120000 subscribers for a podcast? Gordon Laing Cameralabs 004 PODCAST PRODUCERS PODCAST with Neil Mossey

Gordon Laing, Cameralabs podcast, has 120,000 subscribers.
One hundred and twenty. Thousand.  Subscribers.
(You can see his podcast over here: https://www.youtube.com/user/cameralabs
Or here: https://www.cameralabs.com/cameralabs-photography-podcast/)

Watch this podcast on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/JVIyBPNa05Q

I asked him what is it like producing a podcast for hundreds of episodes?
Why does he podcast?
What is his production workflow - does he hoard his recordings?
How does he keep going?

I wanted, for a change, to not edit this episode.
I wanted to see if it were a more compelling listen when my podcast isn't heavily edited.
So it's a little baggier than usual, but this is intentional.
I might release a cut down version later, but lets see how this episode goes first.

Recorded entirely on location in #Brighton
#PodcastProducers #Podcasting #cameralabs

Podcast Producers share their experiences to help everyone with how to start a podcast.

Help me get to 1000 subscribers, click here thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=neilmossey

Podcasts mentioned in this episode:
ADAM BUXTON
http://adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts
TONY AND CHELSEA NORTHRUP
https://www.youtube.com/user/VistaClues
TED FORBES
https://www.youtube.com/user/theartofphotography
CHRIS AND JORDAN DPREVIEW
https://www.youtube.com/user/dpreviewcom

If you've got this far in the description: why not leave a comment to say hi -- it would be great to hear from you!  Also if you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

Full episode for download as audio podcast.

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Thanks for listening!

FULL TRANSCRIPT: 004 PODCAST PRODUCERS PODCAST with Neil Mossey and Gordon Laing | Cameralabs Podcast

Hello welcome back to the Podcast Producers Podcast with me Neil Mossey - hello - I'm not at the Happy Hut today - today I am in beautiful Brighton...
This isn’t a fair representation.
With one of my closest friends Gordon Laing from Cameralabs - hello Gordon.
Hello Neil, how are you?
I'm good I'm good! This feels very formal and stilted.
We never agreed to do this - I was just walking home and he just caught up with me.
It's the only way to book guests - to get on a train and and just hassle them in the street.
We're looking for--
And what a lovely Street it is.
Yeah. We're looking for somewhere nice to sit down - which is ironic because for this episode I wanted to do as little editing as possible but maybe--
Yeah good luck with that.

You know the only problem with talking to you Gordon is that I'm terrified of my gear just not being up to the spec that you're used to.
It is quite daunting.
Yeah because my productions are always such high quality.
They are they are!
You've got 100,000 subscribers on YouTube now, no?
120.
Hundred and twenty! So it's gone up by 20,000 in - a year - six months that we've last spoken. That you were last bragging about--
I got over a hundred thousand exactly a year ago - ah ha - in November last year
my YouTube partner manager who’s since left was confident but it would be double that by now
And I was I confidently said it would certainly would not be since it took 12 years to get to a hundred thousand - it’d not be taking another year
She goes yeah but most creators do this - yeah - no not this one

That's so last century 
You sure you don't want to angle that more so that we're both the same size
yeah okay
That has happened on the videos I’ve shot so far where I'm tiny in each one
That's a good visual gag

But I even managed to do it with the audio on the last one because the pro I was speaking to actually took off the deadkitten because we're indoors and I thought I'll keep mine on because I like the look of it - it's like a fashion brooch
But on the recording he's booming and I'm small in audio terms - it did seem to affect it maybe I'm just - it was because I was on introvert mode in my voice
Do you think the deadcat was absorbing your energy?
yes - my aura

So we found a bench like a couple of, erm--
hobos
yeah I was gonna use a nicer term but yes - some itinerant workers
The idea of the Podcast Producers Podcast is that podcast producers share their experiences to help anyone start their own podcast 
okay
And as you say you've been doing it for donkey's years
I've known you since - it's probably this week 28 years ago
[crying noise]
It was a house party.
Oh - go on!
With all I remember is the wall of Molson Dry
oh dear yeah
Remember that?
Or was it Rolling Rock?
No oh yeah I think I used to - sad times -
I cherish them!
Did I used to drink that stuff.
I was actually really obsessed with it also when I used to come and visit you in Camden. I was like, we’re not going to go into this bar unless it’s got Molson Dry.
Excuse me bartender - barkeep - do you have Molson Dry?
Of course we do it's a giant chain and everyone has it.
Excellent! Then we shall drink here!
Did you used to sketch the logo? I remember the logo being quite prominent wherever you lived.
Oh dear, and you still talk to me?
[POLICE SIREN]
yeah oh my god - not only do I talk to you
Quick it’s the cops lets go!

I'm in awe of your online presence so the first person I wanted to talk to about this is you - we've sat ourselves in a sound effects factory.
[HELICOPTER NOISE]
[LAUGHTER]
Which is ironic
It was so peaceful a minute ago!
This was the one episode I didn't want to edit and I'm not going to this is gonna run long
[Laughter]
It’ll be the tardis sound effect next - whuuuuck! whuuuuck!
You know if the picture quality isn't good as well - yes - I'll just spot in shots on the Youtube version of this episode I'll put in shots of my daughter's lego friends
You could be Stephanie
That I identify with Stephanie
I'll be Mia I think
They are I like the Lego Friends.
What do you think about them not having standard Lego heads - it bothers me
Oh know, but--
Because they're not the the spherical hair - they kind of have a can shaped head.
One might say that it means that the these female characters have decided to do their own thing and not fit in with the rest of the system which might be--
You don't think they didn't want to be portrayed as the kind of chunky can shaped type character
that's true - their heads are quite big as well
Have you seen the Hagrid
No
The Hagrid is really giant right...
In LEGO Friends shape or is it mini-figures...
Hagrid isn’t part of LEGO Friends
okay
It's a different franchise you might’ve heard of it.
Is it Mia’s friend down at the stable?
Hairy Potter
But it turns out that it's all hair and when you remove the hair is just Hagrid's got a normal-sized head it's just all hair and cape
So it's a giant erm...
ITS A GIANT LIE is what it is
For all you want is a scaled up one.
No they do it don't want nothing they do it like classic filming - we're gonna make him look big by filming him close-up and everyone really far away - which is what you talked about a minute ago - make your guests feel special - yes - by making their voices boom - yes - their feet look large

And on the video version of this podcast that the other the other concern I've had is whether or not I should be sat on the left hand side or the right hand side 
Why, is there a dominant side?
I think there is I think - and I think on talk shows I think they live and die by which way around the the host sits - so the host is always on the left on TV - no on British shows they’re on the left but on American shows they’re on the right!
Absolutely.
Why is that?!
Well
Is that a thing?
I think it’s a thing.
I think cuz I learnt this while doing the stand-up course that when you're thinking you look to the left and if you feel under pressure you you eye-flick to the right - so I actually - the side that you're sitting on you look like you are permanently - troubled - on edge yes! [LAUGHTER]
Whereas I look erudite - of course on the audio version none of this applies
But maybe I should put you on the left hand channel and maybe range me on the right. That could work.
My mind is blown but it's true about the British talk shows.
yeah yeah
The interviewer was always on the left - yeah yeah - and it's weird because Wogan seemed to flip sides and there's that it just felt odd one one way round
so that's something to look out for on on talk shows

