The Workspace Volume 3

Part 1 - Where Are We? 

2025 started, quite honestly, in a very nervy place. Much of the back-end of 2024 had been a steep learning curve, how to work for myself, taking on lots of free projects to learn and grow, while also trying to learn how to price things correctly. 

I came out with one key take-away: it was hard to justify my price as I really showed no visible, easily accessible value behind what I was offering. So towards the end of the year I booked some studio-space, wrote out some videos and posted them to LinkedIn at the start of January. Little pieces to camera giving professional video-advice. 

Putting yourself out there like that is incredibly nervy, and I was super cautious of being painted with the brush of being a “LinkedIn Looney.” But the ethos was to try it, be confident and take it all as a learning experience regardless of the level of success. 

By the end of January I got my real first paid job of the year, where a pharmacy came to me and said “we like these videos, we want you to do the same thing for us.” 

From there, work began to generate more work. Whether they wanted the voice, the production, or just needed the editing doing. One client turned to two, turned to three, turned to projects and so-on. 

All to say this half of 2025 has ended up being crazy. The result has reflected, in both good and bad ways, in the workspace. 

My work is a healthy mix of production, editing and animation for a variety of clients, largely circling the corporate spaces. It’s been a great milestone for me; it’s so easy to see how work-ethic has changed in the last year and resilience and maturity has grown massively as a professional. 

I am more thorough with my checks, I take more time into finessing edits and animations, I’m more adventurous at times when it’s appropriate. 

But there’s still so much learning being done, particularly in where I am getting enjoyment. This year has taught me that photography and graphic design are ultimately not for me, and I will avoid them as much as possible in a professional capacity. 

Focus now goes onto videography and editing, while also using these skills in future projects that I can actually put time and resources towards now, with the maturity and knowledge of how these can be more expertly done. All of this being the case, I still know there is a lot more to embrace in the near and distant future, and it’s up to me to best adapt towards and face these challenges by continuing to grow the workspace and alter it. 

Part 2 - What’s Changed? 

Put into context, much of the workspace has stayed constant from before. I still have access to the coworking space nearby, and I use the same studio I used before. The changes have been related to scaling and gearing myself towards heavier work duties and greater needs for data and storage. 

6 months in and I’ve already filled my first 1TB harddrive with archived work. The requirement there now is firstly buy a new hard-drive for more work, but also invest in a bigger system to allow for a master storage device. 

In the digital space, Google Drive space has had to be updated, while also leaning into heavier subscriptions to meet greater client demands. More stock footage and royalty free music, as well as more licensing fees to allow for commercial use of the assets I put into my videos. 

I’ve also adopted and learned new tools that go into the workflows with client projects. Figma has been a great storyboarding tool when working with the client, but also serves a great tool for interacting with client brands for projects. Being able to export assets into .SVG files means I can easily take artworks into Adobe and get everything I need to easily animate items within After Effects, but also means I can keep items as vectors and not have to worry so much about sizings and pixelation issues. 

All the while, I am also investing into a need for the tech of the future. No doubt AI has dominated the video-space: areas like generative content and video upscaling are a must with AI, however I’ve spent more of my investments towards things like ChatGPT for now. I imagined it would encourage me to use it more, and I certainly do, but I definitely need to invest more time into learning how to best use it and the surrounding features it can offer.

The AI and new generative tech is something interesting for me, and I’m sure many other creative freelancers would echo my thoughts about to follow here. The TikTok and Reels content with generative AI, impressive as it is, definitely feels markedly cheaper and still shows gaps in it’s professionalism. There are also ads out there so obviously using generative Ai. However it’s most likely these aren’t being used by the professionals really in the know (could well be wrong). I suppose the keyword would be “gimmicky.” The point being, there’s a sense that leaning on AI really takes away from the creativity and personality of a video and it devalues the content itself. These things make me quite agnostic to the idea of leaning more on AI, but I also acknowledge there’s a lot of my job that could be made a hell-of-a-load easier by just utilising the tools in the right way. I could go on, but this could also quickly derail the subject of this blog so I’ll stop here, but this will definitely only become more important as the workspace continues to scale towards the needs and requirements of the workspace. 

An incredible new piece of equipment I’m very happy with is the Gimbal I bought off Ebay. It’s an essential tool for every videographer, and I am seeing the real benefits of it in my work. Still something I need to fully wrap my head around, as well as how I can fully configure it with my camera beyond just controlling the motors, but it has proved incredibly effective as both a secondary tripod, but also allowing me to capture much more effective B-roll for client work. Ebay is definitely great for finding second-hand equipment like lenses and little-bits, but I’m still cautious right now to rely and fully put my trust into it. 

There’s also a new addition to the arsenal: the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Back in March, I was working with some social media content freelancers who used nothing more than a small gimbal and an iPhone 16 Pro Max equipped with the Blackmagic camera app. Controlling camera settings, with 5 interchangeable lenses and the ability to shoot 120fps 4K RAW. I was impressed in the first place, then I saw the footage. Oh my goodness it’s incredible. The versatility, the quality and accessibility is brilliant. The new USB-C port also makes it so useful for universal compatibility with harddrives, microphones and all-sorts. 

So I bought my own, and then used it to film a full 1 hour job on it. 150GB file was crazy. While I find it a very effective weapon for work, and a great tool for assisting me, I definitely need to be building an eco-system around it so I can get the best out of it. By the way this phone is so good they recently made a full feature film on it on apple TV (where else?) Which I’d recommend checking out. 

