Quitting To Be A YouTube Magician [3]

I've taken an 8-month career break to turn my passion as a YouTube magician into a living. One Ahead invited me to document the highs and lows of my pursuit every few months. I recommend reading parts 1 + 2, in which my follower growth exploded, and I started making money online.

2023 was the ‘year of change’. The year I decided to take a career break to pursue a life as a ‘creative’. Well, that must make 2024 the ‘year of commitment' – The year in which I'll need to decide whether or not this is what I actually wanted. 

March 25th is the official day my career break finishes and the day I return to my job as a Nuclear Engineer. Unless I decide that my life is better suited as a magician online. Time will tell.

January 3rd

At the start of this journey, I paid $ 4,000 for an online course on YouTube video creation (more on that in the first article if you’re interested).

Paying that sort of money felt like a gamble at the time, but I’ve just woken up to a message from someone on the course saying one of my videos has been shared by another ‘YouTube expert’ as a shining example of how to write an engaging script.

Naturally, I liked and commented so he’d send me the full script analysis (I wanted to see what I’d done right!)…. but he never replied. Thanks, mate.

It's nice to know I’m doing something right, though, even if I still can’t quite put my finger on it.

January 10th

Just spoke to a fellow magician today and they said ‘oh I thought you had some sort of film school background’. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this, and I’d like to think this is a testament to the production quality of my videos. 

The truth is I’m completely self taught in almost everything to do with magic and content creation. 

As a kid, I had various hobbies, including music, magic, and art. I also spent a couple of years obsessively making stop-motion animation videos and editing them in Windows Movie Maker—perhaps this is where my interest in video production first began. The one thing I found key to all these different hobbies was the importance of maintaining attention to detail.

Details bring life to a project. And it’s very easy over time to think ‘ah, that’s good enough, that’ll do’.

January 26th

One of the biggest surprises throughout this journey has been the number of unexpected opportunities that pop up. Last year, I was invited to attend a creator workshop in the Meta HQ in London, selected as YouTube’s ‘Creator on the Rise,’ and even found myself on a FaceTime call with David Blaine—all as a by-product of putting my face out there on videos.

Well, today, I’m filming a marketing campaign for Jacamo in partnership with LadBible (for any non-UK readers, Jacamo is a big clothing brand in the UK). It turns out that Jacamo was on the hunt for creators called Jack, and it just so happened that my stuff was blowing up online whilst they were doing their research. Anyways, I do a couple of days filming some content with LadBible, and then I get paid a lot more than I should. That’s nice, isn’t it?

What surprises me, though, is their filming setup—it’s super low-budget. They intentionally film everything on an iPhone to make it feel more ‘authentic.'

I never wrote about this in the previous article, but in October last year, after a conversation with Kevin Parry, I experimented with more authentic-looking content.

Kevin is an incredible content creator known for his magic-based VFX videos like this one: ‘The 10 Types of Magic’

Kevin explained that he purposely tries to make it look like his videos are filmed on a phone (even though they are filmed on a fancy DSLR camera). The intention here is (at least for short-form) to come across as ‘home-made’ with the reasoning that over-produced content can sometimes actually put people off. 

I have mixed feelings towards this approach; I pride myself on production quality, but at the same time, I can see the logic. I decided it was worth experimenting with, so I made a short-form video shot entirely on my phone:

Hoping that the video would die on its arse and I could continue to hold my head high with ridiculous production quality, the video went viral and hit 7 million views in a few days. Of course, it did.

Guess what, though? I didn’t enjoy making it as much. I like making nice-looking stuff too much. 

Your content output is a Venn diagram of what you want to make and what your audience wants to watch. The little slither in the middle is what you should make, and that slither has just got slitherier* cos I ain’t filming my videos on an iPhone.

*is ’slitherier’ a word? Gut feel says not.

February 9th

Whilst we’re on the topic of ‘unexpected opportunities’ - I’ve just done an audition for Britain’s Got Talent, and it went as well as it could have really. All going well, Jacky boy’s going to be on the Telly! Look at me getting my mug on both digital and legacy media.

