 Over the past four years, many have asked questions about the equipment and processes I use to make my YouTube videos. Here is my response. Hi folks, I'm Brian and I hope you're well. I've spent the last few days with Mike, armed only with my phone, in an effort to capture the planning, the filming and the editing of a single episode of Creative Source. Mike will face a myriad of problems and issues, including the ability to use words. Amazon Music, Google Play, you know the place. So join me now as I jump into the bucket of ingredients that make up a tasty episode of Creative Source. That's the beginning of your day, right? How's things looking? So first thing I always do is make a cup of tea before I do anything. I'll be thinking usually at this stage of the day, what am I going to be doing? I've already decided on what video I'm going to be making, so it's a free drum plugin which has just been released. And I like doing these videos because running out of sugar, that's not good. There's quite a lot to it. I'll be making a demo, piece of music and what have you. And then filming some audio, a little demo. And then I'll be learning quickly about the plugin. It's not a complicated plugin, so that's easy. And how many sugars do you actually have in you? I only have two. It could be another trip to the local store to get more sugar at some point in the next couple of days. So, in actual fact, a lot of planning for the videos goes on when I'm making a cup of tea and when I'm in the shower, can't film me in the shower. A lot of it is just in my head. I've got an idea of what I'm going to do. In a moment I'll go outside and just roughly plan out which sections there's going to be in the video. I looked at the plugin quickly so that I know I'm going to be covering certain aspects of the plugin. So then I've got to think how am I going to start the video. And then, bang, it's going to go straight into the demo. So in this spontaneous composition, you're just looking for a sweet sound and then you're just going to play with some chords. For some reason today my fingers are going to A minor 7. So I'm trying to think of something that drums can shine a little bit on. That's the bass guitar. So on to the next phase, Mike. So yeah, I'm going to record myself playing the guitar, miming to the bit we just recorded. So the camera sits on here. I will set a beginning and end position. So you can monitor and control the slider from the iPad. That's right. I've got a little remote control for the slider and then the iPad controls the camera. It's at this point that Mike sets up for dialogue. Right, so a different setup here. Basically I've got two lights pointing at me, camera in front of me. I've got this audio capture device here by the camera. And this time I'm using a boom microphone here, just out of shot. And I've got to do this little imaginary thing. Now the drums at the beginning of... It's completely free and it sounds like this. I think I might have got it in the first take, which is incredibly unusual. When you drum plug in for you, it's completely free and it sounds like this. And now all of my other shots will be filmed from this end of the desk, shooting down here. And it'll be mainly for as an overlay for the screenshot I'll do of the actual plug in. I'll have myself in a little circle in the bottom corner. But I sort of feel it's better that you really get to know the YouTubers face. When you're as talented as Mike, you don't need a script, you just use words. What am I doing, Mike? I'd like to say thank you to our sponsor DistroKid. If you follow the link in the description down below, you'll get an amazing seven... I almost got that, didn't I? Before I do, I'd like to thank our sponsor DistroKid. If you follow the link in the description down below, you'll get 7% off an already amazing price to distribute your music to the world. And Mike, so you've made the content of the video and then you've top-entailed it and now you've just got to edit it, what remains? So I've still got the equipment out, lights and camera and stuff. And while I'm still wearing these clothes, I like to do the thumbnail. And basically I use this room because it's got a blank wall. And in Photoshop, that's going to make it easy for me to separate myself from the background. It's just nicely lit. Face is what I'm going for. There's going to be a lot of cleaning up of this face in Photoshop. And for this particular thumbnail, my idea is this. I'm going to hold this laptop. Slap top, I said, didn't I? It's a stand-in. It's just a rectangle. In Photoshop, I'm going to replace it with the actual interface of the drum plug-in. So it will look like I'm holding it as a product. Now here's the trick. I record a video and then I kind of strike a pose. I'll just go and check it in the studio. Alright, I'm just looking to make sure it's sharp. That's most likely to become the basis of the thumbnail. That's in the bag for me. All my shots have been filmed. Next is going to be... Next is going to be sewing it all together, I suppose. Editing, yes. Start of day two. Mike tweaks and tightens the demo before editing. There's a few that I like, but... This one's alright. See that? I liked that one. Just highlighting that note. So the next phase, Mike, tell us what's happening here. I'm going to edit the demo. I've got my drums there, but you can see on this side, I can move around. So I've got that to the beginning of the clip, so I might bring the camera in really, really close. Next we have the mixer screen. So Mike, where are we at now? We're going to start on the thumbnail. It actually doesn't need to be all that precise because it is a thumbnail after all and it'll be small. It'll be sort of nice. Yeah, that's alright. Push me around. Nice and big. I can even just make that even a little bit bigger. I might even flip that. Alright, let's my thumbnail. That's great. I've got some thoughts about it, but I'll put them in the comments down below. So Mike, now that the video is produced and released, what do you do for your downtime? Ah!