But this is something that maybe were jumping ahead too fast because the idea is that I talk to people who make podcasts to find out what's worked for them what what hasn't worked for them but there’s this whole arena - a collective noun - of podcasts that are also on YouTube - they don't seem to have a - there isn't a word for them - and so I really like the James Altucher show and Jocko Willink where there's an audio podcast but you also have the video version you've - you've done that from the outset?
Yes but not deliberately I think it's out of laziness more than anything else
So the way that I - so a podcast you could just talk by yourself - but the podcasts that I do are generally conversations with other people - like this one - but they're generally conversations with people over the internet using Skype or previously using Google+ and those systems work very well for video and a few years ago they introduced a means by which you could record it or even broadcast it live as you were doing it - to try and encourage people to put more content onto YouTube to feed the beast so a lot of people started recording video - still recording a show with the goal that audio was supposed to be the final goal - so you wouldn't say “so in my left hand I've got this and as you can see it does this”

Because that's no good if you can't see it - but before you know it's happened and then you've uploaded it to both an audio platform and a video platform of YouTube and you realize that because YouTube just, so many people watch it and can come across it and find it - whereas finding podcasts is a lot harder.

You know it's difficult to do good SEO for a podcast but for a YouTube video it’s very easy particularly when you remember that of course YouTube is owned by Google who are the king of search - or the queen of search - the leader of... the emperor of search - so they make sure that on search results a YouTube video always features very highly

So if you want to get your stuff found YouTube is a good platform and of course YouTube also lets you monetize it even if you're only making three cents a month it's three cents more than most people are doing by just making an audio podcast available
yeah

But that said I think there's a certain sort of laziness to it because you’re either doing one thing or another, and we're kind of mucking about doing a bit of video and a bit of audio and - I'd prefer pure audio ones because it's like reading a book - without pictures in it Neil - where you you literally have to imagine the whole thing.

And we were talking about Adam Buxton's podcast which is one of my favorites and he doesn't do a video version of that - even though he's fantastic on video.
I loved his TV shows but it's entirely audio and I don't know whether he's playing sound effects or whether he really is crunching through leaves in it you know
But I imagine him walking through a leafy area like in fact we are here.
Take that Adam Buxton!
We’re actually in a park!

You've jumped to the the first format point of the podcast producers podcast which to get to know my guests - I mean I've known Gordon for a hundred years - but 
It's gone up, it was 28 years earlier.
The - it feels like a hundred - erm, the erm, so the first question is - without looking at your phone - yes, what time is it?
There’s a giant clock behind us.

Which podcast do you check first and update to see if there are new episodes of.
Which is your favourite podcast 
well again I'm now gonna put my foot in it and say that most of the podcasts or shows that I consume are via YouTube so YouTube tells me rather than me going out looking for them
it's generally other photographers I'm a little bit boring like that I want to kind of want to see what they're doing I want to see if they're doing it better or whether I'm - I've beaten them to some scoop or if they've got some new kind of production idea or a new way of marketing things

So I check a lot of the the big the bigger American photography channels there's a lovely couple called Tony and Chelsea Northrup they do a lot of video podcasting which i think is mostly consumed on video
Ted Forbes another photographer

I think some videos also work well just as audio because of course just because it's on YouTube you don't have to watch it you could listen to it or you could have it playing in the background and listen to it and then turn and look at it when you think oh they're talking about something I'm interested in and now I've got the video element yeah

So the guys Chris and Jordan who used to do the camera store TV who are now members of DPreview which is a really big photography review website - they do really really nice videos but a lot of the time I just because I love hearing them they're very very funny people so I just kind of listen to their show and then look at it when you know I know there's something interesting going on
Which of course is most the time

And then outside of that the comedy the comedy ones most of you know like my favorite comedians and broadcasters they they have really nice podcasts - not necessarily regular ones - but I think as I mentioned earlier Adam Buxton I think is one of one of my favorites

If you could choose one so you've got limited bandwidth you can only watch one right now is there a podcast that you would jump to on YouTube or audio 
Well for enjoyment, I’d go to Adam’s
Adam Buxton.
Yeah yeah
Yeah the others the others are more kind of business really
sure sure I love the the jingles and the audio production
yeah it's fantastic - really lovely - and and the fact that you wonder whether some of them like the sponsorship whether it's parodied or not or whether it isn't always parodied but it is still actual sponsorship yeah and I think that's genius and you know that if you do sponsor him you know he's gonna have some fun with it so your brand's can have to work with that - and I think that's that's great

Were the mattresses real?
Who knows but what is it with mattresses and podcasts though because
Because when you listen to his podcast you want to go to sleep
Because you consume them lying down - yes - or you or you you bulk consume them, you binge on them like when I first came across Adam Buxton, it was actually on a flight - a transatlantic flight - and I binged on about ten of them during the flight You took  them with you
No they were on part of the in-flight entertainment system and I often prefer that to watching - trying to watch a film on a little screen or when you're constantly being disturbed - you know I prefer listening to audio instead

What I love about your - I call them your community - your people your cabal of other podcasters in the world of Photography and camera equipment review - you all help each other out don't you - I've seen the clips of those 
There's a lot of collaborations yeah we I think we all met with our partner managers at YouTube at the same time - and they all went collaborations that's the future - do more of those - the idea of course being that you get their subscribers they get your subscribers you know a bit of cross channel promotion
I don't I cannot actually found that it works that way it's just more fun really

The other thing that's really nice is that a lot of these creators on YouTube because I first started on YouTube in 2006 when it first launched I was the only person doing technical product reviews - yeah - and if you look back at them - they’re horrendous - well they’re horrendous now - but they were truly awful but there was nothing else around and then suddenly all these other people came along and started doing it way better way better than I was doing it and you of course go “Whothehell does this person think they are you know what's their background. Are they proper trained journalists? Have they ever trod the boards darling?”

Of course they haven’t but it doesn't matter they're doing it better than you they're getting a bigger audience they're more fun presenting information in it in a better way but of course you hate them because they're beating you and you build up this insane resentment and then you actually meet them in real life and of course invariably they're all really nice.
Even the ****s and *******es they’re all really nice.
So I've met most of them now and they've all become friends
Honestly.

Why do you podcast 
well
it sounds really accusatory it's supposed to be exploratory.
If you’re listening to the audio version he's pointing at me in a very mean fashion it's a little passive-aggressive that - yeah yeah - that's my style - that’s the angle I'm going for I think on the series.

