Gearknob Official

Right.

Turns out when our shower was fitted last Summer, so that my parents, who I look after, can have a bath easier, the electrician responsible cut every corner he could and left our wiring in a sad state of affairs. We noticed that when the shower was on, the fuse box started arcing (or making a constant buzzing sound that the internet tells us is a very bad thing). On Monday morning, I had to abandon my render (which had been going for ~30 hours, slightly behind schedule) as our tenancy determined this was an emergency, the electricity was cut, and I had no choice but to start all over again, throwing me completely off track.

But it turns out this was well-merited, as apparently NONE of the wires in our house had been tied back down for the better part of a year, along with tons of plastic and plaster-based waste that had been left to accumulate behind the walls from the time the shower was fitted. This would certainly explain the odd fluctuations in power I've been experiencing for some time, in particular a power surge my motherboard detected one week before my ill-fated render. It's ironic that in losing the video that you would have seen by this point, it might have otherwise been the last long-form video you saw from me had this issue not been detected and allowed to worsen.

That's really all I can say. More when I have something worth showing.

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 85

Gearknob Official

Apologies for no updates, but there's a very good reason for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jQH...

I have no idea how I didn't discover this video beforehand, but it's a video by a user named "Komeuppance" simply titled "Alex". It contains some footage and photos I had never seen before, and felt my video would be incomplete without it.

I have spent the past week frantically adding this video to the documentary, recutting and recording new dialogue to accompany it. I have used this video in what I believe to be as respectful a manner as possible.

I really hope you all enjoy this, because I want to make absolute sure this is perfect. Check Patreon tomorrow if it all goes to plan, YouTube release on Monday now it looks. No more delays from here it seems.

4 months ago | [YT] | 24

Gearknob Official

Been a while since I used this.

"The Man Who Saved Top Gear" will be premiering sometime in the upcoming week, firstly on Patreon (where you will also get your name in the credits if you're subscribed between now and my commit to a final render), and then on YouTube, where it will premiere live.

I do want you to stick around for the whole 90 minutes, as the final 10 - 15 is not so much a rant, but rather I feel a reality check for not just the Top Gear fandom, but really any fandom sizable enough to the point secondary authors (i.e. yours truly) are able to emerge from the masses.

Essentially, when you make a well-loved piece of media, you have functionally zero control over how big it manages to become, as well as the perceived message that fans choose to interpret and ultimately, what they do with the work you make (e.g. illegally torrent it, make crude edits and memes, or create documentaries such as mine). And when that happens, you as a creator have a duty to be respectful, provided those people aren't simply directly insulting your work.

Alex Mills might have cost the BBC many millions of pounds through his FinalGear project, but the impact he made changed the show forever. He got the show airing in countries it probably never would have seen the light of day in. And this video is quite sadly something I had to make because the people who would or should have shared this sort of insight instead find it a better use of their time to fart around on dull podcasts and take cheap shots at us.

And I do not wish for his memory to be tarnished nor forgotten.

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 92

Gearknob Official

Big announcement, and not a very happy one either.

Part 5's dispute claim got rejected. Because of this, Part 7 (Bolivia), which I had just finished re-scripting and Part 8 will not be coming out this month, despite prior promises. Not here at least; you will otherwise see and hear them soon at venues outside of YouTube. I simply cannot risk an appeal which will most likely get rejected and potentially end with this channel's termination. I will instead be focusing on more wide-appealing projects in my bid to attain 100,000 subscribers.

I've said this so many times I'm a broken record, but it just makes me shake my head in disgust how there can be so many channels, some with hundreds of millions of views through just reuploading unmodified Top Gear content, and they last for years. Yet actual, transformative and informative content which have tens or hundreds of hours go into their research just gets punished by a suit at the BBC who probably didn't even bother watching the video. No doubt he/she has to sit through hundreds of disputes a day and likely just sits at their keyboard skimming past every claim that they see.

