better quality, and you have the ability to change the transfer rate. When you're streaming, you want something less because on YouTube, you don't want things stuttering and things like that. But because I know this particular video is going to end up in Adobe Premiere, I just crank it up all the way.
I recommend that setup because it's technical, but I have a video that I actually recorded that shows the whole process. I had to repeat myself multiple times because it's kind of like wires, like this is connecting to this into this and into this and into that, and then now you see me. And also, there's a new update that came out, talk about artificial intelligence. So for the longest time, when I would stream as a YouTuber as a metahuman, I'd have trouble maintaining eye contact.
And in the Unreal Engine, it's only recently in 5.2 that they introduced the ability to lock the eye to something. With Nvidia Studio, they updated it where they have artificial intelligence in it that will take your eyeballs, right? They replace your eyeballs using artificial intelligence, and they make them focus on the screen. So if I could, I could literally be looking over here, but the AI is making it look like I am looking at you. Like, seriously, right now I'm not using it, so you know, freaked out. But when I'm streaming, it automatically takes away that hassle. And that's the thing about AI, you know? There are some things where it is so applicable, and it really takes away the tedious things that you as a YouTuber used to not be able to do, and you will blink. And when you blink, it disables the AI. The moment you open, then the eyes get replaced. Right? So it's crazy.
That's incredible! Oh, Solomon, you seem really prolific on your channels. Do you have a video idea that you really want to make that you haven't made yet?
Yes, my channel, I want to do more short films, from beginning to end, because I've been learning the Unreal Engine. It wasn't until this new update from Epic Games with a meta-human animator that now I feel like, you know what, the technology has finally caught up to my dream. Because I've been wanting something that I don't have to struggle so much when it comes to facial animation, and I can actually truly act out this story and it's captured authentically captured. So that when the performance is shown on the screen and you can see... when the two videos I just posted of the meta-human animator, the lip movement, the eyes, the expression, you know, is way, way better than we've been able to do in the past. And actually create content that matches up to what you see in video games and even better.
It used to be that those studios were creating that kind of quality facial animation, but now anyone can do it. It's actually free, and it blows my mind that Epic Games is still offering it as a free product. In the coming few months, I'm gonna be doing more short films so I can actually tell the story and also inspire other people, to show them... I took a song by a gospel artist, I lip-synced to it. I wore a motion capture suit, I wore a head-mounted camera rig. I didn't even have to care about it, and all I did was just record, press record, and I acted it out. I did the actual session, then uploaded it to YouTube. And one person commented and said, "My gosh, I'm now inspired to pursue my faith-based animation after seeing this."
And that's it right there. It's like now people seeing what's possible and saying, "This has actually helped me finally decide, you know, I'm gonna do it." That, to me, the goal is if I can help other people see what is possible and bring those ideas to life, I am a happy camper.
Solomon, thank you so much for sharing all these details about your channel. Where are the best social places to see your work?
Yeah, so you can find me on Twitter as Solomon Jagwe. I think I go by Soreel, S-O-R-E-E-L, and then I'm on Instagram, Solomon Jagwe. I'm on Facebook as The Art of Solomon Jagwe, and my website is sowl.com. You can find me on YouTube, Solomon Jagwe, as well.
It's really inspiring, and I can't wait to see what you do with the technology next. Solomon, I hate doing this, but would you mind posing for a thumbnail with me? [Music] The things we do for YouTube. We have to! And thank you for joining us. Hitting the thumbs up button helps others to find the show, and obviously, if you can subscribe, you'll get to see more brilliant advice from YouTubers. Like these episodes here, we'll see you on the next episode of the Great British YouTubers podcast. [Music]
This is my best YouTube gear for shooting outdoors. My YouTube studio setup... outside! My video runs you through everything: camera, monitor, teleprompter, microphone, laptop and power bank.
LINKS BELOW! 👇👇👇👇
CAMERA: Sony ZV-1 camera (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
hello welcome back to the channel
I'm just about to start recording a video for my other channel the dad delivers Vlog and I thought you might like to check out my location rig - just to see if there are any ideas here that might help you
so this is how we're looking in the garden on a very nice hot day
the Spider-Man towel is optional but what I've got is my trusty Sony zv1 camera with a neewer wide angle lens on it
but I've got that wide angle lens on to be able to hold THIS: it's my teleprompter and I have an ambitful or Pronstoor teleprompter
and that's reflecting this monitor underneath
the monitor is a PortKeys pt5 Mark II Monitor
and I've flipped it into mirror mode so that... you can't really see it can you because uh... because the bright sunshine.
