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My London Studio Tour (2022)

2022-09-18 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 32:07 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators (also: Business and entrepreneurship) · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: His own products discussed, His own numbers, His medical past, Family, Sponsor segment present

In the first episode of his Backstage series, Ali tours his London studio, its co-working spaces and its working, podcast and main-channel filming setups, then breaks down its £10,800-a-month cost: after the hot-desk perk and a filming bedroom at home, he pays a £6,300 premium that he judges probably not worth it, and plans a hybrid model with home studios and co-working passes.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro: the 2022 studio tour opens Backstage, a new behind-the-scenes series

  • ★★ Ali's 2022 studio tour is the first episode of Backstage, a new series taking viewers behind the scenes of his YouTube channel and the business around it. — 00:00:00

00:00:45 — The co-working gallery and the building's communal spaces

  • ★★ The gallery, a communal co-working area on the floor of Ali's London office, often feels private because his team is generally the only one there; they sometimes film videos and co-work in it. — 00:00:45 · London

00:01:44 — The studio: desks, team, upload station, chairs, storage, music corner and balcony

  • ★★ Ali's team includes interns such as Sam and Jamie, its YouTube producer, who helps with titles and thumbnails. — 00:02:18
  • ★★ The desks in Ali's studio come from Herman Miller; anyone on the team can sit at any desk and plug in their MacBook, and the business gives everyone on the team a MacBook. — 00:02:18 · MacBook
  • ★★ An always-on Mac mini in Ali's studio uploads footage overnight to his editors, one of whom, Christian, is in Romania, and backs up all the footage. — 00:02:47 · Mac mini, Christian
  • ★★ Ali designed a stationery line a few months earlier and his business has been selling it; friends, family, podcast guests and YouTubers who visit the office get free stationery as a present. — 00:03:31
  • ★ Ali's own studio chair is the Herman Miller Sail he has had for many years and brought from his place in Cambridge. — 00:03:31 · Cambridge
  • ★★ The other chairs in Ali's studio are Herman Miller Cosms, which adjust only for height, so anyone can sit in them and work in comfort. — 00:04:01
  • ★★ Ali calls the studio's Pro Display XDR monitor totally not worth it. — 00:04:59
  • ★★ Ali's singing teacher Josh comes to the studio twice a week to give him singing lessons, which Ali takes because it is fun. — 00:05:56
  • ★★ Ali underestimated how much storage a business needs for the things that accumulate; in his next studio or office he wants far more storage space. — 00:07:25
  • ★★ Ali's studio is set up for working by default and reconfigured for filming podcasts, YouTube videos or livestreamed Zoom sessions of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy. — 00:07:55 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy, Zoom

00:08:24 — The podcast setup: three cameras, microphones, live switching, Zoom and Academy Q&As

  • ★★ Ali's Deep Dive podcast is filmed from three angles: a Sony A7C on the wide shot with a 24 mm G Master lens at f/5.6, and two Sony A7S III cameras with 85 mm lenses at about f/1.4 for a blurry background. — 00:08:24 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ The podcast cameras use Peter McKinnon variable ND filters, "like sunglasses for the lenses", which Ali calls ideal because the studio's lighting varies a lot. — 00:09:14 · Peter McKinnon
  • ★★ Podcast audio comes from Shure SM7B microphones, fitted with custom blue parts because the studio likes blue and white. — 00:09:14
  • ★ The podcast microphones feed by XLR into a Zoom H6 recorder, which records to an SD card. — 00:10:04
  • ★★ The podcast cameras feed by HDMI into an AtomX CAST, which takes up to four HDMI inputs, so the camera angle can be switched live by pushing numbers. — 00:10:33
  • ★★ Ali usually livestreams Deep Dive podcast recordings to his team over Zoom, because the team often wants to watch his interviews. — 00:10:33 · Deep Dive, Zoom
  • ★ Ali is thinking about livestreaming the Deep Dive podcast at some point further down the line. (hedged) — 00:10:33 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Switching camera angles live gives a rough cut of each podcast episode, which an editor could tweak into the episode to save time. (hedged) — 00:11:18 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ The podcast setup also serves the Part-Time YouTuber Academy's group Q&As, where Ali and Elizabeth answer audience questions while someone switches camera angles for the Zoom broadcast. — 00:11:18 · Elizabeth, Part-Time YouTuber Academy, Zoom
  • ★★ The live-cohort Part-Time YouTuber Academy runs a few times a year. — 00:11:47 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Amber, Ali's podcast producer, follows Deep Dive interviews live, in the studio or over Zoom, takes notes and feeds him points through the Notion page he keeps open: anything he missed, got wrong or should ask more about. — 00:12:16 · Notion, Deep Dive, Zoom
  • ★★ A podcast interview feels more intimate with fewer people in the studio, Ali says, especially when the guest has little experience of being on podcasts. — 00:12:16

