httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B7C0C7636F1C8A5B

Watching Doctor Who is never going to be the same for me. I know a few people, and I expect that there are many more out there, who love the show to bits but just can’t bring themselves to watch the behind the scenes companion show Doctor Who Confidential, and with good reason. There’s a certain kind of TV magic that comes with Doctor Who, one that only really exists in science fiction shows, and one that seems to disappear once you see a Dalek with his head off, or The Doctor wondering around a car-park listening to his iPod. I have the utmost respect for people who want their magic to stay magical, though I’m not one of those people myself.

While a bit of the magic might disappear after watching an episode of Confidential, nothing can prepare you for the severe magic removal operation that takes place after actually being there on set, a shock that I’ve experienced over the last couple of months. Even though you’re wise enough to know that there isn’t really a man traveling through time in a blue box, when you watch the show, or experience any good story for that matter, it starts to feel real. But for me, it just doesn’t feel real anymore. The magic is all gone. Boo-hoo.

I should point out though that I’ve never really been one for magic, I’m much more interested in finding out how the trick works than being duped by it, so for me, this is a welcome change. A very welcome change. If you saw the Doctor Who Confidential videos that I made for the BBC recently (you can find them at the top of this post) then you may have noticed that, at points, I seemed a little bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. And I’m not going to lie, it’s because at points, I was. The first time that I stepped onto the TARDIS set – a moment that happened off camera – honestly felt a bit like falling in love. But the moments afterwards where I had to try and make it interesting, while nothing was going on, were more like finding out that the thing you’d just fallen in love with was, on closer inspection, not actually going to be able to take you to Space Florida and back.

In my personal opinion, the last two videos, the ones where I’m actually doing stuff on set rather than just pottering about and telling the camera how lost I feel, are much more interesting, and if I made any more of these things, that’s the kind of route that I’m going to be going down. Much less “look, a christmas tree!” and much more chatting with the cast and probably having a go at all of the various jobs that people do on set. That’s the kind of stuff that’s more fun for me, and judging by the comments that I’ve already seen, that’s the kind of stuff that you’re much more interested in too. As always though, if you have any thoughts on the videos that I’ve made, do post them in the comments of this blog post so that I can do my best to make any future videos as good as possible!

Although the magic is all gone for me, after watching the most recent episode of the show that aired on Christmas day, it’s been replaced by something new. Seeing everything come together on the other side has filled me with an appreciation for the work that goes into the show, an appreciation that I don’t think I’d be able to have if it hadn’t been for this new job of mine, and as someone who hopes to be able to direct his own stuff in the future, I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am for having that opportunity. My friend Michael reminds me often of this Chuck Jones quote: “Making art takes a lot of work and a lot of love. But when you’re good at it, all we ever see is the love” which makes me think that I was just used to seeing the love behind Doctor Who. It’s only now that I really feel privileged to be able to see the work too.

After I watched Doctor Who on Saturday, naturally my next port of call was to watch the episode of Doctor Who Confidential that aired straight after it. I’ve honestly been watching Confidential ever since I realised that it existed, but I practically have an obligation to watch it now that I’ve become friends with the people who make it, and am involved in the show myself. And then, by golly, after Confidential was over, the continuity announcer for BBC 3 said my name. On the TV. On Christmas day. That’s a kind of magic that still hasn’t disappeared for me just yet at least :)

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In my latest video titled “Magic Mars Bars” I did my best to make a case for why I don’t think illegal file sharing is really all that bad. Or at least, as a musician who’s just released an album, why I don’t think it’s a good idea to try and fight against it. The entertainment industry has done it’s best to criminalise people who do file share for a while now, and although I am still on the fence about whether file sharing should be made legal, I think the worst possible thing to do is try and stamp it out. All that does, in my view, is alienate the people that really matter. I feel pretty confident in my viewpoint on this, but I think that the best thing you can do when you have a confident viewpoint is to leave it open to be challenged so that you can expand your scope. And so, if any of you agree or disagree with me then I’d love to hear what you have to say!