I’ve been quiet about this one across all socials due to the strict NDA’s you have to sign – in fact the only reason you’re reading this now is because my audition will have aired by the time this article comes out and it’ll be public knowledge that I’m on the show.

The wheels have been in motion on this since late last year after I got noticed for my Got Talent parodies where I green-screen myself to make it look like I’m on the show:

It’s crazy to think how a silly video I made in my garage has actually led me to go on the thing I was taking the mick out of - for real. Do you know what this whole process has made me realise though? That I really miss performing live.

I’ve been sitting in my garage making videos for so long now, I’ve forgotten how amazing the buzz of live performance (in front of actual people) feels! Genuinely, today’s BGT audition marks the first proper gig I’ve done in four years…

When the audition airs, it’ll be interesting to see the effect on my social media and how well my online following will translate into ticket sales when I start doing live shows. I’m hoping long term that this will pivot my audience into more of a UK-based demographic as opposed to being spread out mainly across the US and India.

Oh, and why did I decide to do BGT? I figured I had nothing to lose. The story of a guy who made parodies of a show and then did it for real is funny whether it goes well or not. Either way, I get a decent video out of it, so why not?

February 15th

After re-evaluating the success of the video filmed entirely on my phone, it really got me thinking about how low the barrier to entry is in the content game. Literally anybody with a mobile can be a content creator.

And it’s even easier now with the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence. Now, I’m not here to bring up a big philosophical debate on the impact AI will have on art but… what I will say is that there are AI programmes that can really help a ‘beginner’. In fact, I pretty much use some sort of AI tool at every stage of video production now. Let me explain.

When I’m in the process of ideation, I will try to jot down as many different title options as possible. Once I have a rough title I’ll then ask ChatGPT to create title variations based off the original title.

Most of them are sh*te, but every now and again, one of the generations will trigger an idea in my head, and I’ll use it or adapt it for the video packaging stage. It’s like bouncing ideas off someone who really doesn’t understand what you do - from time to time, it can be quite helpful.

When it comes to thumbnail editing, Photoshop’s ‘Generative AI’ tool solves many problems for me. I can do a lot of really advanced photo manipulation without the need to properly educate myself on the ins and outs of Photoshop. This is a lazy approach, but it saves some time. I’ve also used it to clean up certain shots in videos. 

Take this example from a video filmed in my garage: 

The structure of my garage means I can’t have a full shot with my curtain covering the entire backdrop - hence the messiness on the left. Not to worry though, I just select the part of the frame I want to modify and hit ‘generative fill’. Photoshop will now present me with 3 AI-generated options of things to fill that space with.

Once it generates a version I like, I remove the background, export it as a PNG file, and overlay this on the video footage.

This is a lovely trick to improve the look of your setup (provided you’re filming on a tripod and it’s the same shot throughout). I encourage anyone who isn’t keen on their filming setup to try this out as a short-term measure.

I also have a MidJourney subscription, which is an AI photo generator that will make images of anything based on your prompts. I’ll be honest: the main thing I use this for is to generate retro televisions for cool-looking shots where I’m talking to the camera:

The final AI tool I use is a game changer for audio. 

The Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech tool is free(!) to anyone. You just upload your audio file, and the program automatically determines how to improve it. 

It helps if your audio is already semi-decent, but still… the results are impressive. This is the main one I’d recommend to beginners, as bad audio is usually the first stumbling block, but it’s the most important problem to fix.

More people will watch a bad-quality video with crisp audio than a 4 K video with audio recorded through a potato.

These AI tools are all incredible at what they do, but that’s all they are – tools. I’m not having AI write, film, and edit my content – I’m using AI to reduce the time it takes to put my creativity on screen. In short, I’m happy to use AI to enhance my toolset, but I wouldn’t want it replacing anything in my toolset.

February 19th

Blackpool Magic Convention has just been and gone and I’ve got to say… this one felt different. Last year I had a few people approach me who were fans of my work but they were few and far between. This year it was all a bit mad.

I was stopped a lot by people who wanted to say hello and take a picture. It felt very surreal, I have to admit. I guess this is what to expect when you get big on social media, and, to be fair, it was a nice reminder that my views aren’t just a ‘number on a screen’… they’re real people!