Why well here's the thing is that you know like most creators you do what you want to do and people come to it or don't but interestingly within the media people will start to call it a thing so you call it podcasting now but we used to call them radio shows or we used to call them you know a CD or a tape or mixtape or something like that

So we've created this content for decades and decades - video and audio content - but it's just we we just call them podcasts now
Why do I do it?
Well what I do is to test cameras I test cameras and I really want to find out how something works I really want to get to the bottom of what makes it different what makes it special better than anything else to see if the manufacturers when they said oh it now does this and it does this and you think does it really?

You know and when you delve into it and look at it and start testing them you realize that it's actually an enormous subject that you can just delve into deeper and deeper and deeper I mean it's an infinite warren of rabbit holes it's it's ridiculous the degree of detail you can get into and that just really turns me on

I love that degree of detail and that's what arguably got me fired - what made me unemployable - in a corporate environment because they go well well we're going to fit you in that box in these constraints which in the magazine world was yeah you can write whatever you want as long as it's 700 words because that's a page and you're not going over that if you do we're going to cut it and we're not going to employ you again because you're making it hard for us to edit

If you're on radio where you got half an hour or an hour and you've got to stop every 10 or 15 minutes of its commercial

If you're on TV even and so on you know it you know there's there's a reason why when you cut the adverts out every TV shows 43 minutes or 52 minutes whatever

And you begin to think well what if I want to make something that's an hour and five minutes what if I want to make something that's three days long?

There's you know the beauty of the Internet is that we can do that - whether people will want to watch or consume it is another thing but that's one of the reasons I do podcasting and making the videos and writing the reviews is to - is it's an outlet for this desire to just ramble on - which I've done now, I’ve rambled.

No no no it's absolutely compelling because what you touched on two things there one is the gatekeeper that someone should give you permission to do what you really enjoy doing and then the second are these arbitrary constraints whereas if you do go on for an hour and a half you'll find the audience that likes hearing it for an hour and a half - you know it's an infinite canvas - hmm - that's pretty exciting and there's no money in it at the moment which is what makes it really exciting!
It’s completely non-monetizable! Which is why we live here in this park!
Yes! I’ll just go and have a rest now. Yeah this is my home.
But it's true isn't it there is there is... “calling” is too dumb a word -
No it is, it is a calling.

There's something beyond just doing it for it for the money there's there's something almost subversive in - you feel a need to express yourself - well it's a desire to be heard isn't it - you know we yeah we all want to feel that we're important and by producing a show of whatever or producing content in which you're a part of it yeah you kind of like, it satisfies that - especially so if somebody you know gives you a like or says you know you’re not a complete idiot - although, the beauty of YouTube is that there are plenty of those - yes - comments...

Thumbs down on YouTube.
Why do people thumbs down - what's wrong in just going, you know I didn’t really enjoy it - it wasn't my thing - I'll move on - no I'm gonna mark you down

Because YouTube pays attention to this and if you get thumbs downs it actually will show you to less people - especially that person and that person's friends - the connections - so when you thumbs down someone for whatever reason if you genuinely hate it or hate them sure

But if it's like - somebody the other day said to me I - I did a video on how to choose the best vlogging camera - yeah - and I said look there's things that I look for in a vlogging camera
“First...” I indicated it with with my finger “first this, second” - with two fingers - and the comment was he luckily didn't get to the third he goes I can't believe you held two fingers up to visually indicate the number two or your second point - so cliched, disliked, and unsubscribed

Well that showed you.
It did! It’s like - really? You’ve unsubbed from someone because they said--
I wasn't going “hey everyone two, two fingers... I didn't do it the rude way, I did it in the polite way around - yeah - what - yeah and the idea that it is actually kind of premeditated - you know I'm really flying by the seat of my pants and everything - I haven’t got time to plan - yeah - which you’re thinking - I'm making it up and I go but my second point is this and that's what I did and he took - it's a huge offence about...

This about this is why I wanted to start this podcast because if--
You like giving or receiving offence?
Yeah well a bit because that kind of comment... the - in order to keep your series running you need to have a resilience against - yeah - that kind of--
And it's really simple which is - let's see how many videos that person has made?
Oh it's always none.
It's always when you always click on - yeah - and you follow them and you track them down - and you look them up on Linkedin. They erm-
And then you realise: MUM!
They have none, so it's good it's good that I have provided an outlet for that person to create their content on my comment feed.

You've almost got to get to the point where you - something like that is a sign that you're doing exactly the right thing and that for every comment like that there are probably 20,000 people who enjoyed -
Who like it - yeah
And actually say really nice things - yeah - or do say really nice things but of course you don't concentrate on that.

And you know you'll hear a lot of people say oh you know I used to be really sensitive and the trolls used to get me down but then I was on YouTube for a while and you know it made me really tough and resilient - and it doesn't - because it's the same way that if you're you know if you're a fat unfit kid - which I was - or still am

You, you know, at school if your parents then go right let's get them in boxing training - let's get them running miles you know in marathons - they, you know, they don't like it.
They hate it makes them feel worse - I should say that my parents didn't do that so they just let me.
Maybe they should have done
Maybe they should have done and then I wouldn’t be the lazy...
You say that but then you wouldn't have the the audio podcast and you wouldn't have the video podcast and you wouldn't have your site so it was - yeah - where are those cool jocks now?
Running their companies.
Leaving comments
Internet millionaires

The other interesting thing though Neil is that both you and I, I think come from - we’d consider journalistic backgrounds - we’re properly trained - media trained and who are these upstarts who think that they can come along with no training at all putting content out without any sub-editors or without any producers...
who the hell do you think they are
especially when they start doing it better and getting more likes and I think you know I I kind of bridge both worlds you know I started off as a inverted commas “a proper journalist” on magazines and we were sent on legal training and how to handle yourself in interviews, so obviously all of that has worn off now it's - there's no evidence of any of that training anymore

In the same way there's no evidence in my ‘O’ Level physics so you know move on
But so that so when you when when you first kind of start seeing these other people these usurpers coming in you’re like who the hell do they think they are and then you think well actually maybe I should learn from that

There’s a dog.
Hello doggy
How are you doing.
One of my fans.
Hey yeah like and subscribe my friend, like and subscribe

So at first you kind of really resent it and then you think well actually no.
They they are the future so maybe I should be looking at that and you do so I kind of do a bit of bit of both worlds and occasionally I'll become old Gordon where I'm like oh how dare they you know they're beating me and where's the respect and then there's the other part which is me as new Gordon where I'm going though you know these journalists are really backward and behind the times

You don't need a eight-man crew to be able to produce this content and in fact you you know you're running and gunning you're faster you're more more articulate when you when you do it as a one or two man team, person team

So in a way it's good and you know when you first start getting your bad comments on YouTube if you're older as I am you may think what happened to the good old days of TV where they were grateful for us putting out content, and they couldn't comment on it - apart from on “Points Of View”.
It was like you can say something but we're going to limit it to half an hour with somebody really acerbic who’s going to make fun of you for daring to criticize the mighty broadcast channels and that was it.

But now you know with everybody being able to comment and tell you how ridiculous they think you look or how stupid you are - how stupid you sound...

