How do I Film my YouTube Videos?

Today's questions comes in from Sharon K who asks,

     "I’m curious how you can film while playing, keep the view steady and still read comments. It
     seems like your just using one cell. Also how do people do superchats and comments?"

Thank you so much for your Topic suggestion Sharon (enter yours below!). I will answer your question and take it one step further by explaining all of the equipment I use on my channel!

First and foremost Sharon and EVERYONE, you MUST subscribe to both my daily video Channel, Brian Christopher Slots, and my Live Stream Channel, BCSlots LIVE. Not just because I'm cool, but because you have to in order to comment or super chat. After you're subscribed, the comment box will remain for you to leave comments going forward, and a $ sign will appear beside that during live streams in order to send a Super Chat. Please also note that subscribing is free of charge and there is no fee to watch my videos on YouTube. 

In terms of what I use to film, I'll go into full detail below with affiliate links to all products I use in case anyone is interested in using them for a new channel! 

Reading the chat during a live stream is quite difficult when there are literally thousands of them in an hour. I also have to focus on the slot machine too haha. It is easy to miss a lot of comments, especially because I can only see 3 comments at a time. So I tend to scan the comments. There are a ton of repeat questions that I can easily ignore (like 'what casino are you at' or 'where's Marco?' lol), or questions that are way too personal which I also ignore haha. If something fun, unique or exciting catches my eye, then I'll try to read it out. Of course I always try to shout out Super Chats so I can thank that person for their support. I should also mention that Super Chats were created to help support the creator in their endeavors of providing quality content. That money helps to pay for my growing staff, equipment, travels and more. I am very strict about using my own income to use for my gambling only. 

At the Casino I want to be as lean as possible. So it's just me, my iPhone X, my monopod with phone holder and extra battery cases that are fully charged (I have 4!). I love my monopod and now many channels use it too. It's much easier to carry with you than a tripod and less intrusive (although some security think it looks like it's a weapon!). It keeps it mainly steady with a little rockiness. I also own a gimbal stabilizer for those days that I am walking while filming. A rookie mistake is to run out of battery DURING  a live stream (it has happened to me in the past. I'll sometimes bring my external battery charger as well with a long cord in case I need to charge while filming. I also encourage you to use a phone with a large harddrive on it, or you risk running out of space and not being able to film that giant jackpot you just hit (used to happen to me often!). If you can't afford a a phone with more space, then bring along a laptop or something else to upload your files to (however this takes time!). I used to do that for my first year - I'd just go up to my hotel room, unload and continue. One really great piece of advice - invest in an external hard drive! On one occasion I uploaded my videos to my laptop, deleted them off my phone and continued on my way. It wasn't until I was back home that I realized all of my videos were corrupt and I lost hours of footage (that cost me thousands of dollars!). So save those thousands and spend a few bucks to protect yourself by uploading your footage to more than one device or in the cloud. Even today, I keep doubles of everything until it's live on youtube. 

To delve even deeper into how I produce, when I'm not at the casino I am busy at home filming commercials or live stream chats, editing, mailing out purchases from my store or prepping for upcoming events. 

A quick list of my Green Screen Set-Up includes:

• Green Screen
• Support System for Green Screen
• Clamps
• Steamer to take out wrinkles in Green Screen
• Sand Bags (sold empty. I bought sand and ziploc bags from Home Depot to fill them)

and the lighting to accompany it:

• Light Stands
• Lights
• Rechargeable Batteries for Lights
• Ring Light Stand
• Ring Light Phone Holder
• Ring Light
• Sand Bags (sold empty. I bought sand and ziploc bags from Home Depot to fill them)
• Tripod

and for better audio:

• Snowball Microphone
• Lavaliere Microphone
• Lavaliere Microphone extender cord

Finally comes the editing process. There are many kinds of computers and programs to use, so feel free to use what you're comfortable with. This is my setup:

• Macbook Pro
• Final Cut Pro X

​So as you can see, this job is quite costly. It took me many tries at purchasing the wrong equipment and failing - but I think I figured it out in the end. And now I can save you money from making the same mistakes I made!

To see all of the products on one page, visit my Amazon Affiliate Store. And for a more in depth view of starting your own YouTube Channel (Slots or otherwise), be sure to watch the Live Stream I did to give you all of my secrets!

Brian ♥️

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