I can see it with my eyes and that's reflecting my script up here.
Then on top of the Sony ZV-1 or ZV1 I've got a DJI mic - a wireless mic and obviously that is that's attached to this microphone here that you can hear right now.
And the whole kit is being driven by this power bank here and that is driving both the Monitor and charging up the the zv1
that's the Charmast 26800 maH power bank with three inputs and uh four smart outputs there
And then that is connected to this, which is my Apple MacBook M1 2020 14 inch and I've got that running out of a HDMI cable over to the... the teleprompter.
If I zoom in you can see probably see the words that I can see
and the only other essential bit of Kit is my apple juice with fizzy water - fizzed up by a SodaStream.
All of these items are down in the description I just thought you might you might like to see how it rolls in the garden in the summer here on the channel
THIS video shows how to backup or hide your channel and videos if you want to do that before deleting your channel: https://youtu.be/mIBAtXYj0bY
How to delete my YouTube channel? Or how do I remove my whole YouTube channel, including search history and watch history? Remove and wipe everything!
I'll walk you through how to delete your YouTube account step by step, which will remove your videos on YouTube. If you delete your channel, it will also delete all playlists, comments, replies and thumbs up on videos, your search history (searches) and watch history. If you want to back these up, use the video link above.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello, my name is Neil Mossey, and you are thinking of deleting your YouTube channel. Just removing it, disappearing it, making it go away. Or maybe you just want to start again.
I'm going to delete THIS YouTube channel in real time, step by step, so you can follow along with me and see how to remove a YouTube channel.
And the way to delete a YouTube channel is to go to your studio dashboard.
So, that's studio.youtube.com.
If we go up to the top left-hand corner, press those three bars for this menu, and we'll scroll down to the bottom here and choose settings.
Then, on the left-hand side of this pop-up window, hit “Channel” and then choose this tab, “advanced settings”.
Scroll down to the bottom and you will see two options: manage YouTube account or remove YouTube content.
We're going to click on remove YouTube content and then we have two options. We can either hide the channel, or we can choose to permanently delete my content.
This is a really big moment now.
It wants us to confirm that we know that the following will be permanently deleted: all my videos, my Channel, all my comments, replies, Thumbs Up, YouTube gift settings, search, and watch history. And there's another box to tick here, any paid subscriptions will be cancelled.
I don't do any of that, so let's hit this button, delete my content.
Shall I do it? You ready? Hold me.
Here we go.
It knows that this is a really big thing to do, so we have to confirm yet again that we know that this will permanently delete all our YouTube content.
Ah, just make sure I'm logged into the right channel.
Look, this is just a test Channel, but I'm still worried it's going to delete my proper Channel.
If you can still see this video, it didn't, so we will confirm it by typing in our YouTube address and then hit again delete my content.
Your content is being deleted.
Usually, this takes a few minutes as the message says, but it can take up to a couple of days if you have a lot of videos and a lot of YouTube content.
BUT before you delete your YouTube channel, here are 3 things you can do right now to backup or even hide your videos. That’s all in this video here. And thanks for being awesome with the thumbs up button, and say hi in the comments down below.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello, welcome back to the Happy Hut and the channel. I'm Neil, and this video is all about something I bought three months ago, and it's this. It's the DJI mic, and it's not cheap. And I bought it with my own money, but it was the money that I earned on YouTube. So thank you for watching these videos. And I've been using this pretty much every other day for the three months. I've made a couple of videos that are on the channel in the description down below, where I take the DJI mic out and about in Brighton to show what it's like vlogging. And another video where I go through as many features of the DJI mic as possible. Did I mention that it's wireless? So this microphone is sending my voice over to you now without any chords or cables, which really makes filming vlogs, in particular, much more easy. But three months ago when it arrived, I got the camera out and I filmed the experience, and you can see just the whole process of what happens when you buy this for the first time.
