A 69-year-old grandad has retired from a career as a BBC video editing assistant to produce creative videos for his YouTube DIY channel, earning more than 150,000 views and the ultimate praise from his granddaughter: “Don’t worry, Grandpa can fix it.”
John Mildred, 69, a retired assistant video editor for the BBC, has always loved DIY, and in June 2020 – during lockdown – the grandad found the perfect opportunity to start his DIY tips and tricks YouTube channel – John the Handyman. When John managed to save £2,638 using a platform that gives money back on purchases, he decided to splash the cash on a Fuji X-T4 camera to help film his creative videos full of split screens, special effects and catchy montages.
Now, John – who has two children, Louise, 39, and Matthew, 36, as well as a granddaughter, Isabelle, two – is preparing to edit his latest videos, including a wedding arch he built for his daughter’s big day and a game that he made for the reception.
“My granddaughter says ‘don’t worry, Grandpa can fix it with his screwdriver’,” laughed John. “It’s all a bit of fun. I don’t do it for money or views but because I enjoy it. I really like having a go at video editing, especially after being around it at the BBC.”
John was known for operating the special effects machine, Charisma, when he worked at the BBC. “I have grown up around edit suites and making television programmes,” he said.
“I’ve been a technician pretty much all my life. I was one of the few people in our department that could work a very complicated piece of equipment, it was called a Charisma.
“It was a video effects machine that enables you to do split screens and move the picture around and defocus a picture, you could do all sorts of fancy effects. You don’t see these effects on television anymore, because they look a bit naff to be honest with you.
“I would spend hours and hours on it at work. So I basically taught myself.”
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Despite John always longing to flex his video editing skills in retirement and show off his DIY flair, it was not until lockdown in June 2020 that he found the opportunity to start his own YouTube channel.
“I really do enjoy it,” said John. “After spending 10 hours a day sitting next to an editor in the BBC I wanted to try and have a go yourself.”
Teaching himself new editing tricks like split screen and graphics, John has amassed an impressive 1,500 subscribers, with his most popular video ‘How to fix a squeaky floor’ earning more than 72,000 views.
“I’ve only got 12 videos, so I don’t think it’s too bad,” he said. “Like the Charisma, I just taught myself the video editing platform and went from there.
“I’m getting more subscribers, slowly. The comments have been really nice and supportive.”
But as his videos became more technical, John decided it was time for a new camera and, during his research, he quickly set eyes on the Fuji X-T4 camera – the only setback was the £1,800 price tag, but that did not deter John.
“I watched a lot of YouTube videos about it,” he said. “I ironically learnt about it through an American YouTuber who reviews film cameras and then I found lots more videos on it.”
An avid user of TopCashBack - a platform that gives money back on purchases - for 10 years, the savvy saving grandad had accumulated £2,638 in his account.
“I’ve still got about £400 in my account as we speak,” he said. “I’ve been saving them for 10 years at least. I just decided it was about time I spent some of it or else I shall go to my grave and it will get lost.
“I use it mainly for insurance. But I also use it for all my DIY. So, in Screwfix, Toolstation, if I need LED lights or something like that, I will get cashback on those. It’s pretty handy.”
Saving the pennies for a rainy day, the handyman splashed the cash on a new camera. “I would never have spent £1,800 on a camera normally,” John explained.
“But I thought to myself, you know what, I’ve got all this money sitting in TopCashback. I ought to get around to using it. I use the camera to film my YouTube channel along with another video camera I have.”
John has flexed his editing muscles as he continues to push his abilities and teach himself new tricks, including a rather tricky split screen that gave the impression of two Johns being in the shot. “It takes ages to set up the cameras,” he laughed.
“Sometimes I do curse starting the project towards the end. I don’t write scripts, but my videos are quite shot intensive.
“They do take me a long time. I’ve taught myself all the special effects.
“I can take hours and hours to edit, for instance, when I have two of me in the shot, it can take me five or six hours to edit that for 10 seconds of footage. But I really enjoy learning new things and pushing my knowledge.”
Meanwhile, his family have benefited from John’s handyman channel.
“My daughter got married last year, so I made her a wedding arch,” he said. “I also made them a game called Cornhole board. It’s basically a wooden board that has a six-inch diameter hole and the idea is you have some cloth bags, which would have had corn in them, and you chuck them at the board. My children have always asked me to do DIY for them and I enjoy doing it.”
However, taking well over 10 days to finish a video, John says he sometimes struggles to keep up with his projects.
“It takes me about five days to complete a project,” he explained. “Then it takes me another five days to edit it, especially if I have a lot of shots. I’ve got three projects I’ve already recorded, but I haven’t started editing them.”
As for the future, perhaps the biggest project he has taken on so far is turning a van into a fully functioning campervan.
“I bought a Toyota HiAce,” John, from Horsham, West Sussex, said. “I’m going to be fitting out the interior to make it into a campervan. So that is a big project which I would love to get done this year, but we’ll see.”