As I also said in the video, my album is now officially out, and you can listen to the whole thing for free by going to the Music page here on my website. In regards to the album, I received an email from Hank Green this morning, one of the co-owners of http://dftba.com, who informed me that this has been their biggest release ever. Like, ever guys. So much so that, like the Nintendo Wii or the original Buzz Lightyear toy, we honestly didn’t expect that so many of you would want to get one. It’s the first day, and we’ve already had to contact the CD manufactures to make a ton more so that we can meet demand. You guys are the absolute best, and I’m seriously not exaggerating when I say that this is probably one of the coolest moments of my entire live. That either means that my life is pretty lame, or that you are the coolest audience that someone like me could ever hope for, and I’m sure you’d prefer the latter.

However, this has also been one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my entire life, and so hearing and seeing all of the messages I’ve received so far from you all has very much put me at ease. I’m really glad you all like it so much. If you are still hoping to get a copy then I do want to quickly address one query I’ve noticed: will the album be available in, like, real music stores? Unfortunately, DFTBA Records is an indie label, so if you want a physical copy of the CD then you’ll have to order it through them. They are completely trustworthy though, they are my friends, and no matter where you are in the world, if you want a CD, they will send you one. Another worry I’ve seen commented on the fact that all of the prices are in US Dollars, but I can also promise that, no matter where you buy the CD from, the currency will be converted automatically. I hope that makes things clear, and as if I haven’t told you enough already, you can get the Physical CD here and you can get it on iTunes here. And I think that’s enough about my album :)

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When you’ve been continuously plugging away at something like an album (my best guess is that I’ve been working on this for about six months) having everything finished feels incredibly strange. On one hand, this is probably the longest amount of time that I’ve ever spent on one individual project, and it’s an absolute relief and a joy to have it all come together. But on the other hand, I feel like I probably could have worked on this album forever. I’m worrying about little blemishes that I might have missed, about if I made the right artistic choices, and importantly, about what you’re going to think of it. After all, I didn’t make this album to try and storm my way into the charts and become a mainstream musician, I made it because you asked me to. So your opinion, really, is the thing that matters the most.

However, obviously I couldn’t slave away forever trying to make it as perfect as possible, or else the damn thing would never be released. It’s all done now, the songs and the artwork have been sent to my friend Alan at DFTBA Records to be printed, packaged, and plopped onto the servers of all of the digital download services. Essentially, this album no longer belongs to me – whatever happens now is completely out of my control, and I’m fine with that. It’s still yet to be released, it’s only available for pre-order for the moment, so while you’re waiting for December 1st (release date!) to roll around, I thought I’d chat a bit about the album artwork.

This is the thing that’s most fresh in my mind at the moment, as I actually only finished it over the last couple of days. I basically wanted to design the whole CD like I’d completed a “My First Album!” kit, a pack that you could buy in a shop and fill in yourself. Given that this is my first album, and that it many ways I still don’t really feel like a ‘proper’ musician, I wanted to make something that captured that naïve feeling. I designed the kit myself, printed it out, filled it in, and then scanned the whole thing back into my computer. I also did the same thing with the 8-page booklet which comes with the physical CD, in which instead of just writing down the song lyrics, I talked a little about all of the individual tracks on the album. I’ll leave that booklet as a surprise to those who get the CD, but the front and back of the album look like this:

"This Is Me" - Album Artwork. Click to enlarge.

I spent quite a while trying to figure out what I was going to put on the front in the “insert album artwork here” section. To start with I was going to flick through some old baby pictures and use one of those, to try again to capture that naïve feeling, but the more I thought about it, the more that just seemed a bit too obvious. I even played with the idea of doing a young me/now me style picture (inspired by Ze Frank), but that didn’t really work either. Then I finally realised that, if I had just bought a ‘first album’ style kit, I’d probably just have to take a picture on my phone, of myself, by myself. The picture that I chose was my second attempt. My some miraculous intervention by the gods of photo-framing, the picture came out just right, with a neat reflection of me taking the photo in the background to make it obvious that I was doing it myself, and an expression that summed up my nervousness about releasing the album. I’m really happy with it.