Links are down in the description if you want to buy one, and also for those other videos going into a bit more detail about how it sounds and what it's like to use. But let's open it up. This is how it arrives. You can hear me now currently on the microphone, the on-board microphone my Sony ZV1 or ZV-1 camera. So it's not sounding that great until I plug in this bad boy. Let's get rid of this terrible audio by seeing what's inside. This is a nice box of bits on top, and then, ah, underneath, this is what we're talking about. It doesn't quite convey on the videos I've seen how... or quite how small this is. A compact form factor. It's just a small size. So this is what the case looks like, and there is a USB-C charging port. There should we open it up. Oh my goodness, this is so nice. And look, they're lighting up. This is how one transmitter looks, and I'm tempted to do the Casey Neistat, Van Neistat thing of defacing it. I want to get my black marker pen and colour in this logo, just to tone it down a little. So I might do that later on camera. We have the magnetic, wow, it's really strong. So you've got the magnetic. I can't get it off. This is the magnetic dongle that you can put this behind clothing. Let me do this with a microfibre cloth. It's not very elegant, is it? Pretend that's my shirt. Maybe that should be my shirt. It just clips on like that, and it's fairly strong. I'm used to those magnets, of course, with the mount for my DJI Action 2, and you can use the Action 2 mounts if you ever want to use that for holding in place. And is that the right width? Look at that. Oh, look at that. Now, that is stylish design. Look, it fits exactly the DJI Action 2 Mount. That's incredible. There's a flashing green and red light, and I think that will be changed when I do my firmware update. I think I can dim those. This is the receiver, and we get the attachments. So I think I'm gonna try out plugging it into my Action 2. Also, tell you what I should do. I should clip this to me, right? So I'm now going to switch over to this DJI transmitter, which hopefully, that red light means it's recording. So, hello, can you hear me?
I'll just unzip. And so, we are now on the DJI mic, being recorded internally. And this is the other mic, so that's why we've got a two-mic setup. And you can't see one of the mics. And there's a handy arrow, so I'll just follow those arrows. And then, to switch this on, I guess it's the on button. There we go, oh my goodness, uh, English.
And then, I'll put in the date. But the date is already in. That's a very nice user experience DJI. Oh no, it's the wrong date, but it's actually one day behind. Oh yeah, look, it's four in the morning. Let's take that back to 20, and there we go. And I can see from here that what you're hearing right now is what I'm recording. So, I'm actually recording on mic number two, and this is mic number one. Should I put my number one back in the box? And I'm recording in mono, so I'm recording on both tracks with my one microphone. Let's put it into my DJI Action 2. And obviously, I will need my second screen because you can't plug it straight into an Action 2. Let's turn it on, I guess.
So, I'll put this screen on so you can see what I can see. Hello, here I am, got my hat on because it's really cold. Let's just plug it in and see what happens. So, I've no idea if you can hear me right now, but I'm hoping that you're hearing me. And what's really interesting that's happened is that I've got the mic in the box down here, and I've got mic two clipped to me. And look, it knows it is detected that we are just doing a mono recording of microphone number two. And if I lift this out of the box to see what happens, interesting. I thought this would come to life when I lifted it out of the box, but it didn't. Let's put it back, so I guess it's charging. Let's lift it out again, see what happens. Right, so the second microphone has come on, and you should be hearing a mono mix of the two microphones. If I tap this mic, I'm hoping you can hear that in the edit. I had never been able to get a mic to work with my Action 2. This is a very exciting moment for me to actually have an on-board mic that records for my Action 2. This is going to come in so useful. What isn't so great is that there is this gap here, which I guess you need. It needs to have some space to allow for larger cases, maybe the bulkier the metal cages. So, that's thoughtful, but it does mean that when you're on the regular camera, this is a big, big gap, and there is a bit of wobble and a bit of play. I could go out into the night. Should I just go out into the night? Said wow, this is the first time I was expecting to plug this microphone straight into my Sony ZV1 camera, which I will do in a moment. But this is what it's like. So, I'm out. It's night time. Look, there's a full moon. We have dropped down to the one single microphone on mono mode, which is great. So, let's go back into the... Oh, this is just so good... for you to be hearing me properly, and for me to not be tethered to this camera with a big old adapter.
This is so much more elegant. We have a lovely bag, and we've got two mini deadcats, mini deadkittens. And someone complained on my channel when I said that, but I work in the TV industry, and they are deadcats. That's just what we call them. TRS to TRS plug, although I think I'll use my Rode curly one because it looks nicer. Well, I did wonder because everyone's complaining that there's no storage for this. You've got to use a bag to carry this around, or else it's useless. I was wondering, is there space in the lid to store this? I don't think there is because look, that fits really snuggly. Which I'll just try it anyway, just see what happens. This isn't going to work.
