hey you my name is Thomas TomSka Ridgewell and welcome back to thanks des
the series where I introduce you to the unsung heroes of my videos the men and
women behind the cameras and in this instance I mean that quite literally
because today I'd like to talk about the cinematographers unlike everything else
I've talked about in this series actually filming my videos is the one
thing I've never really been able to do myself on account of being in them being
in front of the camera aside from a few early vlogs and many sketches I've
always relied on other people to make sure the action is in front of the
camera that it's framed up nicely that it's in focus and most importantly that
the record button has actually been pressed I know on so many so many times
over the years I've come to appreciate that the camera crew are usually the
hardest-working people on set while everyone else might be taking a quick
break they're usually still there building the equipment setting up the
next shot lighting rigging they rarely stop although for this video I'm just
gonna be focusing on the camera operators and directors of photography
jumping back to the start my earliest videos were filmed by the Guru friends I
made in sixth form we called ourselves cake bomb Abbey Ruth min er Chris myself
we all film stuff here and there but really it was my one old friend Rosie
who did most of the shooting I called her the human tripod because she had a
very steady hand not because she had an enormous penis when I moved to
university and graduated from filming on my handy cam to a more real camera is
when things started to get more official my cake bomb buddy Chris and I would
still film things on the fly but was when I met geeky power couple emerald
Richards and my set started to look almost kind of sort of professional Emma
Chris and sometimes Richard shot almost all of my University era videos like the
early cake bomb days it was usually a case of whoever wasn't in front of the
camera was holding it no one was being paid we were borrowing all the equipment
from the University and at any given time we only understood what roughly
half of the buttons on the camera did but it worked and we made some cool
video it was when I left University and moved to London though that things
really stepped up this is where we entered the golden era of TomSka with
the arrival of Kieran O'Brien he just graduated from Bath Spa University and
let me tell you he knew what every button on his camera did starting out
with just a Canon 5d and a couple of soft boxes he very
rapidly evolved as both a camera operator and a director of photography
every shoot would provide new challenges opportunities to improve and on top of
that pay for new equipment and before long Karen was the go-to guy within the
UK YouTube scene because he was talented ambitious affordable and also expected
and anticipated the quite frankly unprofessional and chaotic nature that
can be expected on a youtube set it would be a crime not to attribute a huge
portion of my growth and success on YouTube to his hard work late hours and
long suffering so thank you Karen that's not to say I was entirely faithful to
Kieran though in the years we work together
I had a few one two or even six nightstands with other camera operators
I don't like to be tied down okay and sometimes he was busy those folks were
like Truman Jack Howard Jim booth Alex Odin Aidan hillier Smith anything spent
Elliott Gulf and George shankster I had such high hopes for us George why'd you
have to go and get a real job like that oh and two days ago I filmed the first
time with the DOP called Edgar dubrovsky but you haven't seen that video yet so
maybe Friday these days though I spend most of my time on set with director of
photography and official boat dweller max Brill I met max while I was briefly
working with the BBC and it was his enthusiasm that initially drew him to me
he has this joyous mischievous energy that I felt was sorely lacking from my
set he also looks a bit like a wildling he also punched Elliot's light switch in
half for like no reason and I still need to replace that thanks max so that's
another little insight into the professionals behind the
unprofessionalism the makers of the madness and hopefully now you can
appreciate them and what they do just a little bit more or at the very least you
know their names I want to say thank you to everyone I mentioned in this video
for making my career a possibility and thank you to you for watching TomSka out