The album comes out on December 1st, and is available on it’s own as well as part of two bundles: The World Is Mine bundle, because I’ve “twinned” my album with my friend Alex Day, and the Cloning Charlie T-shirt bundle, because as well as lots of requests to make an album, I also got quite a few messages from people asking me to make a Cloning Charlie T-Shirt. Hopefully your needs have been fulfilled! Also, I should mention that if you pre-order then you’ll definitely get everything in time for Christmas, that DFTBA will ship to anywhere in the world, and that both of the bundles will vanish once the CD is out. If you do decide to buy any of this stuff then I really hope you’ll like it, and I look forward to hearing what you all think on December 1st :)

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The idea of “Challenge Charlie” has become a bit vague as of late. For example, If I was to tell you that I had two new videos lined up, one where I reel off a list of all of the nerdy things about me, and one where I do a 160ft bungee jump, you might expect the latter to be the more challenging one. Apparently I don’t work like that. To me, bungee jumping is something that I just want to do anyway, while partaking in a Nerd-Off is an arduous task to which I have to throw down my gauntlet. I’ll point out that this is something I’m completely cool with, because while I still will be using Challenge Charlie to do things that are, you know, actually challenging, at the end of the day I just want to make fun videos. I can’t always come up with the best stuff on my own, so having you guys as an asset, a video idea fountain as it were, is something I really value. Even if most of your suggestions seem to involve me dressing up as a girl (not going to happen).

I’ve loved watching through the video responses that have been coming in so far – it’s always great when you can be a nerd, acknowledge that fact, and be proud of it. And even if “nerd” isn’t the first word that you’d use to describe yourself, celebrating whatever nerdy tenancies you might have is also brilliant, because to me, being nerdy just means having something that you’re intelligently passionate about. I’ve noticed a few commenters over the years proclaiming “you’re not a nerd, Charlie! You’re too [insert superlative]” probably because the word has some negative connotations attached to it, but I’m not interested in pretending, I’m completely happy with my nerdiness. Actually, you know what, it’s pretty futile for me to even start talking about how great nerds are when John and Hank have been doing it for years already. Just go and watch all of the videos they’ve ever posted, and report back here once you’re done.

However, even if I am proud to be the nerd that I am, it was clear to me from the start that I’m not the cream of the nerd crop, and I’ve definitely already been out-nerded by some of the people who have posted video responses. The guy that I would place right at the peak of the pyramid currently would be this guy. Computer programing conference shirts, super-old-school video games, writes and publishes quantum physics papers for fun, has seen every single episode of Doctor Who (original series), only ever had one girlfriend, glasses, nerdy posture, nasally voice, and best of all he’s a rocket scientist. I tip my hat to the good man, and can’t wait to see if there’s anyone that thinks they can top him.

Now, Sons Of Admirals! First off, most importantly, I need to tell you all that I didn’t tell Tom to smash an egg on his head. Seriously, all I said to him was “do something quirky” and then he sent me a video of him smashing an egg on his head. That guy is the best. And secondly, although the infomercial style sequence at the end of the video was very much tongue-and-cheek, the bundle itself is an actual, like, real thing. http://dft.ba/-sons is the link if you’d like to get it, or any of individual bits of the bundle, though buying everything together is considerably cheaper. Although I do need to point out that, at time of writing, one of the videos as part of the bundle is called “To Our Fans” which, I’m aware, is one of the most pretentious titles for a video in the history of iTunes. It was meant to be called “Meet The Admirals” but there was a bit of mis-communication down the line. Such is life… but anyway, I digress. All that’s left to say is that if you do buy it the bundle then I hope you like it, and I’ll see y’all soon ^_^

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Recently, a nice girl called Megan got in touch with me and asked if she could interview me for a College paper. For me, doing interviews are like doing those MySpace surveys, a fun way to pass the time while thinking about your life in a way that you don’t usually get the chance to. Though with interviews it’s even better, because not only are the questions tailored to you, but you’re also not wasting your time filling in a MySpace survey like a loser-face.

The unfortunate thing about this interview however is that, unfortunately, I sent Megan the answers a bit late and so she had to find someone else, which is completely understandable. But because I put quite a lot of effort into writing my answers, I thought it’d be a shame not have them be used somewhere. So, dear blog readers, this one’s for you! Though I warn you, it’s strictly for those people who want to know much more about my life than is probably healthy. Feel free to skip it, I won’t be offended, promise.

Tell me a little bit about your background and childhood.