Anyways, it was lovely and I’m not complaining. I’ve just never considered that this would happen for some reason.

February 26th

I’ve just realised something pretty important. This whole online thing has made me a whole lot more resilient to negative feedback. 

You can tell when a video is starting to go viral as the audience becomes broader and the comments section gets a little less positive…

Every day, I’ll get comments like "You talk too much" and "Get a life, and every day, they make me laugh.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been brought up in a working-class northern family where every day was non-stop ‘mickey-taking,’ but genuinely, these comments don’t affect me in the slightest. Either I have enough self-confidence to know these opinions don’t matter… or I’m deluded. Probably the latter, to be honest. 

The comment of the Year award goes to this guy called Noah Cameron, though:

I try to take the same approach with positive comments, too, by the way. I detach myself from all opinions. Nothing good can come from me basing my fulfillment on positive internet comments. 

Although this one did make me smile:

I try to take the same approach with positive comments, too, by the way.

March 8th

I’ve just done my first proper filming session outside of the garage. I took to the streets, and I’m making content based on interactions with real people! My inner hermit crab is hating it but look at me go!

I also got recognised for the first time by a non-magician. It’s still a weird feeling no matter what the context is. I was checking into my hotel and the hotel manager behind the reception said ‘wait, are you Jack Rhodes - the YouTube magician guy?’.

I then confirmed his suspicions. Do you know what he did? 

Nothing. 

No ‘oh nice to meet you’, no ‘oh I love your videos’, no ‘oh let me upgrade your room Mr Rhodes’. What’s the point of all this if I can’t even get a free room? I may as well quit now. 

Jokes. If anything, though, he actually put me in a worse room. The air con didn’t work.

I didn’t get a chance to read his name tag, but I’m not ruling out that his name isn’t Noah Cameron.

March 10th

Speaking of comments… I keep being reminded that magicians are really incentivized not to post original material online.

Write your own jokes, Jaddas. 

This guy wrote ‘timing’ in a reply to his own comment, but I deleted it, so he looked like a moron. I admit it made me laugh more than it should have done.

Another issue I’ve seen time and time again is magicians openly revealing methods in the comments section.

What’s all that about? If someone is educated well enough to know what a turnover pass is, surely they should be educated well enough to know not to write methods in the comments section, right? 

Genuinely, I get comments like this on nearly every video and I’m surprised this isn’t an issue more widely discussed. Yeah, magicians exposing how tricks work in a video is a problem. But what about magicians exposing methods in the comments section? 

I don’t know what the solution is; all I know is that I spend a lot of time deleting comments.

March 19th

Today, I’m reflecting on the reality of turning this content game into an income as I’m wary there may be people who end up reading this thinking they want to do it as I’ve painted a very rosy picture of the journey. Let me lay down some hard truths.

1. To be a content creator as a magician, you have to also be a writer, director, editor, videographer, actor, lighting technician, sound engineer, and idea generator. 

If you can stomach teaching yourself every skill most magicians don’t want to learn, then this might just be your thing. I mean, who got into magic because they wanted to learn how to correctly colour grade a clip?

1. Becoming a ‘successful’ magician online is a result of studying how to become a better video creator, not a better magician. 

Decent magic demands deep thought, practice, and patience. Social media algorithms demand quantity, consistency, and simplicity. In other words, social media algorithms encourage you to be a worse magician. That’s a tough pill to swallow. 

1. Success does not correlate with effort.

Sometimes, putting lots of work into a single video pays off - there have been a couple of examples I’ve shown in previous articles - but most of the time, the effort is not rewarded. Also, if you’re a beginner, then you really shouldn’t be focusing all your time on one project as, no matter what, it will probably be rubbish. Instead, make loads of things and get over that learning curve quicker. 

The more stuff you make, the quicker you will learn how not to make garbage.

March 25th

Today’s the day I would’ve gone back to the day job—the job that has guaranteed job security for life, is well-paying, offers great perks, and has single-handedly secured my mortgage and set me up for life. 

And I gave it all up to do card tricks.

I’m joking – well, I’m not really, but you get the point.

I do coin tricks, too.