And then there's a really nice USB A to USB C plug, so you can either charge it in here or you can charge the microphone directly just here, like that. There's a clip here to sit it on the cold shoe of the camera that I'm currently on. I've had to look up on YouTube how to do this, and what I didn't realize was this, this really does bend all the way back, and it really feels like you're going to snap it. And then you slide in through the arrow. I'm going to push this in, it really feels like I'm going to snap it. This is not a good feeling. I really feel like I'm going to snap this hinge anyway. So, it clips in there, and then you've got a really fun clip. This can now clip onto your cold shoe. Now, I'm going to face it this way so I can see the levels, and now I can just push it in this way. It does not, oh my goodness, it's the plastic-iness, does not feel like the $300 that I spent on it. But that is on the cold shoe mount.
Now, I can see that TX2, which is this microphone here, that is recording. So, that is quite reassuring that if that light isn't on, at least I'll know from here. I now have the DJI mic receiver plugged into my Sony ZV-1 camera, and I'm using the Rode TRS cable just because I like the funky red and the coil, but it does look a bit inelegant, doesn't it? That is just, that's like a rabbit is on top of my camera. So maybe the DJI mic lead is best, but I'll leave it there like that for now.
So, we've got the DJI mic firmware, and I will also download the transmitter firmware. That's a separate file. The address to get these downloads is dji.com/mic/downloads, and that link is down in the description. I now have to take off, obviously, the receiver. It says that I connect the transmitter to the computer using the USB C cable. I've got that, so I'll plug that in. I've dragged the firmware update into the F drive on the receiver, and now it says updating. And that's it, that's updated. I'm now going to update the mic by plugging in the USB C cable, and then I've got a really handy USB port over there. Plug it in. I've got a link in the description if you want a hub like this for your desk. The F drive has appeared, so this mic has appeared on my PC as an F drive, and I'm going to get that bin file that's marked TX for transmitter and drag it over to the F drive. And it looks like it's transferred almost instantly. It's doing all kinds of light show business.
Well, I guess it's updating, and maybe that's why it's flashing red and green alternately. And now it's showing solid green, so that's, that's looking reassuring. It was surprisingly easy to update the firmware, and I really recommend you do that if you do choose to buy one of these. The link to buy one of these is down in the description, and I've got two other review videos to show you what it sounds like and what it's like to use on a day-to-day basis out and about on the streets in Brighton. Those videos are there. Thank you for being awesome with the thumbs up and the subscribe button, and good luck with your camera audio.
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Do you, do you find, I'm going to ask you a question now, but do you find that some of your friends think you're a bit mad for doing it?
Yes, yes.
[Music]
Welcome back to the Great British YouTubers podcast with me, Neil Mossey. Hello. This is the place where we share chips? Oh that would be nice.
This is the place where we share tips, tricks and experiences from creators around the world. And right now, if I press this button, we are meeting this YouTuber: Candid Clara Reviews. Clare, can you hear me?
I can hear you, yes. Where are the chips?
Oh yeah, I'll have to leave that in now. But Clare, your channel Candid Clara Reviews has at the moment two and a half thousand subscribers on just 73 videos, which is absolutely incredible. I think it's only just been remonetized.
Neil, you're so full of flattering. I like to go with the... what is it? A million views? I... I'm trying to find the statistic that sounds impressive.
A million views sounds impressive, doesn't it?
1.3 million views. But not many subscribers yet.
For all of us trying to get monetized, if you could go back in time, what would you say to your 15 subscriber self?
I... I do think it is about volume, isn't it? It is about... um... I mean, you're the one who introduced me to the concept of the hundred crappy videos thing, which I think is so true. And I think you can give up too soon. I think you just have to push through blindly, ignore anyone who thinks you're mad because people will think you're mad. You say you're doing a YouTube, particularly if like us you're middle aged and they're like "Isn't that... isn't that for gamers and 17 year olds? What are you doing YouTube?" And I think you just... you've got to push through at least till you hit the 100 mark and see what happens.
Yeah, that was um... Roberto Blake: make 100 crappy videos. And some people have actually... some big YouTubers have reacted badly against that and said "No no, you shouldn't. You should..." I know.
I think it's so wrong. I think it's really bad advice to say "Hold back". You know, YouTube gurus who say "Don't put stuff out". I... I don't need help NOT putting out videos. I'm way ahead of you on that one Mr YouTube guru. Uh... I need to find ways to... to get stuff out. I... I figure if I learn one thing every time I do a video then I'm making progress. You know? And every single video I do there's something in it that's new to me that I'm doing that's better. You know? I've improved upon. I think you've just got to keep doing that and... and you know what? I... I don't think YouTube viewers want perfect videos. I think they want useful videos.
How would you describe your channel?
So... um... how would I describe my channel? “Could be better!”