I have a fairly mundane origin story really, the first born child to a not-very-well-off family living on the outskirts of Bath in Somerset, England. I was always a very shy kid, which my Mum noticed and tried to help me out of by sending me to weekly speech and drama classes when I was about seven. Little did she know that this wouldn’t exactly help me out of my shyness, but rather give me a passion for performing. I stayed an introvert all throughout secondary [high] school, but my interest in acting kept on growing. The school I went to didn’t teach drama, so instead I went to a bunch of workshops outside of school, learning both how to act for television and for theatre. Once YouTube hit me I decided to step back from those classes, although I still enjoy doing a bit of acting from time to time, regardless of the fact that I was never very good at it!

How did you feel about YouTube before you started video blogging? In what way has that opinion changed?

It’s become a horrible cliché to say this now, but before I started vlogging, I thought YouTube was just a website where you went to watch clips of TV shows and videos of dogs riding on skateboards. Like most people, I had absolutely no idea that there was anything resembling a community on YouTube, but after discovering vlogging and giving it a go, members of the community slowly started to appear, and I started to realise how much more there was to the website. Video-Blogging still is just one small part of the mass of content you can find on YouTube though, nowadays I usually describe YouTube as having “any kind of content you can imagine for any kind of audience you can imagine” … except porn, of course.

How did you get started posting on YouTube?

The first community based video that I ever watched was back in April 2007, which was called ‘The Liker Chain Resurrected’ – a video which went through a list of video-bloggers who were making good and notable content on YouTube at the time. I picked out a couple of names from the list that I thought sounded interesting, started watching them, and must have thought “hey, I can probably do that.” My dad had just bought me a laptop of my own, my brother had just relinquished ownership of his webcam knowing that he was never going to use it, and I had just discovered Windows Movie Maker. Plus, I was really, really bored. I was in the middle of exam revision at the time and needed a form of procrastination to get me through it, and so, enter YouTube.

How has being on the internet changed your life?

Being the shy kid that I was, I never found it very easy to make new friends, or know how to conduct myself around new groups of people. If was only after YouTube came into my life, and people starting watching my videos and giving me praise for them, that my confidence started to build. Also, it was a lot easier to make friends on YouTube because everybody had this common ground, and we tended to bond very quickly. It hasn’t just given me confidence though, before I joined YouTube I was on the path to a deadbeat job, and it was only with the internet that I was given the opportunity to take a hobby and turn it into my career. I’m still so incredibly grateful that I get to do what I love and get paid for it, and I try not to take that privilege for granted.

What has been your best encounter with a fan?

When people used to ask me if I got recognised in the street, I’d say that it happened every now and again, but not really that often. That was until I realised that it was happening pretty much every time that I left the house to pop into central London, so nowadays, it happens quite a bit. Which means, of course, that it’s very hard for me to pick a favourite! Though there was one time when I was out with my fellow YouTuber and now flatmate Alex when someone recognised the both of us, and literally screamed “OH MY GOD!” which made us all laugh hysterically. Nowadays, whenever I meet someone in person, I give them a little “I Found Charlie” pin-badge, though I’d be surprised if anyone actually wore them in public. Really, being recognised from time to time has just made the whole world a bit of a friendlier place, which is fine by me.

How do you feel knowing that the videos you post are watched by over half a million people?

I can’t really fathom it, honestly. I try and imagine myself standing on a stage in front of half a million people telling them about my day, drinking ketchup or painting myself purple, and it just doesn’t make any sense … but that idea really isn’t all that different to how it actually is. I tend not to think too much about a mass of people watching me though, I’m very aware that when I watch videos on YouTube it’s just me and my computer, so I don’t make my videos for an audience, I make them for the one person who’s watching it. I also just make them for myself, doing my best to make videos that I would want to watch, and that I can be proud to share with the world and say “I did this!”

Keep Reading This Post…

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If you are reading this, then I strongly recommend that you, at some point in your life, have a go at bungee jumping. If you have a serious fear of heights, sure, maybe you should give it a miss, or if you’re pregnant, yeah, it probably wouldn’t be the best thing to do. But to the rest of you, the adrenaline rush that you get from feeling like you’re about to crash head first into the floor is, in a word: nice. Though you probably shouldn’t think about the crashing into the floor bit. It’s safe, I swear, I checked on Google before I did my own jump to see the statistics, and nobody died while I was there or anything. And I didn’t die either, apparently. Sure, it’s always better to make decisions based off data, and not from an anecdote from some guy on the internet, but just this once, hear me out. Go bungee jumping.