00:12:45 — The main channel setup: single light, camera and microphone, overhead rig, varied angles and aesthetic tweaks

  • ★★★ Ali lights his main-channel videos with one soft, flattering light through a light dome at 45 degrees, following Peter McKinnon's method of lighting with a single light, without optimising for hair or back light. — 00:13:28 · Peter McKinnon
  • ★★ Ali films his main-channel videos on a Sony A7S III with a 50 mm G Master lens at a wide aperture for a blurry background, with sound from a Sennheiser MKH416 microphone. — 00:13:57
  • ★★ Ali likes keeping the microphone out of shot, so he can just do his thing on camera. — 00:13:57
  • ★★ Gordon and the team set up an overhead camera rig in Ali's studio, which suits his videos of writing and drawing diagrams, his favourite way to explain things. — 00:14:43
  • ★★★ For leverage on his own time, Ali is most useful speaking to a camera or planning and writing videos, and much less useful setting up cameras, so his team does that. — 00:15:51
  • ★★ While his team sets up cameras, Ali plans the next video, so they can film several videos in one sitting, which he calls an important part of being a part-time YouTuber. — 00:15:51
  • ★★★ Although Ali no longer has a day job as a doctor, as he did for the channel's first three years, his team still works on the YouTube channel only on Thursdays, so he still considers himself a bit of a part-time YouTuber. — 00:16:21
  • ★★ Ali thinks sitting on the floor is an underrated way of getting cool shots; his video on why he was leaving medicine was filmed that way. — 00:17:25
  • ★★ Ali films with the same space and gear but changes the setup a little, so viewers can recognise the studio's white, blue and green look, with books, a lamp, a guitar and a ukulele behind him. (hedged) — 00:17:53
  • ★★ Gordon put blue filters on the studio's yellow ceiling lights so they look more like daylight; Ali hates yellow, warm lighting. — 00:18:19
  • ★★ The studio windows have blue-tinted ND film, added because changing daylight threw harsh sunlight onto the background or a podcast guest's face; it evens out the light. — 00:18:48
  • ★★★ Ali makes small aesthetic tweaks to his videos because he needs to be proud of them, and he hopes viewers subconsciously appreciate a nice look. (hedged) — 00:19:30
  • ★★ The studio wall, at first a dirty greenish yellow, is now white, with paint recommended by Becky and Chris; Ali loves a good white wall. — 00:20:19
  • ★★ Part of how Ali justified the expensive studio room is that it comes with the gallery as a co-working space and other spaces in the building that are nice for filming. — 00:20:19
  • ★★★ The more relaxed Ali feels in a video, the more fun it is to film and, he hopes, the more ease comes across to viewers, so wherever possible he tries to relax himself. — 00:21:26

00:21:50 — Skillshare sponsor read

00:23:08 — The finances: £10,800 a month, the ROI breakdown and the move to a hybrid model