Your body languages...
Yeah - then - or that you’re holding two fingers up to indicate the number two
Maybe that a good - it is a good thing - you know it shocks you at first but then you think no actually it's really the trolls have mostly got a point

You know when they say you look like an idiot you look at it and think yeah you know what I do look like an idiot maybe I should do something about that
Behind camera talent.
But to use it as an energy or a force to keep going so it's a good thing
I mean I I think our experience is an impediment that -
yes -

Because you know and this is why I had to start this I had to start this with literally a chat with the Head of Programmes at BBC England I pulled my phone out - I recorded on my phone with no microphone just to get the thing started because - yes - I'd hit the podcast producers wall on...
Where you feel that you need to have a certain amount of gear 
yes
A certain amount of prep

Well let's go through this list you feel like you should have a good website 
yeah
That should be a good web presence
That you have a feed that works
That you have cover art that you’re not embarrassed by
That you have if you have guests that you have guests of a certain standard
But what else what else did you have to overcome?
Production consistency - which nobody cares about apart from you you know the producer
The format of what you'll show covers and how its structured in each episode.

Because of our backgrounds we feel that we should have a distinct subject that we should stick to because people are following us, who are listening to us for a certain speciality or knowledge, how dare we think we could even have an opinion on something else or an interest in something else?
But then that's interesting because when Adam Buxton - again - interviews a musician then rather than a comedian I do sometimes think how dare he - who does he think he is - if I want to hear an interview with a musician I'll go to a music journalist or a music enthusiast
So I'm guilty of it too
Yeah it's funny isn’t it because it's at that stage that you're following the the host rather than the subject

Yeah but there was that cult one on TV interviews as well - quite a long time ago wasn't there - yeah yeah - that's true
So I'll put the link to your podcast in the show description the description underneath this video if you're watching on YouTube and in the show notes on the audio podcast
How many episodes in are you at the moment?

Well if we're talking about because of course you could just take the audio from any video and publish it as a podcast and that could be it - so I'm gonna say on YouTube I've done hundreds hundreds and hundreds of videos - some of which are deliberate podcasts as well some of which aren’t - but could be - in terms of what I've actually published on my podcast stream not too many maybe about 30 or 40 and they're generally most of them are conversations that I have over Skype with a photographer friend of mine in San Francisco

This is Doug?
This is Doug Kay who's absolutely fantastic really fantastic voice -  lovely guy fantastic face as well it's not saying you know great thought you know “great face for radio” he's really he's really really nice and we just have a - we just have a nice chat It's an interesting community the photography community because I feel although I'm not a member of a caravanning community or of a barbecuing community so maybe they do it as well but the photography community do meet up quite a lot we do have like photo walks where we get together and we meet each other we are quite happy to think that we're more important than we actually are and do shows where we all begin to interview each other and get to know each other that way as well so I don’t know if many other hobbies do that but the photographic community especially in America and I talk to a lot of them there - you know are very happy to do that

So we've been doing this for a while and like when Google+ as a social network launched they they launched it with well they didn't launch it from day one with this but they added this feature called hangouts which is now kind of been and gone and spin-off and there's something else or maybe closed down but at the time it was it was revolutionary

It was this way that you could you could have a video a phone call with more than one person but also record it and broadcast it as a show

And then they big - lots of little tools came up where you could overlay like the name of your guest and where they were from and things to make you look like a professional show and we were all like great we've always wanted to make our own TV show so let's do that

And again I don't know how many other communities were doing that - model makers, painters...
So already because you'd have the gear to actually--

Well there is that yeah because most of us would have cameras although we were using webcams inside a laptop most the time - most of us weren't using standalone cameras to do that but we were obviously familiar with and comfortable with visual mediums and if you’re into cameras these days you’re also into video and audio so you know we'd have decent mics

And is that how you still run the podcast do you still do it as a Google Hangouts?
No so we've moved on now because the thing the biggest the most important technical thing that I found doing podcasting and videos is the most important thing of all actually is the audio - it's not the picture - it’s the audio it’s gotta sound really really good and a good microphone in a quiet environment you you can't beat especially if it's close to your face which is not necessary ideal for video

That's why you see so many people with giant microphones in front of their faces - it doesn't look great or it does look quite professional
It does look cool yeah.
Doesn’t it - but it sounds great and that's the whole point

But what I realized is that even though say Doug and I were using really high quality microphones because the audio was going over the internet it was being compressed by Skype or Google
It was good but it wasn't as good as a local recording - yeah - and we were also restricted by Internet bandwidth and if for some reason because it's not a pipe of a fixed opening it varies so when you both got great bandwidth that's fine but because we're recording at very different very different time zones sometimes it was busy for him or busy for me and suddenly the bandwidth would reduce - the quality would fall apart so what I've now started to do is actually record the audio and the video locally and we only use the Skype or the Google+ part literally to communicate with each other - that’s so we can hear each other - we're not even looking the camera that's in that call now when it's our turn to speak when you look up at a proper camera locally and we film that and it means you can film it in 1080 or 4k or really that a really nice bitrate but more importantly you've got that local audio with a decent microphone and it's tremendous.

It increases your production time but it does look really good so you've got to think you know how much effort do you want to put into your podcast are you producing so called evergreen content which is you know going to last for a long time in which case yeah put the effort in.

If it's just something like “this is how I feel today or how I feel this week”

If it's a weekly or a daily thing then you can be a lot more casual and I think it's very important to think if you are producing that sort of content then make it fun - make it spontaneous you know let's go for a walk you know if we don't care about the noise around us then yeah it's got a let's go to a park let's let's let's do it on bikes let's you know do something more fun with it more dynamic because it's only designed to last this week

But if you're gonna do something that you want people to listen to or watch five years down like a proper tutorial - do it as well as you can - that's that's my that's my approach

Well this is why I'm about four four or five episodes in and this is this is why I'm doing it like this it's just just to get up and running and every muscle in my brain is going this isn't this isn't correct this isn't yet of the standard that I would have done professionally

The format or the technical standard?
Both!
Both and and on top of that - the how the home site looks and I haven’t started on the social presence yet

All I'm doing is just running so that I don't stop - just to try and get as many episodes under the can - into the can - as possible - because it's so easy just to hit that wall.
How how did you not hit that wall is it because you're working with someone else?
It's because I love the sound of my own voice I just can't hear enough of it.
No seriously...
You don’t need that online though.
This is the problem

Yeah but you raise your game - it does force you to raise your game it's like I remember years ago so I'm a photographer right but I only show my pictures to my friends and the moment the first time you share a photo online to a public group whether it's this week last year 10 years ago doesn't matter you remember the first one you did because you agonized about it
For ages - is it good enough to post?