I had another one of those opportunities recently where a company came to me and said “Hi! We like your YouTube stuff” and then asked if there was any way that we could do something together. For me, if I’m going to be working with a company on something then my aim is for it to result in a better video, and one that I wouldn’t have been able to make without their help. When they suggested the idea of the bungee jumping record and the chance to give it a go myself, I knew straight away that it was an chance to create something that I wouldn’t otherwise get to make. So I jumped on it. Get it? Jumped? I’m so lame.

After Alex and I had completed our jumps, we were both approached by a lovely guy called Pipa, which is, as far as I know, a girl’s name. But Charlie is a girl’s name too so I’m not judging. Pipa works for Extreme Element, the company who put on the bungee jumping event, and was telling me and Alex about other EXTREME experiences that the company does, like skydiving for example. Bungee jumping is, after all, pretty much a skydiving practice run, so if things go as I’m hoping they will, who knows. There might be more videos of Charlie jumping into the air than you’d originally bargained for.

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I love making videos, and I love trying to push myself to make the best videos that I possibly can. My figuring is that, even if there are spells where things become tough and stressful, then that’s just the process and there’s nothing I can do to help it, but I also think that it’s better to face those hardships if it means that you’re going to come out with the best finished product that you possibly can. Making this video was my chance to, hopefully, take another step into creating something more professional. I’ve had a go at making music videos for people before, and for myself, but when Ben Folds and Warner Music Group contacted me with the opportunity to actually get paid to make a music video, I really felt like I needed to wade out into deeper waters and see what I could do.

I’m still an amateur obviously, getting paid to make videos doesn’t automatically turn me into a professional. I’m still learning the ropes, and still making silly mistakes. For example, some of you might have been able to tell that I used a fairly swanky camera to make this video, which was completely worth what it cost to rent, but didn’t come without it’s own little problems. For example, the process of picking the camera up, which should have just taken a couple of hours, ended up taking an entire day because I failed to bring proof of identity with me. Stupid Charlie, completely failing to read the small print … so, that was an entire day knocked off an already limited schedule. I definitely won’t forget to bring ID next time though, so you know, I’m learning!

The camera itself, once we finally did get it home, was an absolute joy to play with. For the interested, we used a Canon 5D Mark II, the camera that (and I’m a bit new to all of this so correct me if I’m wrong) started off a little “shoot video on DSLRs!” movement. The great thing about the camera is that it was relatively cheap as far as nice cameras go, but because you have the ability to change between a selection of large, very swanky different types of lenses, so you can get exactly the kind of look you want depending on the shot. It’s usually very hard to make what I do look particularly pretty, but with the new camera I had the opportunity to give everything this lovely shallow depth of field look, which is why all the backgrounds are blurry, basically. I paid so that I could have blurry backgrounds. It’s the cool thing to do at the moment in the world of video, and with good reason too, because it looks kick-ass.

I’ll talk a little about the process of getting to the stage where I could make this video too, becuase Ben and Warner were really great to me. They didn’t hound me with ideas, or demands, or force me to make any compromises, which can usually be a very hard thing to avoid when you’re being paid to make a video for someone. The guys just let me do what I wanted to do. In fact, Ben didn’t even tell me what song to do, he just sent me his new album and said “just pick a song, whichever you think you could do best!” which was just awesome, and something I’m incredibly grateful for. I really hope I get to do more fun stuff like this, because I really value the opportunity to just sit down and focus for a week on making the best thing that I possibly can. And then being able to step back from it at the end and say that, yeah, I’m proud of that, but next time, I reckon I could do something even better.

