Matt Gray's Patreon Posts

🍺 I tried brewing beer and mostly got in the way! – Matt Gray is Trying: Brewing

Thu, 16 May 2024 19:32:24 +0100

This was such a fun day and I learned so much more than I expected to!

Thanks to Ben and all the team at Small Beer Brewery: https://theoriginalsmallbeer.com/

And thanks to all of you Patreon members contributing towards the costs, as I didn't get an advert for this one!

As a thank you, I'll be uploading a couple of bits from the day that didn't make it into the main video, onto here for anyone with a paid membership to watch!

Can you guess what I’m trying next

Wed, 15 May 2024 18:52:37 +0100

Where to see Matt in person, and more videos in the pipeline!

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:10:35 +0100

Events

I'm going to be at some events over the next few months! If you see me there, come up and say hi if you'd like.

[edit: I will no longer be at superbooth in Berlin]

18/19th May: Makers Central, Birmingham
31st May - 3rd June: Electromagnetic Field Festival – I'm on the organising team
15/16th June: https://opensauce.com/ – I'm not on the schedule but I'll be there!

I will note however that it really helps if you say that you recognise me off the internet, otherwise I'll be wondering if I should know you!

What's a humble brag only Brits would understand?

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 11:10:40 +0100

Not put off by my ice cream antics, Evan Edinger invited me back for another video on his channel!

A Park Bench Throwback

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:50:07 +0100

I have no recollection of making this video whatsoever, but I found it interesting to see me discussing the idea for Matt Gray is Trying nearly seven years ago!

So yeah if you wondered how long that idea’ s been kicking around in my head it’s been about a decade at least!

I’ve got several more episodes in the works, including at least two with Hazards that need to be Risk Assessed Appropriately!

“British ice cream expert, Matt Gray”

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 01:44:55 +0000

Evan Edinger invited me onto his channel to help taste and rate a load of British ice creams.

Matt Gray is Trying: Biomedical Research

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:06:40 +0000

I can't remember when I last spend a whole day going wow like this, the research has got so much further than I would have expected!

Assembling single shot plates - Unused footage from Matt Gray is Trying: Fireworks

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:58:57 +0000

Matt Gray is Continuing To Try!

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:58:17 +0000

I've got some good news for fans of the series, I've decided to extend the run, and will be making eight episodes not four!

The original plan was to make four episodes, see how they went, and then keep going if the financials looked promising. And they do! I'm not breaking even, but after only 3 videos it's looking promising! For my last video, the combination of sponsorship, your Patreon subscriptions and YouTube ads covered nearly half the cost!

There's no video this month because the filming schedule got pushed back, but I'm still aiming to release monthly going forward.

I filmed March's video this week and had so much fun with the people who spent time with me, all of whom explained their specialisms with such wide-eyed excitement! I could have spent hours with each one of them.

How To Remove Bad Line Marking

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 17:51:26 +0000

A little extra from Matt Gray is Trying: Line Marking.

They had to remove the lines I marked (because they were terrible), so I had a go at the first step: grinding.

It's a big disc grinder on a wheely thing, and you push it back and forward for ages until you've scraped most of the resin off the ground.

In this month's video, Matt Gray is Trying: Stenography!

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:54:33 +0000

To the Youtubes!

The Cat is Finally Out of the Bag

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:42:27 +0000

Yes, today’s update nicely follows on from my last one in which I teased my new project, and briefly discussed the economics of making videos.

Going Pro & My New Video Series

Matt Gray is Trying

In each video I get to see something you don’t normally get to see, and I’m bringing you along with me!

I started by spending time with Titanium Fireworks, showing everything that goes into planning, preparing for, and firing a professional display:

Months of Planning to launch 5000 fireworks in 20 minutes! Matt Gray Is Trying: Pyrotechnics

I then followed up with having a go at road painting with Total Line Marking:

Road Painting Is Surprisingly Artful! — Matt Gray is Trying: Line Marking

How It Came About

When I was a teenager trying to work out what I was interested in or what career options were available, I found very few resources discussing science and engineering roles apart from the top-line most generic ones like Doctor, Structural Engineer, and Statistician. I ended up stumbling into broadcast engineering, which has been great fun, but my constant curiosity always has me wondering how something works, or what’s happening behind the scenes of day-to-day things.