No no no.
It's okay.
It's...
Every guest okay is... thousands of subscribers, millions of views and yet we manage to somehow find the thing that we're not...
Yeah.
100% Happy with.
Um... so I review products for family and home and I don't review like the... the techie... I don't review iPhones and all the sexy tech stuff. I review the stuff that we as parents generally have to go out and buy and it's things like washing machines and climbing frames and stuff that isn't particularly sexy but... but I am somebody who when I buy something I want to know everything about it before I buy it. And... and I think that's quite a male trait normally and in fact the bias on my channel is for male viewers but... but you know when we're buying online I want to know that stuff and you often can't find a way of finding it out. And... and so yeah, so things like how tall is that thing? How does that thing fit together? What does that look like when you open it up? And all those little gritty details and...
And one of those videos has done really well right?
Yeah oh this is funny so everyone says "What's your biggest video on YouTube?" And I really want to say it's something really exciting or funny or cool and it's a review of a washing machine.
Right not snowboarding or you know, parkour...
For a while my lead video was one that was a review how to make donuts in a donut machine and that... you know that's kind of cool isn't it? That's... that's quite cool but no the washing machine thing is not sexy, but yet people… people want to know.
So it’s like what? 175,000 views?
Yeah. And has it made any money?
Oh yes. Oh yeah. They’ve… they’ve all made money. And this is… I guess this was my problem is I stumbled into monetization and I took it for granted and then… um… I just thought it would carry on forever. I just thought YouTube would just keep sending me money. And then I stopped producing videos and dropped off monetization and then… uh… and then I’m like “Oh yeah, oh”.
So you like fell below the… the watch hours?
Yes.
Wow. I didn’t… I didn’t… I did not even know that that actually happens. That’s fascinating.
What do you mean, that actually never… cause it clearly happens.
Did they… did you… did they give you any grace period or was it that instant?
Yes, they gave me a grace period. So they said “Um, oh you’re in danger of dropping below the hours and why don’t you upload some new content?” And other stuff was going on in my life and I just was like “Neh neh, whatever, I don’t wanna”. And then of course the moment that they took it away I was like “Oh, how dare they take away my monetization? I want it back instantly”.
What is it about YouTube then? What is it… what… you know, apart from them… because I can’t imagine that the… the money was life-changing. So there must be something else about this platform that makes you want to compulsively put the next video up.
So different motivations at different times. When I was a blogger, it was money related because I was doing YouTube videos as part of like collaborations which were… I was being paid for. So yes, it was a financial incentive.
Coming back now, YouTube ticks so many boxes for me because it is the creative challenge and you and I know this so well of having to get our fingers into things that as media professionals we were never involved in before and now we have to get our head round and it’s lighting and it’s cameras and it’s sound and it’s everything that sometimes makes me want to scream but equally I love the reward of getting it right.
I think I’m going to be alone in saying this: I think YouTube is quite democratic in a way because you make content and unlike in the professional media arena, it’s not a manager who says “Yes, no, I like that, that isn’t good”. It’s the actual audience. So you get to put something out there, if it’s good it takes off and if it’s bad it doesn’t take off but there’s no gatekeeper on your creative content and I love that.
100%. For those of us going on camera for the first time, is there anything that you do where your presenter background has helped you?
I find sometimes I’m going to talk about a product and beforehand when I’m setting up lights and stuff I’m thinking “How… how on earth am I gonna… what am I going to say about this thing?” And something switches in my brain when the camera goes on that I just talk and I… I don’t know where it comes from but I can just waffle about… well not waffle clearly, it’s very incisive and useful content but I can talk very well about stuff and that is surely coming from conditioning of having done it for years.
It is. I think the hardest thing… um… this is what I find not having a background as a presenter is you start talking and then your brain starts analyzing what what I’m saying and then I stop and I start again and I watch back the recording and it was… it was totally fine but there’s this… there’s this kind of red light, there’s this stop sign that suddenly pops up like literally mid-sentence to say “That’s rubbish” or “You said that wrong” and yeah and it was fine.
Yes, it’s real. Like I say, it’s really challenging juggling all the elements that we juggle. It’s really challenging but potentially so rewarding.
What is the hardest part of running your YouTube channel?
I think it’s trying to be everyone. Trying to be the lighting person, trying to be the camera person. I constantly think “I’ve done this before and there was people to help me out”. And… and I can’t believe that I’m fast forwarding to this point now where there’s no one to help me and I’m expected to do everything.