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Hello friend, and welcome to Belated Blogging Week! Usually, I do my best to post a blog about each video of mine that goes up on YouTube, as a little companion for anyone who wants to know a bit more about how the video came to be, and also just about what I’ve been up to. However, as you may of noticed, I’ve been slacking a bit recently, falling behind on my writing duties, so I’ve taken it upon myself to catch up. You’re going to be seeing at least FIVE bloggy-wogs appearing before your eyes over the next week, starting right here, right now, with numero uno: My American Accent.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m getting the chance to write this blog post with the hindsight of the video having been up for a bit, because before, to me and my friends, it was just an alright video which Charlie made because he was strapped for time – a video in which he did nothing but talk in a slightly painful American accent for three minutes. I always do my best to show a new video to some of my friends before it goes up, to gauge their reactions, because when you’ve sat in front of a computer for a few hours laboring over a video, it can be quite hard to tell if it’s actually entertaining at all. Alex, for example, said that “it was actually better than I thought it would be!” and so, with that, I deemed it good enough and put it up onto the internet. However, what I thought would be a brief blip, a video to fill a gap, turned into something, well, yeah. Needless to say, I didn’t expect the reaction that it received.

Over two million views in just a month with, surprise surprise, over half of those views coming from the good old United States. Before it went up, I do remember showing the video to one American friend of mine and thinking that man, this girl really seems to be laughing at it more than anyone else I’ve shown it to. But it was only after sitting in front of the computer screen for a while, gaping at the number of views that the video had received, making no audible sounds but the odd “buh?” that I started to understand what was going on. If you’re from over the pond then I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, but it seems to me that American viewers found it fascinating to watch me, not just fail to do a very good imitation, but to realise that the accent I’m trying to do is an approximation of how I think they actually sound. “Do you really think that we sound like that?!” came up time and time again, much to my amusement.

If you’re one of the lovely people that enjoyed this video and started spreading it around, thank you so much. There definitely seemed to be a sudden influx of new viewers that came on board after it (at least for The Alex and Charlie Format!) which I really appreciate. I still can’t quite believe it happened, it can be the case sometimes that the videos you least expect to do well are the ones that “go viral” as it were, but I’m much more appreciative than I am confused. You guys, as always, are the best.

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You can’t just tweet a picture of yourself hanging out on the TARDIS with Neil Gaiman and expect people to move away from it without even a hint of curiosity. Apologies if you’re neither a Doctor Who nor a Gaiman fan, but admirers of one or the other, or both, will understand the gravitas of this situation. You will find the picture in question below.

Not even photoshopped

If you follow Neil on twitter then it’s completely possible that you might have been able to work out what I was up to, but I didn’t see a single @reply guessing it correctly, so I’ll tell you. No, I’m not going to be the next Doctor, neither am I appearing with a role in the episode that Neil’s written, nor any episode for that matter. As cool as that would be, I’m not really an actor, I’m a video blogger, so what do you think I’ve been up to? Well, I’ve been making video blogs behind the scenes of Doctor Who, that’s what.

If you’ve ever watched Doctor Who on the televisionbox then you’ll know that, straight after the show, you can hop over to BBC 3 and watch an episode of Doctor Who Confidential, a separate program looking into how the main show gets put together. Recently, after seeing my video blogs and my very public admiration for Doctor Who, the Confidential team got in touch with me and asked if I was up for hanging out on the set of Doctor Who, doing fun Doctor Who related things, and turning that into a series of online videos for the BBC. Needless to say, retaining my urge to squee like the fangirl I am, I said yes. As I mentioned, Neil’s written an episode of Doctor Who, and while he was down on the set watching it being filmed, I grabbed the chance to interview him, and to get this photo.

Lovely person, reader of this blog, who ever you may be, thank you. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this position, being able to watch my favourite TV show being put together, being able to meet the cast and crew, being able to make videos about it, essentially being able to do what I love, and being able to call it my job. It’s been a great chance for me to spread my video-making wings too, the Confidential team have been really good to me in terms of giving me full creative control over the whole thing. I’m just having so much fun, and I’ll genuinely never be able to thank you enough.

Sorry for having to sit on this news by the way, to be honest, when started, we weren’t really sure if things were definitely going to go ahead. Bringing someone like me on board can seem like a fairly risky thing for the BBC to do, and I obviously wouldn’t have wanted to mention if later on down the line I had to come out with a “yeah, that’s not happening anymore” and fill you all with disappointment. It is definitely going ahead now though, I have the thumbs up, and my Doctor Who related videos will be gracing your internets very soon. Plans might change, but at the moment we’re hoping to release six videos in the six weeks building up to Christmas. I shall keep you updated on further developments!

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