My YouTube Setup: How I Make My YouTube Videos with an iPhone!

Hello everyone, I'm spawnpoint and welcome back to another video, so I've been uploading

videos

to this channel for a little over a year and during that time I've gotten quite a few questions about how I create my content and that's what I'm going to do. What to do Today I'll show you everything I do to create these

videos

I'll show you how I record them all on my iPhone The settings I use What equipment I use How I come up with ideas and how I edit them I'll even give you a rough idea of ​​how much time I spend It takes to create these videos every week, they last approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

Now the goal of this video is obviously to show you how I

make

my videos, but hopefully it will give you some ideas and inspiration to create your own. I'll also give you some tips at the end on how to get started and what gear I recommend using, everything I cover in today's video is linked in the description so sit back. Feel free to check it out and if you have any questions, leave them in the comments. First, what do I use to record the videos you're watching on my channel, including this one right now? Well, actually I'm using it. my

iphone

12 pro max and before that I was using the 11 pro max that means all the videos in 2020 were filmed on an

iphone

and the reason I've been using my iphone instead of my sony camera is that it's very easy to use and it's always with me also shoots in 4k, the stabilization is brilliant and the video quality is pretty decent.

I mean, it's never going to be as good as a three to five thousand dollar camera

setup

that most channels use, but yeah, it's not bad at all and it definitely hasn't stopped me from creating videos on my channel and it hasn't It stopped me from growing to 51,000 subscribers in my first year, so I usually shoot using the wide angle lens, just the regular phone lens, and the image quality is great. I mean, the telephoto lens that I use sometimes is also amazing at creating that kind of depth of field and also gives that crop look to the lens, and then the ultra wide angle lens that I also use and usually use. that when I'm walking and I need the shot to be a little wider or I use it for my shots in the car, like my point of view when I drive, the problem with the ultra wide angle lens is that it is very noisy, especially in low light , and I'm usually not happy with the results, but most of the time the iPhone looks amazing, especially in decent light.

Now I always shoot in 4k 30 and use the most compatible option in the settings, now I used to. I shot with the high efficiency option instead but it always caused random glitches in the footage when I was editing so it was really frustrating so I switched to the more compatible option and that definitely fixed it but it means the sizes The files are a little bit larger, but it's obviously a compromise I'm willing to

make

, so I chose the 256 gigabyte option. Now it's rare that I complete it before transferring or deleting videos from the phone and when I'm not using my iPhone, I actually use my wife's El 12 Pro like now, for example, here's how I'm recording this shot from my own phone and in terms of battery, I can use my iPhone for three to five hours to record all the content I need for a video and that's it. not worrying about the battery at all but something I was meaning to buy this year is a power bank and that means I have one with me in case I run out of battery when I was filming so yeah all the videos on This channel is filmed only with an iPhone, so I am using the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

I was previously using the 11 Pro Max, but to be honest, any phone will do when it comes to creating the videos for this channel, one of the most important. The accessories I use is a tripod, it's how I get slow side to side panning shots and it's also useful for getting steady shots, for example I'm recording my car driving or an unboxing video etc. until May. year I was just using a 15 tripod which did the job, it was super light and then it broke and I thought, you know what I'm going to spend a little more and get something decent, so I bought this one.

I think it's called the Manfrotto zero five five it weighed 150 pounds or about 200, which for an iPhone is definitely excessive, but it's lightweight, compact, solid, and has the ability to switch between landscape and portrait without having to remove my phone, so what this guy has great. of the center piece here the center column and when it rises it lets the arm move up and out and then you can use it for, for example, shots or aerial shots and things like that, but it doesn't come with a head and that's the part. that you need to attach your camera or phone to the legs, but since the cheap tripod I've been using before already had a head that was probably worth around two dollars, I unscrewed it and actually just used this on the new legs so I could get a proper one in the future like a fluid head or something but it's about 150 and then to connect my phone to the tripod I only needed one of these adapters so I bought a type 20 metal adapter on Amazon.