  • ★★★ Ali's London studio costs £10,800 a month plus VAT, which his VAT-registered business reclaims, so £10,800 is the figure it works with. — 00:23:15 · London
  • ★ When Ali told his mother what the studio costs, she asked how on earth he was paying so much for it. — 00:23:15
  • ★★ Ali's studio is expensive because it is in central London, where everything is stupidly expensive, and because its co-working building is upmarket, a slightly more upmarket version of WeWork. — 00:23:50 · London
  • ★★ When Ali was in Cambridge, he, Angus and the rest of the team used WeWork hot-desk passes, at £300 per person per month, and went to the local WeWork every day. — 00:24:50 · Angus, Cambridge
  • ★★ Taking WeWork as the price anchor, Ali values the hot-desk access to London co-working spaces included in his studio rent at about £3,000 a month, leaving £7,800 for the private office itself. — 00:25:24 · London
  • ★★ For four years Ali filmed in his living room or bedroom; on moving to London he decided against it, because cameras, lights and cables everywhere were affecting his personal life. — 00:25:58 · London
  • ★★ Ali estimates that an extra bedroom in central London big enough to film YouTube videos and podcasts in would cost, conservatively, another £1,500 a month. — 00:26:27 · London
  • ★★★ By Ali's breakdown, his business pays a premium of £6,300 a month for the studio to be the room it films in, rather than a bedroom in his home. — 00:26:27
  • ★★★ Monetarily Ali's studio does not seem worth it: apart from the studio tour, there is no video his team would not have made in a bedroom at home, so it has not let them make more videos. — 00:27:07
  • ★★ Over the past year, chance conversations among Ali's team in the studio have started new projects, shut projects down and led to things that generated revenue. — 00:28:05
  • ★★★ The serendipity of working in person would quite possibly come just as well from the team hot-desking together at a WeWork, without the extra £6,300 a month of a private office, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:28:05
  • ★★ What a private office adds is the vibes: unlike hot-desking, Ali's team can do whatever it wants with the space, has made fun memories, and people, Ali included, have become good friends. — 00:28:43
  • ★★★ Ali judges the £6,300 a month his business pays for the studio's extra vibes probably not worth it: it is a lot of money, and the vibes could have been created far more cheaply on purpose. (hedged) — 00:29:13
  • ★★★ Ali took the London studio as an experiment: after four years of working from home on his channel, the business was doing ridiculously well, with super high margins, when he moved to London. — 00:29:13 · London, experimental mindset
  • ★★ Ali expects to look back on the studio as a good experiment rather than a regret: he was curious what working in a normal office with his team around him is like, and has run that experiment for a year. — 00:29:48 · experimental mindset
  • ★★★ Ali's studio is not really fit for purpose: since the team is always filming videos, podcasts, Academy sessions or courses there, nobody can really work in it, the reason for having people in person. — 00:29:48
  • ★★★ In the next couple of months Ali's business will probably move to a hybrid model: two extra bedrooms in his home as studios for the YouTube channel and the podcast, and WeWork or similar co-working hot-desk passes for the team. (hedged) — 00:30:28
  • ★★ There is no real playbook for running a creator business like Ali's at this stage; huge US creators such as Linus Tech Tips and MKBHD have enormous warehouses. — 00:30:28 · Marques Brownlee
  • ★★ For running a creator business, Ali says it is all about running experiments and seeing what works for you. — 00:31:16 · experimental mindset

00:31:30 — Sign-off and a pointer to his three-level guide to growing on YouTube

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Deep Dive · London

Also: People: Amber · Angus · Christian · Elizabeth · Gordon · Jamie · Marques Brownlee · Peter McKinnon · Tommy

Projects: Backstage · Essentiali · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Organizations: Becky and Chris · Herman Miller · Linus Tech Tips · WeWork

Concepts: experimental mindset · leverage

Places: Cambridge · Romania

Products: Aputure 300D Mark II · Aputure Light Dome II · AtomX CAST · Cloudlifter · Herman Miller Sail · Mac mini · MacBook · Notion · Pro Display XDR · Sennheiser MKH416 · Shure SM7B · Sony A7C · Sony A7S III · Zoom · Zoom H6

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