I was recording a video recently in the garden and I needed to use a reflector and I didn't have a reflector stand so I had it attached to my light in the garden and then the wind picked up and the light was falling over halfway through and then the battery runs out in the camera. You know? And it's like "Ah". Yeah. Um... it's... it's really challenging.
I want to get to the silver play button. Are you obsessed with the silver play button?
Yeah, yeah. You know, I've got one in the background that my son made me out of hama beads. I don't know if I can... I'll zoom in on it in the edit.
And does it say "Congratulations, you've got 10 subscribers"?
Yeah, a thousand. We decided that the thousand subscribers is the... is the brown button.
Oh, that's nice.
What is it, Clare, though? What is it about that button that is entrancing, isn't it?
Oh, I mean, I literally... there's nothing else I would rather win. I mean, I used to work in... uh... radio so you know, the Sony radio awards were the big thing or the New York festivals. I... I honestly... I'd rather have... and I can tell you why. It's because if I did get a YouTube play button, it would be a hundred percent myself. Whereas if you... if you win a award for a radio award, it's... you might have a co-host or a producer or whatever. But if I got there, that would be a hundred percent me. You know? That would be my life.
And yet Claire, I find running a YouTube channel desperately lonely even though I'm in a house full of people. I just find this...
You're in a sauna aren't you? Isn't that a giant...
It's actually a barbecue hut.
But I just find it really lonely in... in... you know, you've got to kind of create this thing by yourself and then you might get comments or some kind of reaction but...
Well this is why Neil, I've got... I've got to set up this community right? So... so be interesting to see if anyone's listening who wants to join this community because I have this idea of setting up this... it's going to be the MidMod YouTubers and the MidMod YouTubers are middle-aged moderately successful YouTubers and I would like to set up this to help each other. So um... you can't join, I'm afraid, if you're young and beautiful. You also can't join... sorry Neil.
So that rules you out.
Um... and you can't join if you're ridiculously successful. So I think probably anyone who... who's got a play button we wouldn't let them come.
That's beautiful.
Yeah.
So we'll put details of that in the in the description.
I've got to set it up now.
You have. I think it's a great idea. So we'll put all your socials in the in the description and a link obviously to your channel. Is there a video on your channel that you love that doesn't seem to get the love that it deserves?
Oh, that's a good question. Um... I hope it's still live but I did one... my daughter learned to swim by the time she was three and when I was doing all my bloggy content, I did this lovely video about her swimming journey of how she learned. She learned with Water Babies, the company, and all about how that progression starts from 10 months all the way through to her diving deep down in a swimming pool at the age of three in France and... and I loved that video but hardly anyone's ever watched it.
We’ll put a link up on screen for it so it can have one last hoorah.
And on that front Clare, do you have any favourite channels or influences? It sounds like the mummy blogs might be uh big in your history.
I have lots of people who I'm slightly obsessed with um...
I know. In a borderline stalky way.
Don't you?
Yeah, 100%. So no particular order, this is not showing favouritism but can you flick through uh a few of them and we'll just flash them up on screen?
So Hayls World is one of them so this is and I'm particularly interested in her because she reviews tech stuff and I can see on her videos the progression if you go right back to the beginning she started out as a beauty blogger and so she's got her hundred crappy videos of being a beauty blogger and then suddenly hitting on something that worked with tech and then if you scroll through you can see "Oh when she got to 100000 she suddenly took on a premises and then she gets to 300,000 and she takes on a premises and she's up in the millions now and so I'm a bit obsessed with her because I can see that journey and that's really really interesting.
Oh, Freakin Reviews because that's an American guy who's who reviews products like me. The other one I... um... are very interested in is Fabulessly Frugal because she is a lady of a similar age to me and she's doing lots of... um... slow cooker content and things like that and she's doing really really well. And the final one, this is a bit of an outlier here, but there is a guy who runs a channel which is all about vacuum cleaners.
Okay.
All he does is review vacuum cleaners. He's had 129 million views. I think he's a brilliant example of of niching down and just working out what you're really really good at and producing really informative videos and he's... I'm not quite sure how to pronounce his channel but it's Ibaisaic I believe. I just think good for him. He's found the thing that works.
I think we... I think we're about probably halfway through. Should we... should we take a little drink break?
Yeah, yeah. And you too, you too at home as well. [Music]
Cheers.
Did I do that right?
That was wonderful.
You’ll make people want to go to the loo!
Always. I don't need the drink to do that.
Clare, what's... tiny improvements would you make to make YouTube better?