Now this is felt. really safe, it's solid, it screws into the phone jack instead of having a spring which I know you can buy for a couple bucks or so and plus there's also a cold shoe mount on the top so if I wanted to place it, say a microphone or a light, I could do that and that's how I get these stable panning shots. I use a tripod, you don't need an expensive one like this, although anything will do. The 15 I had before was absolutely fine, but just make sure you always do it. I use a tripod so the next one is probably the second most used accessory I have and this is the DJI mobile gimbal so I still use the osmo mobile 3.

I know there is a fourth version that is already available but it's really not worth the shame for me. change it for the small adjustments and this cost me 120 or around £99 for the combo kit so the iPhone stabilization is pretty decent anyway you don't need one of these but this gimbal makes the footage a bit smoother and also allows me to walk, move and scroll with very little vibration or shaking and that means I can also hold my iPhone with one hand if necessary. It's like a mini tripod and definitely makes it easier for me to take the photos I need, so I'll do that. use this gimbal for any handheld shooting at any point that is not on a tripod it is on the gimbal so here for example I am doing a slow pan of my car mirror nothing special this is just a demonstrator and you can see here as I move the around with a tripod, it moves very smoothly, giving it that really nice professional look.

It's also how I get every shot you see on my TV or at my desk, so I usually hold the gimbal with two hands just for extra support and just move very slowly so it doesn't slow down at all in post editing. Nothing like that. It's just me moving to the side and it's very smooth and stable, it gives it that nice look, so yeah, I really think this is an amazing accessory. for anyone who wants to film on the phone especially if you're going to do it on a handheld and this isn't just for YouTube this is for any video in general so when it comes to creating some of the videos you see on my channel.

Usually unboxing phones and drones etc I do a flat lay shot from above so the way I create them is not using the tripod I showed before, I'm actually using the shelf on my wall above my desk and one of these clamps so I attach it to my shelf I hang it over my desk I put my phone on it I line it up and then I press record and that's it it's a nice easy way to get these types of shots where I can unpack and show from above without trying to move around a tripod in my way and if you have seen any of my Tesla videos on the channel, I often show from an angle view or from the car, now this is done using a suction cup mount which I glued to the glass roof of my car and put my phone on it.

Now the stand itself weighs only about 15 pounds or 20 or so. It's a great way to get that gopro style photo. Now I know this isn't for everyone, but if you're thinking about taking a road trip or just feel like doing a bit of driving and want to record it, this is an ideal way to do it now, most of the time I use natural light for my videos and the same goes for my Instagram posts, so whether that's my car videos, my TV

setup

, my desk setup, I rarely use anything other than natural light, but sometimes I can be doing some unpacking at my desk and the outside light is too poor and I need a little help so I use one of these soft box lights now I have two of these.

I bought a pair for about £50 or $70 and they do a good job for what I need. It's nothing special. It's probably better, but you can see it here. It makes a big difference, so if you needed that light today, obviously this makes a big difference for that video. Now, the next kit I use is to record my audio. I'll show you how I create it and record it. a little later, but I use a blue yeti microphone for my voiceovers, so it's a USB microphone that just plugs directly into your computer, there's no need for any kind of third party accessories.

Now this microphone comes with a USB type A cable. but I bought a usbc cable separately and that meant I could plug it directly into my macbook without any adapter. Now I've only had this since June of last year so for about six months and before that I was using the videomicro rode and before that. I was using a cheap pair of astro a10 headphones and those were my first 20 videos so the first 20 videos on this channel used the astro headphones and I recently bought this 20 mic arm and that means I can now have my blue yeti microphone from permanently. attached to my desk, whereas before I had it set up on my desk, so right in front of my keyboard, the blue yeti would sit there and then end up getting in the way, to be honest, so I'd end up throwing it away. error and I have to go back to recording, while now it's on this arm, I can move it out of the way and when I'm ready to start recording, I just plug in the power cable which then goes to the Mac and I'm ready to go and put the arm on.

I have this pop filter and this is to prevent you from hearing pops in the audio while I'm talking and they're called pops so this is me saying pop with a filter on and if I just move this. away now and this is me saying pop pop pop with a filter removed so you can see here it sounds pretty bad so I'm going to do it again now and I hope you can hear the difference okay pop pop pop pop and that. It only cost about ten dollars, so it was definitely worth it, so when I'm recording my audio or actually listening to it, I use a pair of monitoring headphones.