I'd show it to my friends but would I show it to a stranger who is likely to go you idiot you know it looks rubbish you should have done it like this

so you think you know what I'm not gonna post that because it isn't good enough I'm gonna post that because it is and I'm proud of it and it does raise your game like I think as a photographer I’ve become much better since I started sharing my pictures much better also better at playing the game
You know what kind of pictures work well are gonna get more likes so you might end up taking more of those rather than ones you actually want to take which you know is another conversation is that a good or a bad thing producing content that people want to consume as opposed to content that you want to produce

But luckily there's a lot of crossover for me so it's not like oh my Instagram is doing so well but I hate it it makes me feel so shallow but you know it's going alright so it's mostly stuff I do but I do know when I post a certain type of image I know that that one's going to do well and this one isn't going to do so well - you live with that and it's the same for the podcast and the reviews and the videos you know you pretty much know what's going to be popular

We were talking about this earlier about how there's still this obsession though about maybe some hangover from an old job or an old career where you were expected to do something - no one's interested in it anymore but because it defined you for so long you feel you ought to do it and you're doing the other thing as well that's massively more popular and successful and commercial but for some reason you're not concentrating on that you're still doing the old stuff and that plagues me and it takes up so much my time and I should - it's hard to let go because it's all I know

Were you saying - this is an answer to a question you didn't ask - you asked what keeps me going - well as was evident - I said at the beginning you know that I love the sound of my own voice - I love I love talking about stuff I love finding out how things work and trying to get that across to someone - I want someone to enthuse about it with me I went about to talk about some technology or some cool thing I've found and for someone else to go yeah that is pretty cool but more importantly you've explained it or demonstrated it in a way that I get I can see it you know because someone else was telling me about it last week and I just couldn't - I didn’t know how it worked - I couldn't picture it or what I'd use it for but if you think do you know what if I show it this way if I talk about it this way or if I film it this way I record it this way then people will get it and that's really satisfying

And because I write and talk and film about technologies it's an endlessly self-fulfilling subject, I mean it's just it never stops

Do you script your podcasts? How do you structure what you're going to record?
Most of it - so I have if I'm doing a video - if I’m doing a piece of camera I'll write down some bullet points and I'll read them before I look to the camera and then I'll I'll do a take - and it will be terrible or I’ll fluff a line or it won’t be good so I'll just do it again and again and again and it will change and eventually it will become one that you’ll be happy with and you’re like right now I'll do my next bit and that's how I would do say like a video review

Sometimes if I've got a massive amount of technical information to get across and I'm not facing the camera I will script it and read it out in a really nice kind of recording environment - well I say really nice it's just one of my rooms at home that's got a lot of curtains carpets because a lot of my house is floorboards and very echoing - which sounds terrible but if you've got a room that's really dead audio wise that really helps you've got your nice microphone no noise get close to it

So I can script those and sometimes the actual podcasts - chats that I do with Doug are almost entirely off the top of my head - almost entirely ad libbed.

So you wouldn't even have bullet points to structure that conversation?

A couple but the thing is is that when I do a review so I'm not confident doing a podcast until I've finished my test so at which point I will have completely immersed myself in that product or that subject for like two to four weeks and I'll have lived and breathed it and done nothing else and literally you will know it back to front at that point so if someone says what does it do when you press that?

You go oh well it goes into the menu B where you'll find the setting to change the timer because you know it and a week later you'll have forgotten it all so it's a very...
I feel it's almost like I feel knowledge or memories like I imagine like this pyramid this giant triangle with this very heavy and misbalanced - badly balanced - knowledge wobbling like a giant brick on the top and it will slide off it will fall but for a moment it's there it's there

Tap into it film your show get it out and then let it slide down one side and smash and never to be remembered again
But then you've got to sit through it all in the edit
So when you've taken 10 takes - yeah - one section - yeah -
Because I've just been through this it's soul-destroying going through five takes

No it’s not!
You go through it backwards.
You just grab you just grab
I take the last take - yeah - because the last my last take is my best one
Because I wouldn't record it again
I'm not Stanley Kubrick
I'm not gonna do multiple variations of something that's perfectly - I haven’t got the time for that
I don't get paid for this so yeah your last take is your - is the one you're gonna use so what you do is you start at the end of your recording and you work backwards and then you're right now I'm on then on that next subject and then you cut it and then you ignore all of the ones which went wrong and then you’re on to - and then you find the one what I'll do is I'll leave a gap or I'll clap so that there's a spike there's a visual clue that that's where I need to go to and then I'll know that that that's that's the good take so it's actually pretty quick to edit
No you don't play through your bad ones

This is a glimpse into your psyche as well - so you’ve you've got the five takes and you've grabbed the last one - yeah 
Do you hold onto all of your recordings
No, it’s too much too big
So you jettison it?

I used to - so you see so now Neil, so now I'm filming everything in 4k and the files are so immense that literally I've got room for one project on my laptop at a time whereas five years ago I'd have ten - my ten last projects now I need to do a project clear it off completely and then I need to archive it somewhere so what I'll do is I'll render it out at the best possible quality and I'll just keep that so I keep the edited version in good quality so that if I do need to use parts of it I take it from that
No one notices
So you don't keep your rushes
never not now there's too much of it
That's good and do you, so you have like a reference version that you hoard
yes

Because you don't trust that where you've put it up online that might disappear you’ve got a backup
Well the interesting thing about doing the audio podcasting hosting if you use a host like say libsyn or whatever they'll take an mp3 file at the file at which the quality which you uploaded - so they're not they're not modifying it but YouTube and Vimeo will

You know they they modify it - Facebook massively so - so once you've uploaded it to them they will render it in their own engines and it will be worse quality so that even if you then download it which they don't always let you do
obviously there are ways to do it but if you then download it it will bear no relation to your original
it won't look it won't look anywhere near as good
so no, always definitely keep - keep the one that at least the one that you upload keep that one

And do you keep one copy on a on a hard drive?
So I have them-- so as a bit of a background when I first started in journalism it was for a computer magazine which I specialized on imaging for - so when digital cameras first came out, I’d say hey you know I could review these because I'm a photographer and no one else wanted to do them
so I do printers monitors scanners cameras and and imaging software like the first versions of Photoshop - but it also meant I was still exposed to loads of IT stuff - loads of technical stuff so I was very familiar with drives obviously and servers and what I use at home is a NAS - a network attached storage device which is basically a server that allows you to store stuff and you can configure them so you can put multiple drives in them so that if one Drive breaks then the other ones still got the data its mirrored it's backed up  there's redundancy

So I've got a NAS where I keep wearing keep everything but of course the NAS isn't immune to fire flood or theft someone could lift that - steal it - it could burn down
so I have additional backups
so I have a portable hard drive that I keep in a different house
A different house?
Yeah because what happens if your house burns down
yeah

What are you going to do - I kept my backups in the same room - you’re stuffed
It's got to be in a different location you could use the cloud - the cloud - what we used to call the Internet and what we used to ARPANET - the cloud - the Internet
You put it on that

With audio it's easy because the files are small but if you're doing a podcast and you're doing some decent production values don't just keep an mp3 of it keep an uncompressed WAV version you know keep a - or at least a flac version so that you've got a good quality one that you can then do a lower quality version of for sharing - those files aren’t big

Yeah so keep it in as many places as you can you know keep lots of lots of duplicates of it but most importantly of all make sure one of them is off-site
Whether it's in the cloud or at a friend's house

Are you okay for time - yeah - I’ve got so many questions.
These are brilliant these tips are really handy and if they sound like they're pretty hard won by.