I would very much like to have the facility to replace a video with another video.
Oh, that's genius.
Yes, because I had this really painful experience in the last month or so where I put a video up, it got great traction and then I went to put subtitles on it and while I was putting subtitles on it I realized it was a chunk about 40 seconds in the middle of the video where I doubled up the audio in the mix. So I had to pull the video and re-upload it and it didn't get the traction that the first video had got. I find that very frustrating. I mean, in podcasting you can... you can just remove the file and put another file back but you can't do it with YouTube.
Yeah, YouTube, change that. That's pretty... that... that is absolutely... that would be transformative. That is the best suggestion.
Also, the end screen thing, the... the like the editor for the end screen thing is horrible, isn't it? Um... you know when you have to sort of drag it to where you're into... that's horrible. If they could just make that a bit more intuitive, that would be good.
That's another good one but not as good as being able to just replace out a video. And I... I would totally get if they... reserved replacing the video for people who were partners, you know? So you... so you couldn’t just do it immediately... you couldn't just set up an account and just be able to swap your content because people could abuse it. But if they said "And if you did abuse it, you would just be taken off the partner thing". You know? If you put something completely different on there, they would just go "Uh, strike. You're not being monetized".
Do you... do you find... I'm going to ask you a question now but do you find that some of your friends think you're a bit mad for doing it?
Yes, yes. And yeah, yeah they do. And I have friends who work in traditional media and it's like "Oh yeah, well done Neil. That's really... I watch your videos". And they do but I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Okay. People outside of media and they sort of say to you?
“Oh so what are you doing at the moment?”
And you sort of go:
Well, I'm doing stuff on YouTube. Do you find them sort of going "Uh"?
Yeah, I do. And I find myself holding back as well. I did this... I was actually on a shoot holding a camera with my friend who has 150,000 subscribers.
Oh, he can't join. He can't join the MidMod vloggers by the way.
He should be an honorary member but... um... you know, you get some kind of... honorary member coat.
But so the... the person behind the counter said "Are you a YouTuber?" And I could not bring myself to say "Yeah". Even though I am. I'm double trebled down on this platform. It is my happy place, my medium. Even then, I couldn't say "Yeah, I make YouTube". I... I think I played it down and said "Oh, do a bit on the side". You know? It's like... what... what certification would we need to say "Yes, you do this"?
Silver play button.
You think it's that?
You've got it all done. I'm gonna tell everyone when I get this silver play button.
I'll be like "Hello, I'm Clare and I have a YouTube channel and I have a silver play button".
I mean, a hundred thousand is really impressive as well and you're a lot closer to it than I am and... and I mean, I... I've been watching your figures tick upwards even in the last couple of months. Have you found that your subscribers have sort of accelerated the more you've got? Because I have a theory and on views too that the more you've got them all a bit more appealing you are.
It definitely compounds. And you found that?
You know, just by sticking at it. You know? To get from 46 subscribers to two and a half thousand. You know? That is a huge huge multiple.
I've had a growth spurt.
The Google video?
Yeah, yeah. Google photos video. So one video is responsible for all of the views of all my other videos combined. It's double that. So it's a real outlier and it's not really that hugely linked to to you know, the topic of my channel. So I don't think it's harmed the channel. Just from my experience, if you're thinking "Oh, if I have a slightly left field video, I'm worried that that's going to wreck my channel". I don't think it's true. I think what it does is it put you in a shop window.
Yeah.
People will come and take it or leave it but... but I do worry that that one video will become dated. They all have shelf lives so... so I'm worried that it's gonna drop and then I won't feel quite as excited about the channel but...
So I'm just trying to ride it.
Isn't that hilarious? I mean, you're saying now what exactly what you were saying to me earlier which is kind of we get to a place where we've achieved something but then we're already anticipating the problem or or what we can improve upon or you know and... and uh... it's like just... just live in the moment.
You've got so far.
Completely.
Can we have a little bit of a gear geek out?
A gear geek out?
Oh, what... what do you use Clare to make your Clara reviews?
Um... an interesting question. So I have a Lumix um G7 camera which I bought quite a while ago maybe eight years ago. That's... that seems quite a long time ago when the Canon G7X was really really popular vlogging video. It was the first one where it had the um the screen on it you could sort of turn round and that was a big thing and I nearly bought that and funny enough, I watched a YouTube video and the camera guy on the YouTube video said "I wouldn't bother buying this, I'd buy the Lumix G7 because it's got an input for a microphone which the Canon didn't have". And I'm very grateful to that cameraman because I'm still using it all these years later.