Will I be replacing my camera’s with this phone? No way. But there’s really no reason this phone can’t be a very handy on-the-go tool, while also serving as a secondary angle that can keep up with the more sophisticated tools. Storage backups are always welcome also, and with a spare 150GB that’s almost like having a second big SD card with me at all times. 

Some smaller additions are administrative. One being the new whiteboard I’ve put in my room, allowing me to break the week into 3 visible targets and always having a reminder of what needs to be done. The other is post-it notes, which have began to litter just about everything I see and use. When things get hectic and busy, little reminders keep me from forgetting other very important things that may fall to the wayside. This all keeps me in check as I press-on. 

Part 3 - Evaluation 

As great as this all is, the main question to ask is how effective is all of this in context? How have things improved this round and where is this workspace lacking? 

The biggest improvement is certainly is versatility and workflow management. Less time is being spent attempting to find creative solutions to problems, or jerry-rigging workarounds. 

Most notably with the Gimbal I don’t have to look at how I stabilise footage in post or learn certain physicalities in order to best keep away from one client called “The Office Shaky Cam.” There was a slight learning curve in terms of how to properly adjust and use the tool, but of course that comes with any new item (certainly in videography). 

With the addition of the Sony A7iii in the last volume, I’ve been much more well-adjusted to the Sony ecosystem and how to work with those cameras, which has proven useful with certain clients, but it’s also allowed me to get used to working with the Slog format. Now I will say I’m really not entirely a fan of working with Slog-2, but I’ve been able to manage for the moment and have found it a great help with then going a step-up with clients supplying me Slog-3 footage. 

The ability to properly colour-correct and grade has also been a super-valuable learning experience, not least because I’ve also been able to interact with other colour spaces. Firstly through Apple’s own apple-log, but also with the log footage provided by Blackmagic cameras (part of a voluntary role I do once a month). While I work with them all separately (most of the time), understanding the differences in colour-space will no-doubt prove incredibly useful in years to come, and will likely be something that can encourage me to lean into AI tools down-the-line.

All this has been incredibly valuable for streamlining workflows, and allowing for a much easier and faster time producing videos, but also creating content and preparing in the right ways. I’m definitely finding it more and more enjoyable to look out for problems and solve them before even turning on the record-button, while also being adaptable on set to resolve problems in ways that aren’t intrusive to the process and final footage outcomes. 

Though there are definitely improvements to be made. One being mental-attitude and relationship to the workspaces available to me. Flexibility has been something I’ve really enjoyed, but there’s definitely some more room for discipline around this. i.e. working from the office instead of opting for home, and utilising the spaces where I know I would be encouraged to work more. 

Second is, maybe unfortunately for me, a new and improved camera on the one I just bought. The A7iii is great, but as a professional videographer it’s very easy to meet the ceiling of the tool. 25fps means no room for slow-motion, but also no adaptability for specific scenarios. The most recent being a very distracting interference with some projected artwork at the back of a talk. This was horrific and didn’t do the sensor any favours at all. While it was a welcome challenge to adapt to (and adapt to it I certainly did), it was definitely a problem I didn’t need to face. It’s an issue with working with a hybrid camera more geared towards photography than video-work. 

The other limitation of the a7iii is it’s lack of flexibility around screen format. As someone who now films a lot for social media, it’s strict reliance on horizontal format can prove a challenge to navigate. Not an impossible problem, but one that again could be easily avoided. 

The idea of the a7iii was a bit of stop-gap that allowed me to step into Sony’s ecosystem. While I’ve managed to get great use out of it, and been able to upgrade peripheral equipment and pick up some Sony lenses, I’m afraid to say it looks to need an upgrade already. 

Luckily, it’s not the end of the world as it can serve fantastic as a secondary assistant, but with the iPhone able to shoot higher quality footage with better log footage, it’s likely to see an incredibly early retirement. 

The other is just general versatility and manoevrebility while being on the go. The gimbal requires a big-case, the camera and lenses also require a big case. I have a very large camera-bag, but I would say it’s obnoxiously big when you just want to be flexible in moving from A to B. My best solution has been darting around with two bags, but a happy medium wouldn’t go amiss and would be a great help in easily traversing and travelling London with lots of equipment pieces around. 

Part 4 - Where do we go? 

Upgrades aren’t entirely necessary, but likely required as the work continues to scale and the requirements to meet get more technically heavy. 

The first upgrade is just general space. I have a nice room, but clutter is most-certainly becoming a big issue. It’s been on my radar to move to a new space once work really picked up, and it feels now might be the right time to make that change as equipment needs only continue to grow. 

The other upgrade is as mentioned above, equipment that allows for even greater versatility. Variable frame-rates, more in-depth colour spaces and an ability to record for extended periods of time. The eye is on the FX30, which may also just be a bit of stop-gap, but is much more useful in taking me in the direction I’m looking to head into. 

With digital storage, more harddrives and more discipline around how I organise these. Outside of the core work, running my own work also requires a level of organisation I’m not up-to-scratch with yet. Keeping records, ensuring websites are up-to-date and archived appropriately. While a new SSD is a requirement, a master hard-drive “nerve-centre” type piece will definitely be useful in keeping everything around the work in check, and also mean I’ll have tabs on what needs to be done to get future-work. 

The success of this half of 2025 has been exactly what I wanted and needed to keep growing, but it also needs to be sustainable. That means also giving time to personal projects that fulfil my own enjoyment and why I did the job, but also push my career in the direction I want to be pushed. 

There’s so much more to come from me in the coming weeks, months and years, and the workspace needs to allow for this to be able to happen as seamlessly as possible, while also allowing me to face the challenges that will come-up and not be overwhelmed.