Yeah and some of them for example Vimeo if you're on Vimeo Pro member which is about fifty bucks a year you can upload videos which of course have audio in them or audio files and it keeps an original version that you can download and I use it to provide sample videos for my reviews

So I'll say look you know this new Canon or Nikon camera can film video here's how it looks and you can download it - download the original clip so you can see exactly how it looks and it's it's they don't change it they don't compress it they do compressed versions for streaming or for downloading but they also still keep the original version so you could in fact use that as a backup as well
Flickr does that too for photos it keeps an original version if you've got the pro accounts they keep the original versions

It's a bit of a gamble because you're entrusting your backup to a third party that could go bust that could change their terms and conditions they could say we're only going to do this now for five hundred dollars a year or we're going to do it but actually we didn't tell you that as of last year we started compressing it

You may or may not notice or be affected by that

But I always like to have an uncompressed or a midly-compressed version especially for audio

And for your audio podcasts do you use a podcast hosting company 

Yes so I use libsyn which I pay 250 - sorry I pay $15 a month for I think 250 megabytes worth of storage, which is quite a lot of shows if it's just in the audio format even my long rambling ones you can upload in a decent quality

Am I sensing that you feel slightly odd about using a company?

Well I do because the thing the thing is is that the the podcast hosts are very good at giving you a completely compliant RSS feed which then means the podcast aggregators like Apple and iTunes will go “yep you're aboveboard I'll take you” and if your end goal is to appear on iTunes which it is - it should be your end goal - then you want to make that as easy as possible but there will be I'm sure cheaper and better solutions for that

The the the reason I'm sort of squinting and looking a little uncomfortable with it is that... so youtube if you are a YouTube partner and they pay you they pay you a very very small amount of money I mean you know like about $1 per thousand views so you can work out what you need - and that's that's in a an area that I'm involved in which is quite commercial you know photography cameras when people are buying a camera these days they're spending a thousand pounds so that's quite valuable if you're writing about cookery or gardening maybe you're not getting a dollar per thousand you might be getting $0.50 per thousand you might be getting more you know it's difficult to tell it does vary cuz it's biddable

But that's the sort of amount of money we're talking about it's not much but it's more than libsyn pays me - in fact I'm paying libsyn to host, whereas I'm not paying YouTube to host which is why again what I mentioned earlier so many people will upload on to YouTube because it's a way to monetize it it's it's free of charge and it's easily found

Do you think it's gonna -- just gazing into the future - because we were recording this at the end of 2018 - I've got this gut feeling that there's a surge of podcasts happening or surge of interest in podcasts and the the the area still hasn't got to the point where videos were with YouTube when actually “there are so many of them, pre-roll ads can now be a thing”

Do you think that’s what’s gonna happen with podcasts?
Yeah definitely actually definitely
They need to be monetizable in some way and people have - the only way you can do it is with sponsorship which is basically getting your own pre-roll ads
yeah

either getting either phoning someone up becoming big enough that they phone you up or going to an agency and that's the nice thing again about YouTube is that it's all done for you

They take most of the money but at least there is money involved you know they've worked it out and they now have you know ways that you can avoid advertising on YouTube by paying a subscription they now have a patreon type thing where you can donate to support people and a mechanism for you to provide bonus content -  stuff like that you know they're making it they're making it possible - is hard but they're making it possible to have a career or at least make a bit of money as a creator whereas on the pure audio podcasting side there there isn't a platform for it that you can monetize very easily unless you've got sponsorship which is really hard.

I mean you’re saying we're recording it towards the end of 2018 without ruining this video audios podcast chances’ evergreen content - it’s Black Friday - everything's discounted today and I'm - I did a post earlier where I said here's my Black Friday deal: all of my content, all of my videos, the thousands of reviews that I've written the millions of words are written, today free of charge - everything I've ever done free of charge and for every other day of the year as well
More fool me.

Because it is you know so it's sort of interesting that that's that's my Black Friday deal it's the same deal every day.
It's hard to make money from this.

It is but this comes back to the very first question which is why do you podcast?
I I think there are because there's very little monetization there are other interesting reasons like wanting to prove eminence in a field - or wanting to showcase for instance your podcast might make an audience member more likely to come to your website...
Well that's the dream that's the dream is that you like so many things...

Or buy your book!
Yeah
Which we’ll link to in the description
None of us have got one job anymore we all have 10 jobs and for any of them to be successful it should kind of feed off each other or promoting each other so yes you're not making any money from your podcast but if you're talking as an expert on the subject and enough people follow you and appreciate you for that then that then you may be able to sell them a book or a workshop or something else

But you need to build up the one to be able to do the other
And I'm quite far down that route and it's still I have to say still not a fantastic career money-wise but it’s a fantastic career if you are a creator to be able to create stuff you like is a fantastic way to spend your time and I love that.

I mean that that drives me massively you know don't get into this to become rich you might do but you probably won't - get into it because you enjoy it and also no one's going to listen to your podcast or watching videos if you're not passionate about something.

I think you have to be passionate about it but yeah equally and it is maybe a bit shallow but what you kind of brushed upon is very important to me which is peer recognition and respect from other people also people in the industry

You kind of want them to be talking about you behind your back, going did you see what Gordon did, it was really good - dammit he's so much better than I am
I wish I was as good as he was

I'm so good looking too - you wouldn't believe he's 70 years old
But his body language on the number 2 is appalling.
I unsubbed and disliked him for that - I hope he doesn't realize it was me

When you record your podcast episode do you post produce it in terms of EQ?
No
Compression?
No because I already sound fantastic

Because I've got a really high pitched voice that you can't do anything with it doesn't respond to EQ
It's like a photo where you know “I'll just turn up the brightness, why isn't it getting brighter?”
But my voice doesn't - I've got a terrible voice for audio and it doesn't respond well but the best thing

I can do EQ wise is to do it in camera in recording because this is my my philosophy as you know about photography's not to do any post-processing

I try and get the result I want as I take the picture and the same applies for video and audio and I want to get it in the camera or in the recording so if I want to sound boomy and basier and nicer I'll just get closer to the microphone and I know that when I'm recording at home in my quiet room the microphone I use I'm very familiar with how it sounds how I should use it how I should talk to it how I should present to it distance wise volume wise recording level wise what I can do and I really am very pleased with the sound of those

Because some podcasts they have that heavily compressed radio sound but you're saying if you use well what microphone do you use?
Well yeah it’s interesting you say - I actually did a video which your viewers and listeners may find interesting, it was comparing two of the most popular microphones for podcasting both from this Australian microphone company RODE - everyone uses rode microphones they're really nice but they do a million different microphones so which one should you get

And a lot of them are USB microphones they are designed to be plugged into a computer you don't need a sound card an XLR jack or power or anything - it all comes off the USB and they're designed specifically for podcasting because it goes straight into your computer which is what you're using to record it and broadcast it

So they're USB mics I tested the rode podcaster which is a USB version of the procaster which is an XLR mic that looks like a beautiful archetypal radio presenters microphone that's designed to go on a boom arm on an angle-poise arm that goes right in front of your face
“Coming up next...” that sort of microphone

And it's very compressed and the sound is very radio broadcaster type
Then there’s the NT USB which is more for recording music or spoken vocals like audiobooks or if you’re singing - so it's more full range full frequency response

So it's not coloured at all it's extremely accurate
That's what I use - which goes against what I said earlier which is that because I don't have a very basey deep voice maybe I should be using the compressed one but I find I sound better on the more accurate one

I've got both of them and you can hear them you know on that video and you compare compare them and see what you see what you think
But you prefer the more natural one.