What else do you use? Do you have a microphone to plug in?
So yeah, I have a corded um uh what are they called?
Yeah.
Clip mic. It's got like 12 names.
There's clip-on lavalier...
Thank you yes um so I have a corded lavalier mic and I'm really envious of your uncorded one and that is my next purchase and I have it in my wish list on Amazon because every time I'm recording something, I spend a lot of...
That's my dog. Do you hear my dog barking by the way?
I did. You've got a good microphone to pick...
My dog wants to go out so... um... but I'll finish this and I'll go and let the dog out. Um... no, so every time... I'm recording, I have to do ridiculous things like climb underneath desks and stuff because I'm attached to the bloody camera and it... and it's so irritating. But I will upgrade but just like you know, I'm gonna... it's gonna be at a point where it's worth doing it.
Because you... you have a podcast, right?
Yes, I do a bit of podcasting. That's my main job. Um... and uh... yeah, so I have um... the Shure... which model is this? This is the Shure that everybody has and I can't remember what model it is. The SM7B. I might be making that up.
No, that sounds... that sounds right.
Yeah. Everyone, all the huge YouTubers yes swear by it.
It's a fantastic microphone. And what's really funny is my 11 year old son is desperate to set up a gaming channel and I'm like "If you start the gaming channel, I have the best microphone for you. You could just record on this and you'll be like leagues ahead already because you'll have a brilliant microphone".
That's brilliant that you... that you shared like that. That's fantastic. And... and I've got to say, you've got um... is that your dog over your shoulder?
It is! Tell you what, can I let my dog out the front door just...
Please do so this is our doggie walk break. If you have a dog, now's a good time to let them out. If I have a... have a little walk while I do that. I actually... I've actually got Casper down here in the happy hut very patiently waiting for his walk down there.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered about YouTube?
I don't think so. Um... other than you not having to wash your hair every time you do a video.
Is it a challenge. You know, hair, makeup and wardrobe.
Yeah, I think... I think it really is. And also let's talk about the fact that we are older than a lot of YouTubers and I think we need to make more effort into looking good on screen. You can't kind of... you know, we have bad sides. I have a bad side. Um... and so yeah, I do have to faff around with putting more makeup on than I would normally. I tend to record my videos on the hair washing day because I'm in every other hair washing day and my hair looks better on the hair washing day.
And you don't have this problem.
No no but I do have a bit of shine because it is absolutely... it's like an oven in here right now.
Yeah, I'm not feeling as um bright and fresh and made up as as I could be but I also feel as a man you're probably less... you... you probably wouldn't be judged if you were sort of looking a bit sweaty and dishevelled in a video in the way I think women feel we have to show up looking better.
But the downside with that Clare, if this is any consolation, is that I really let myself go and I watch back the footage and I'm like "Oh no no no, I shouldn't have worn that T-shirt". And... and the worst is product reviews where I go close on the products and I'm like "Oh, could you not have like cleaned your nails at least?" I've been digging potatoes which I have!
So yeah there have been a few uh moments of vanity recently so if that's if that's any... I know it’s not even on the scale--
No no but it's... it is a thing.
Is there a favourite video idea that you haven't made yet?
Not that I can think of. What about you? Have you got something? If you've got like a big idea that you want to do?
I get a bit personal now but I have a dad channel, a vlog channel. And I really want to make a... a video about my sleep apnoea.
Yes.
And how I fixed my sleep.
I'm more than happy to talk about it and... and I think what's holding me back is that I've got so much to say about it that I think I'm... I'm afraid of knowing even where to start with it because it's such a big idea.
What we come back to you know, the... the helping people thing. And... and I think that is one of those videos that genuinely would be so helpful to so many people. You've got to do it.
It's not even a... the reward might not be financial. It might just be helping people.
It's true. Uh...
What an absolute bombshell of wisdom to end on.
Should we... should we pose now for a thumbnail?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I was gonna say are we gonna have to do some like you know gurning?
[Music]
Clare, thank you so much for being so generous with your... your take on YouTube. Good luck with your next videos.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom Neil because there are lots of things I'm learning from you and... uh... yeah, it's... it's... it's very interesting and it also is lovely to know someone who's in a similar position to me. Uh... so that we... the rest of the world thinks we're mad.
Thanks for joining us. If you're watching this on YouTube, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button because right here are all the other Great British YouTuber podcast episodes.
Can you please help my dad get to 1 million subscribers? Just click on his face. Thanks, bye.