These are quite flat with very little bass. I did a lot of research. before I bought them and they are very very good and ideal for listening to voiceovers so these are the sony mdr 7506 and they cost me 90 quid or about 120 and like a blue yeti microphone that has a headphone out port actually on the microphone, it means I can actually hear my own voice while recording, so I know if my audio sounds good. That's all the equipment I use to record the audio and video and the next one is the one I use to store and edit everything so I'm using a 2018 macbook pro it's the 15 inch bass spec model so It is the six core i7 with 16 gigs of ram, without any extras and I have edited all the videos on this mac.

Now as for memory, I am currently using two one terabyte SSDs and these are the sandisk extreme ones and they are really very small so they fit in my laptop case quite well. Next, I want to show you my workflow, how I plan to create and edit all of my videos. Well first how do I come up with the ideas for my videos well I actually have a spreadsheet and that's where I write down all my ideas and I just write them down, it could be something simple like setting up the desktop or a rough idea of ​​something What I want to do, plus an idea will always guide.

Furthermore, for example, the desktop setup are videos that I have done in the past that could lead to a review of the monitor that is already on the desktop, configuration of a keyboard review or chair review, so a video will always be a gateway to more, I mean just watch. my Tesla videos for example, I somehow managed to create 27 videos about that car last year, that's almost half of my channel. Now most of the videos I create on my channel are things I actually buy and use myself. I rarely buy things just to review. I put them here, but failing that, if I don't have ideas, I don't know what to do next.

I just turn to YouTube for inspiration. For every video I've already created, there are already hundreds if not thousands of the same video, so I'm not unique or original at all, just take an idea from someone else and do your own thing, so once I have an idea , I will freely plan what I want to do with it, so II open. a template document that I created and here it has everything I need to create my content, so I write five to ten subtitles and they are titles that I want to cover in the video, then I take my notebook and I write down ideas.

I would like to record, so what I do is I take this notebook with me when I'm making my recordings. These would just be simple ideas, they won't be sort of complete tutorials of what I'm going to do. and as such, it means that I won't forget what I want to record when I do it that day and, furthermore, I have an obsession with writing lists and crossing them off, it makes me feel really productive. So this is the fun part, this is where I can start creating content, so I'm going to grab my iPhone, my tripod and my laptop and start now.

This is usually a weekend as I work during the week and go about my day. work now depends on what I'm recording, so if it were a Tesla video, for example, I could be out of the house for three or four hours taking the shots I need, putting my phone on the tripod, passing, jumping, moving it, doing another shot, I mean I could literally move my phone or the tripod three or four times just to get that shot and then if I'm doing an unboxing or a technical video, well this could take me about two hours recording the different angles I need again.

I am using the list I created above to capture the footage I need and once finished I simply copy the files from my phone to my macbook and obviously to the external ssd and doing this is very easy so I open the camera roll, select the videos that I have created and send them to the macbook using airdrop and that's it. I copy these files to the ssd and keep them organized in folders so I know where to find them later and then once copied and backed up I just delete them from my phone, okay the next part is writing the script and that's probably the worst .

For me, there are two reasons Why I'll write a script: one is because it means I don't really have to worry about what I'm going to say and two is because I review it later and it means I can eliminate any of the things. I repeat and I can eliminate the nonsense. I mean, I just want to get straight to the point. I don't want to bore you by saying the same thing over and over again. I don't want to bore you if I say the same thing. I did it over and over again to record my audio and as I mentioned before I used a blue yeti microphone and although it is an amazing microphone it is really good, it is very very sensitive and picks up almost all noises.

Now I sit down and open up audacity, which is free audio recording software, and read the script that I wrote word for word. Now I always have my headphones on and that often means I can re-listen to sections just to make sure they're okay. I record I actually leave long gaps or pauses so it means that afterwards I can see where the subtitles start and end now once recorded I just do two things I run a noise reduction effect and it removes any unwanted noise or noise background and then just export it ready to edit now this is the fun part for me.