I prefer the the cleaner - because I'm also a Hi-Fi nut as well and to me I prefer something that sounds accurate and that NT USB I love that microphone
There’s some really good deals on it as well

It also responds well to being on a tripod or a mini tabletop tripod, which is what I normally have on me whereas the podcaster you can put it on a tripod you can hand hold it but really it’s a microphone that wants to go in a shock mount on an angle poise which is screwed in - this is screwed to a desk yeah it's it's a studio mic Whereas the NTUSB you know you could take it away with you and I have recorded with it in hotel rooms and I have taken it away with me

Do you record the video separately then so you don't squirt the microphone into the camera 
no because it's a USB microphone so the cameras have got 3.5mm analog jacks so they don't have a digital USB - they have got USB jacks on them, but not for input not for inputting sound I wish they did but they don't

I'd suggest that to the companies, say “why do you do that that could be quite fun” they're like “what?!”

So what I'll generally do generally do is I need to synchronize the sound from the camera and the microphone now if you're recording a Skype conversation or a hangout it's easily it's already synced because you've chosen that microphone as your sound source

You know in your preferences on your computer so it's already synced/synchronized there's no problem - but if you're using a separate camera and the mic’s not plugged into it you need to sync it so you do a clapper board and I just clap three times at the beginning obviously once they’ve both started recording and you line those up in your editing software later at high magnification you nudge one back and forth until they line up you mute that one and you keep the good one going and it's in sync for the rest it takes a few seconds.

Oh Gordon, I’ve got so much I want to ask you this is brilliant 
Do you prefer sitting up - standing up or sitting down - because this is something I’ve hit on the first few...
For podcasting?
Yeah.
I sit down.

I sit down but if I'm on the phone I stand up and if I'm interviewing someone on the phone I stand up because you do you feel stronger don’t you.

You have more attack - you have more freedom you know just in terms of your performance level this is the weird thing I worked for a branded content agency who were used to working in print and it was a shock to them when they started making the video and audio content because what you're actually capturing is an actual performance - hmm - as much as the informational content - you're actually capturing in real time a human giving a performance and it's very difficult to you know if a photo doesn't work out very well you can touch it up with some software or if the words if you need to lop a hundred words off that's fine but with a with the performance you need to actually get the person in a real location in sync with the equipment so the equipment's got to work you - you can't tweak or fix it as easily afterwards and that's kind of what's exciting about podcasts - is that there is an authentic a real-life event that's happened that you're capturing

I would also suggest technically to use the same microphones as well because if the sound changes it's the same reason why people grade the video footage which is where you color it to try and match different cameras because when you go from one camera to another camera and the colors look different you’re like - now if you don't do any filming you won't realize this because you think well it's in colour, I’ve set the color - it’s either black and white or color - 2 color cameras - start recording and you look at them you’re like oh my god they look completely different!

You know forgetting about lenses, coverage, sensor size, depth of field, noise dynamic range forget about all of that and you shouldn't forget about any of that - but just putting that to the side - red doesn't look red on the other one - and let's say you're both on a you're both talking in front of grass as we're doing - let's say we've got two cameras one on you and one of me we've got the grass behind it when we cut from you to me and back again if that color grass changes people are gonna see it and they'll go why is that dark green and why is it going light and dark green

I'm really distracted and stuff like that and the same to applies to audio there's got to be the same the same microphone - and the same levels same volume...

You do all of your audio editing in video editing?
Yes I do it all in Premiere - Adobe Premiere

And you have always done that, and you always will?
Yeah because it may not be the best tool for doing audio you'd use I think Adobe do an audio - I don't even know what it’s called - I think it's audition

But they do one I know specifically for audio but premiere is what I know because I use it for editing video and invariably a lot of my audio content has a video element to it so yeah and you can export as an audio file from there so yeah you can export as mp3 or WAV or flac

And once you've put your episode out there do you keep an eye on how the audio podcast is doing in terms of downloads
Yeah in terms of stats yeah traffic.

Libsyn does that for you
Yeah yeah they they provide some statistics for you - not as much as YouTube actually gives you YouTube gives you a ton of stats

Does that affect what you do?
Do you know you can be driven by results like that and analysis - but you can spend a long time trying to find a trend only to find that it was just coincidence

It's interesting but if you could apply it to something - something in the future...

So much of what I do when I post stuff this is the interesting thing about podcasts - now you see a lot of what I post say a review a written review or a photo on Instagram even believe it or not is - the very the success of it vary - can can be highly influenced by the exact time that you post it - it's that time of day and day of the week
Particularly in terms of the US audience.

Like for me because I've got a lot of people who follow me in the US and that's where a lot of my market is there's no point in me posting something at 11 o'clock in the morning in the UK because they’re not gonna see it

By the time they wake up that content is eight year - eight - eight hours old and it's certainly not going to be at the top of their streams so you need to post something when your viewers or listeners are listening

The beautiful thing about podcasts is that most people subscribe to a feed and are told when there's a new one so it's not so time dependent but for the other things especially on YouTube that when you release a video on YouTube is - can really impact it - so I look at the stats for that - and you have best times for different types of content you know

Wednesday afternoon might be good for this, Sunday morning could be disastrous for one thing but good for another

Friday night, Saturday, weekends are terrible for written content even though people say they love settling down with the newspaper on a Sunday so they're obviously in the mindset of a longer read as the Guardian would call it but they don't want to read one of my long articles on a Sunday but they will on a Monday

But... so it's disastrous to post any of my reviews over the weekend but YouTube doesn't seem to care

YouTube does - can do well at the weekend - so I won't hold something back if I finish something on Friday night if it's a big written review there's no way I'm going to publish it on Friday night - it’d be disastrous but if it's a Youtube video, you post it when it's ready

Get it out there
Because it starts gaining Google juice
yes yeah

And people drill back if they if they discover your feed and they like you they do start to drill back
Yeah the other the other way to get a lot of traffic as well and this is this applies for images as well as for audio and videos - try and get on other people's playlists well not playlists - hashtags and things like people follow hashtags say on Instagram so if you tagged your photo “park” or “Brighton” or whatever people will be following some of those hashtags and they'll they'll start liking your content they might not follow you but they will engage with you which is - you know still worth something.
If you had to isolate it - what is your favorite aspect of making the podcast?
Feeling important.
[LAUGH]

But the bit I enjoy most I think bizarrely is I like all of it I really like editing.
I really like snipping out or...
“Making you sound really good and your guests sound like complete idiots”
Resizing me.
Yeah, if I sound like a complete idiot, yeah, I was sublime really erudite - I just really articulate so if I sound like a ***k - it’s Neil that’s done that.
It justhappens to have that filter on!