I had the original idea in 2019. A video series in which I have a go at a load of different STEM jobs, to help showcase not only their existence, but the effort that goes into so many things that get taken for granted. And also give me a chance to have some fun along the way of course!

I’ve worked behind the camera on video productions on and off YouTube over the years, and know that to produce something compelling and good quality is very hard to achieve without help. I also know from my own tendencies, that planning, pre-production and Actually Getting Started are not my biggest fortes when working for myself. This meant that at the very least I knew I’d need a producer to get the whole thing going, and could decide if I wanted any help with the filming of it afterwards.

As with any project around this time, Just as I was about to get going, we pause for a few years due to COVID’s outbreak.

Getting Going

Along comes 2023, and I’m thinking about it again. The Technical Difficulties Adventures are doing well, and prove that people seem to like watching me have a go at things. My friend Alex J’rassic was a great help in chatting it through as I got it going. I’d been working with Jacob Trueman on Tech Dif, and learned the value of having a producer research and book activities for those videos, so got him on board working through my list of potential jobs to try.

The hard bit for me here was working out the effort-to-reward ratio. I was already reasonably sure that the project was worth trying, but how much did I want to put into this, and how much would it be worth it in the end.

Screenshot from “Thinking Digital 2009: Tom Scott on graphs, Hans Zimmer, Eurovision and tea cosies” (YouTube)

This is one of those odd occasions as “someone making silly videos on the internet” where what you’re making and how you make it is actually a business decision. Social media revenue has only ever been a tiny amount of my regular income. But spending more time on it means less time available to work.

I decided to make a 4 episode proof-of-concept pilot, and to aim for a reasonably high visual quality from the start. This seemed like a good number to be able to find its audience, and enough data for me to work out a balance sheet at the end of it to see if it showed signs of being able to fund itself.

My plan was to start off doing it affordably as I could, but allow myself to increase the budget where needed, to get both the quality and my workload where I wanted it to be. While planning the first shoot, (which will probably be January’s video), I realised that trying to present, produce, direct, welcome guests, and operate cameras all by myself was a bit too much. So I spoke to my friends at production company Penny4 a week beforehand (sorry!) to hire a camera operator.

The shoot went well but it was one hell of a learning experience, and still a lot to do at once. Then came to thinking about editing, grading and mixing the videos. I already knew I would rather have someone more experienced than me tackle those parts, and after a lot of deliberation I ended up working with Penny4 on all parts of the production process for the pilot. This sadly meant no longer working with Jacob on this, but without him I don’t think I’d have ever got the ball rolling.

So here we are now. I’ve released two of the four videos, and I’m so happy with how they’ve come out. The amount of positivity in the comments is overwhelming, especially after 4 years working on it and wondering if people would be interested in it, and I couldn’t have hoped for better.

How Long It’ll Continue

Well that kind of just comes down to business decisions. Working with many skilled people on a project Costs Money, and I certainly dont believe in the dodgy practice of paying people on exposure.

As you can see from the videos, Matt Gray is Trying is great fun for me to do. But it makes no sense for me to do it entirely out of my pocket and fund my own vanity project. As with all new businesses revenue doesn’t come in immediately, there’s inital outlay, and you have to refine your product and promotion to make sure its the right thing. I’m not expecting money to come out of nowhere, and understand that you have to build trust and prove the reputability of your product before anyone will invest in it.

At the moment, the project’s income is mostly generous donations on my Patreon, supplemented by a small amount of YouTube ad revenue. My main plan though is to fund the majority with sponsorship or adverts in future videos, and I’m represented by The Soho Agency who are working with me on this.

I intend to release two more videos: one at the end of January, and one at the end of February. After these, I’ll weigh up my options and see where it stands!

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the insight to what’s gone into planning the series, and fingers crossed I get to continue with it!