I love editing videos so I take the random video clips usually around 50 or so and the audio that I recorded and make it all fit together so I edit everything on my macbook and use final cut pro. I started using this at the end of 2019 so the first video you see on my channel was the first time I used final cut pro and started playing with it, I don't really do anything. fancy as you know its just a few cuts here and there so first i create a project under tesla or tech again using 4k 30 to match the videos i have recorded then i rename it so it makes sense to me i do it I drag and drop the video and audio files that I created earlier and then from here I simply create a base layer, drag in the voiceover and color code it so I know what the voiceover is, if I were to use music in addition to This, I also have some audio presets that I created, so I actually did this by listening to my own voice and adjusting the levels until I was happy with the original result.

The blue yeti is pretty flat so it definitely needed some work. Then I'll quickly go through it and find those audio spaces that I mentioned before while using audacity and then I'll break it down into sections and then I'll be able to see where each of the subtitles will start and end, so if I decide to use music in my video, I'll use musicbed To obtain the. It is a royalty-free music website. If you're interested, there's a link in the description and we'll both get a month free once the video is edited, which usually takes me.

Realistically about three to five hours, then I'll add my intro and outro text, which is basically just my name and a subscribe button, and then I'll add my own custom lut preset and this is the filter or the color grading that you see in my videos I've had my own Lightroom presets for a few years and I took those presets and also made my own luts so my videos look similar to my Instagram account, at least that was it the plan. I might now sell my lut and lightroom presets in the future if I get enough interest, so if it's something you're interested in, leave it in the comments and it might be something I sell later this year.

Okay, now I make an ending. I review it just to make sure I'm happy with it and I export it so I use the computer option and I always choose 4k and then export so if you want to see more about how I edit my videos let me know. in the comments too because what I could do is create a video dedicated just to this, so it's literally just my Final Cut Pro editing process, so now I create the thumbnail, this is probably one of the most important parts as well, so it's usually the image that people see before they even click on the video, so I create them all in Lightroom.

I use a photo I took at the time or most of the time now I just take a screenshot of the exported video and that is an uploaded video. I have the title, description, tags and image I need and then once live I try to make sure I'm available to respond to comments and interact with everyone. I treat it as if you made the decision. It's time to check out my content and leave a comment. I definitely have time to read and respond. So how long does it take to create these videos? That varies depending on the topic and the length of the video, but I would say.

These averages you see on the screen are probably correct for a 15-minute video. That's for everything you watch, from planning to live streaming. If I made a talking head type video that most creators make and I didn't make. Any script writer could probably create a 15 minute video in just a few hours, so I'm definitely creating more work for myself by doing it this way, but I create these videos because I enjoy the whole process. I didn't start this channel to make money I did it because I wanted to do something creative definitely don't start a channel this year with the sole purpose of making money because that will come later if you try hard to just enjoy doing what you want to make product reviews a vlog, whatever your passion is, just create content around it and in terms of where to start my advice would be to use whatever phone you have in your hand at the moment, there's a good chance it will record in 4k and if it doesn't, it doesn't.

It doesn't matter, just shoot in 1080p or whatever. I didn't spend any money at the beginning of this. I used what I had in my pocket, so I had an iPhone 11 Pro. I had an old tripod that I had had for several years. and I used an astro a10 gaming headset to do the audio and just months and dozens of videos later I started spending money to upgrade my accessories and even today, a year later, 55,000 subscribers, 9 million views on this channel and I'm still using an iPhone to create this content, so if you want to create some content or start a new channel in 2021, come up with an idea, write some captions and go from there.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments and don't forget. I've linked my entire kit list in the description of everything I've used in today's video and you've just reached the end of this ridiculously long video, so thanks for sticking with me. I really hope this was helpful, I know I don't do anything crazy, I'm not a crazy editor at all, it's pretty simple and basic, but I wanted to give you some inspiration, if I can do it, you can do it too, so if you let it . In the comments I will give you the thumbs up because I know you have made it to the end, as always.

I hope you enjoyed the video. Hit the like button if you've made it this far as it really helps me. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, you can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter until next time.