At the start of this, the two main factors for me to consider when deciding to give up the day job were ‘enjoyment’ and ‘income’. I remember being tempted to include a third factor around how large a following I wanted by the time March came around. I’m glad I didn’t.

I’m in a healthy place where the number of followers I have doesn’t mean anything to me. Sure, it was nice when I hit 100k followers - and I got a fancy plaque from YouTube - but basing happiness on the number of followers you have is a dangerous precedent, and I’m happy I’ve detached myself from these vanity metrics.

October 2023 - March 2024 Followers Summary

Platform

Before

After

YouTube

12k

190k

Instagram

2k

126k

TikTok

24k

102k

In terms of income, I put a marker in the sand that if I’m not making a minimum of £1600 a month, then it’s not even worth thinking about - that’s just too little money to justify giving up a decent career.

I’m happy to report that income is no longer an issue. I’m making minimum £1600 a month in YouTube ad revenue alone so money is not a problem at this stage (by the way, how blessed am I to say that? I hope I never lose appreciation of being able to earn a living making videos in my garage…). Remember in the first article when I bought a meal deal and I thought ‘there goes two days work’? How time’s change.

Side note: YouTube has always been the priority for me in the social media landscape, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns on this one. It feels like a much more valuable audience to have than any other platform. My biggest month of income may have come entirely from TikTok earlier this year (when they changed their monetization scheme), but long-term YouTube is definitely still the right focus for me. 

In terms of enjoyment, there was always the worry in the back of my head that turning my passion into a career would slowly suck the pleasure out of it. I’m happy to report I shouldn’t have worried. I love it as much as I did the day I started. I don’t think that earning a living via creativity will ever get old. In fact, one thing struck me this week whilst I was playing a silly Mr & Mrs quiz game with my wife. A question came up asking, ‘What is Jack’s favorite day of the week?’.

Had I answered that a year ago, it would’ve been easy: ‘Saturday’. 

But I can honestly say now that I love every day of the week; each has its own merits. I look forward to cracking on with my creative ‘work’ stuff on a Monday, and I also look forward to chilling out and socializing at the weekend.

Having said that, by mainly focusing on video content and restricting myself geographically to the four walls of my garage, I have slowly realized that I feel like I am creatively short-changing myself if the future involves me only making videos. My focus for the rest of the year is to pivot into more live work to keep myself creatively nourished and more grounded as a performer.

It will be interesting to see how all this online stuff translates into ticket sales for live shows…

Can I let you in on a secret, though? I’d already decided I was leaving my day job the moment my socials blew up way back in September/October 2023. Unless the whole thing came crashing and burning to the ground, there was no way I was going back to the day job come March 2024. 

And now I’m writing this in my garage as a full-time content creator/magician. Since taking a career break and giving the content world my full attention, I have amassed 92 million views. How mad is that? 

This whole thing has been about turning a hobby into a career, and it’s actually worked?!

If I’ve learned just one thing from this whole journey, it’s that you can never know what opportunities are waiting around the corner. That really excites me. I could never have foreseen that David Blaine would become a ‘mate’, that I could make more money on YouTube than I can in the day job, that I would actually go on Britain’s Got Talent for real - what a time to be alive!

The past 8 months have been mental, and the next 8 months are probably going to be even more mental. 

I’ve also really enjoyed documenting this whole thing for One Ahead. I’ve never been one for journalling or diary-keeping (I’m not against it; it’s just never interested me), but knowing in the back of my mind that I’d be writing about this whole journey has made me reflect on it more and appreciate the smaller things that have happened. 

Anytime something notable has happened, I’ve quickly jotted it down in my notes app so I don’t forget to cover it in an article - this process of constantly being aware of ‘article-worthy moments’ has helped me realize just how amazing the journey has been.

I re-read the first two articles in prep for this final one, and I couldn’t help but smile at the early struggles and successes. Had Rory (One Ahead's Editor) not invited me to document this journey, I probably would have never noted much of the past 8 months down, and I definitely would have forgotten a lot. 

I want to thank Rory for making this happen and you for reading this. 

It’s been a pleasure.

And it will continue to be a pleasure.