No, is there a part of the process that you get really big kick from yeah when you when you get something across well when I was talking about earlier when you're trying to get across a piece of information like asking me questions I don't feel that I've answered many of them very well but if I'd had that be like - I’m really glad I said that I got that point across or I described it well. I get a lot out of that.

And if it's technically good you know if you if you look at it and you're like yeah I wanted to show that or say that and it I managed it I nailed it so I enjoy that that part of it and you know it when you're doing it and you feel good you feel good about it.

The editing process I feel I resent it a lot of the time actually
And that's the other nice thing about doing it as a hangout is that you try and record it as if it were live you know you make a mistake just keep going I mean I did so much cheap TV when I was younger where people would say I'd say it's not live they say it might as well be because we ain't stopping.

Gordon, you're very self-effacing I think you are really good at this you are really but you you are because you're so driven by the the process you're so driven - so you’re into your subject which is high end photography and yeah gadgets yeah but beyond that you've you've got this real - you've got this thing in your head that you've I think you feel this need to want to explain it to other people - and to want to help other people navigate their way through it because they haven't had the time or the inclination to drill into the subjects as deeply as possible and it I don't know it's just it's just really exciting time at the moment isn't it I mean---

Well it's Black Friday - it’s very exciting!
Is there a more exciting day?
It’s sunset - it’s gonna kick off
But isn't it isn't it brilliant because when we started everything was so gated everything was so locked down and - yeah - “just put something up on a Friday night because you feel like it”
That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Well it's extremely liberating for us because as you say, we're old enough to remember when that wasn't the case.
That if you wanted to - so I remember meeting Neil remember meeting you in the third and first person at the radio station at our University

And I thought so Neil's a bit younger than me and I remember going in I wasn't I was only doing like one show a week and Neil was there all the time and so I thought you know he's like the pros and he seems to know what he's doing and I was I was in awe of you.
Well I was in awe of you - because of Michael and Gordon’s Nut Hut - one of the best radio shows on UKC Radio 999Khz,

Well that's when I realized - so my best friend Mike at University he had a radio voice and I didn't have - I've never had a radio voice and I've done the radio with some people or TV and suddenly, as soon as they’re live - so they’ll be going:

“Oh hello” and then they’ll be like “Oh I was shopping today...” and then they’ll go are we going live? Okay, 3, 2, 1, “HI EVERYONE” - and you’ll be like, what?!
What on earth is going on?!

And it really, you know you're like you’re completely knocked off balance because they've got a radio voice, so Mike had a brilliant radio voice - yeah he had a good normal voice as well.
So I met Neil at the radio station met you at the radio station and university radio or university magazines newspapers were the kind of accessible means of broadcasting of writing of investigating journalism of actually trying to put content out there that you thought was of a certain standard and then as soon as you left university you didn't have access to the radio station or the university magazine or newspaper anymore - you’re like, well I quite fancied that - how do I get into it - and in the early 90s when I was thrust upon the professional world... well you work for the BBC or you work for ITN or you work for you know you work for a proper massive media company - Sky - and guess what they don't have a great deal of jobs and guess what everyone wants them - or MTV you know that sort of thing - you know I'm gonna talk about, I want to talk about videos music videos
Really? Good luck because there's only two jobs and there's 10 million people wanting them and that was it - you know media jobs were really really hard and like you say you know you had to go to one of these massive companies and they knew that they had lots of people after them - fantastic if you manage to do it - you managed to do it - I kind of freelanced a bit for some of them and it was you felt incredibly special doing it you know to go to something like TV Centre, BBC TV Centre was such a thrill - but then now like 10 years after that being able to just do it yourself is phenomenal

And I would always say this to people - so I started off on magazines and as I became more senior in that role I started interviewing people for jobs and I'd say to them so you want to be a journalist they say yeah

So what have you done about that so far
They went “well I'm here!”
You’d say so have you done any journalism yet
They say no no this would be my first job

I said well you could be a journalist without doing it for a job why don't you just find something out and write it down or record it and they'd go they'd look at you like you like you from outer space
And nowadays when there is an outlet cuz there wasn't the internet then or not as easy to go on the internet but you could still put together I put together a magazine when I was 10 years old at school about video games and used to sell it for 5p to my mates - I used to hand write every one I used to do screenshots - I’d just draw them and colour them in with felt pens you know and and sell it so I was a journalist then

I was producing content and that's what I want to see from people you know when they're going for jobs and people now say oh I wanna I want to get into broadcasting or I want to want to have a podcast - like you found you can get so caught up in all the “am I good enough” have I got the right gear for Godssake just start doing it.
Do it badly.

That's how you get good at doing something you do it a lot just do it as much as you can you will get way better

Don't go on a course unless it's one of mine!
[LAUGH]
And fully available at cameralabs.com

Well do go on a course if you want but it's not gonna make you you know just start doing it if you want to become a journalist just start being a journalist if you want to be a broadcaster just start broadcasting

And then the day that you do - you are approached by the BBC or a job appears and they say so you know what have you been doing you go well for the past five years I've actually had this really successful youtube channel or whatever

They'll be impressed at that point you might actually be making some money from it you might not even need that other job so yeah just just do it you know in the classic words of that sports apparel manufacturer

That's exactly why I started the podcast producers podcast even if you haven't started one yet you are a podcast producer and so thank you so much for sharing the inner world of cameralabs.com
Almost as a metaphor the Sun is setting...
On my career...
On our careers.
Over to you now kids.
What... if you had to title this episode - where would you start - how would you...
Because I suppose the titles of your podcast episodes are quite linked to the
“The one with the two grumpy old men and a Nikon”
How would you how where would I start with titling this episode
What for SEO?
Or even just if you're just scrolling through...
Top seven tips for podcasting success
Yeah that was the last episode.
It can never be ten, have you noticed that
yeah well apparently
You can’t have ten top tips now
The search engines filter that out
seven

Seven best podcasting tips by industry veterans.
No they sound old.
I don’t wanna hear from a veteran - not a podcasting veteran
Seven facts about Gordon Laing you did not know.
Seven Habits of Highly Effective podcasters.
That's the one thank you
You're welcome
What do podcast producers do?
Podcast Producers Podcast.
Cue my daughter.

Can you please help my daddy get 1000 subscribers
Just click on his face thanks bye!