I’m not sure how or when I first stumbled upon this guy on YouTube, but his videos are really well produced and I thought some others might enjoy them as much as me.
Thanks @Gareth, I am a sucker for these “renovating in France” channels, though I have not the slightest intention of buying a “doer-upper” myself - the most I will contemplate is some light repainting!
Yes the YouTube recommendation algorithm throws up some random stuff.
I have been recommended videos about woodcarving owls with chainsaws, people making dining tables out of wood with poured epoxy resin “rivers” in them, and how to cook authentic Chinese food, among many others.
The furniture making ones are oddly relaxing, especially the Japanese ones like Ishitani Furniture where there is no commentary or background music, just woodworking sounds.
I find a lot of these really irritating because so many of the presenters lack presentational skills - too much talking without conveying much info and far too much gesturing with both hands at once.
OTOH for over a year I’ve been following Martijn Doorland’s Sunday evening posts about his work making habitable two mediaeval stone cottages about 1300m up in the Italian Alps.
They have a Zen like tranquility as he calmly works away with very little commentary, while filming himself with drones. He’s unusually obsessive about detail and a superb craftsmen in wood and stone.
He’s actually a professional photographer and his drone work, often while driving his bakkie down the mountain is superb.
Each of his weekly posts clocks up over 500,000 views!
Equally though if YouTubers spin things out and bore you to death in the first minute or two you won’t make it that far!
I think it’s more down to people’s personal style. As I mentioned, I enjoy the Japanese woodworker who says nothing and has no music - then again I also enjoy watching Cam of BlackTail Studio who gives a running commentary the whole time - and his videos can be 40 minutes long! Yet others whose similar channels have been recommended, I have dropped immediately if their voiceovers are too irritating or dull.
One of the attractions of YouTube videos for me is that you are often getting to know the people involved to some extent - much less anodyne than a polished professional TV presenter reading a script.
Or if they use click bait in the titles. There’s a British guy who’s renovating an échoppe in Bordeaux (after having done a chateau a while back) who annoys me for this reason. As such I just drop in and out occasionally to see the progress. Whereas the guy in the Creuse doing it all singlehandedly is more to-the-point and I find I watch his videos much, much more regularly.