If it's the same midwit in charge of handling all YouTube-related disputes (or someone decided to give that a job to a certain Mr. Sniff), parts 3, 4 & 6 which I recently had unblocked are most likely going to get blocked worldwide in a few days as well. So unless you fancy a holiday in Kosovo, Somaliland or North Cyprus any time soon (the only countries where copyright law doesn't exist), these videos will become unavailable to you.

But this doesn't render me completely naked. We have other options at our disposal.

It would be way too time and effort consuming to make two different versions of the same video, one YouTube friendly, the other not. I'm not going to do that.

So here's what I'm going to do instead.

All future series retrospectives will be firstly condensed into a Short (or short-form video) outlining the basic production notes, some interesting pieces of trivia, and to serve as promotion. Whichever nets me more views. I've been wanting to get into the short video game for a while, as I feel it will vastly increase my potential reach. The first part, the overview, and the last part, the review will also get posted here in unabridged forms.

From there, you will be able to watch the full videos on two separate platforms; Patreon (as a Top Tier supporter), and once the YouTube promo goes up, the Internet Archive. The existing Series 14 episodes will get a bit of makeover to correct mistakes and errors in the video (such as the model of camera used to film S14, for instance) I am aware of the many thousands of hours European legislators are wasting in their attempts to attack or block the IA as opposed to genuine, credible threats against their respective democracies, but I believe they will survive this storm as they have many others already.

To me, the only difference between piracy and preservationism is a few decades. My videos are reviews and should be covered under fair use, and to that end the BBC can endlessly cope, seethe and mald however they like. And they cannot silence the messenger forever.

I am also hereby permitting the upload of ALL Gearknob Original productions on alternative video and file sharing platforms, provided that I am credited and linked to as their creator and the original content is not modified in any way outside of hardcoded translations or watermarks which bear this channel's name. I won't name any in particular (since most of them are banned in the UK), but you probably know where.

Note that this does NOT include the Internet Archive. If you have already uploaded any of my videos to that platform, I humbly request you remove them as I will likewise be remastering them to give them things they were otherwise lacking on here (such as a soundtrack to the second half of the 2021 Top Gear documentary and better sound mixing for all of my other pre-September 2023 productions)

This is merely the first battle loss in what will be a very long, drawn-out war.

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 150

Gearknob Official

Part 6 is up on Patreon, and hopefully YouTube too by the time this goes live. If the video gets temporarily pulled for copyright restrictions, please consider watching the video at this link (for free if you're a top-tier supporter, or for a small fee if you're not already subscribed.

www.patreon.com/posts/136707985

1 year ago | [YT] | 68

Gearknob Official

Part 5 is now live on Patreon (and hopefully will be soon on YouTube!)
www.patreon.com/posts/136168406

1 year ago | [YT] | 70

Gearknob Official

Edited this one to better clarify a few things.

If there aren't any reprisals, I'm happy to move on from this. If there are, as I previously stated, I will be deferring any counter-action to the relevant authorities and keeping my hands clean. I do not believe it is acceptable for anyone, whether in a joking manner or not, to say "someone's gonna die... probably you" with the informed implication that the person they're talking about is you.

That is something I want to be firm on. Given our history, that's how I perceived it. That is why I was so angry. There is pretty much no-one else on YouTube who regularly talks about Top Gear with the following I have. It's easy to jump to the same conclusion I did if you were in my place, especially if you're not in the right frame of mind.

Regardless if whether or not Porter did talk about me personally, it made me realise something when he used the word "fronted".

And I would like to say a few things about that.

I am not, nor have I ever been, in the economic position to hire an editor or anyone else who might be working on my behalf. I simply could not afford it. All you see is me.

Everything you see in my videos, from the first draft to the finished product, is entirely my doing. I write the script based on hundreds of sources. I buy any DVDs I require out of my own earnings. I locate and pre-render each of the clips. I apply all of the effects and transitions. I master the audio levels. I select the soundtrack. I render the final video. I engineer the thumbnail in an ancient copy of Photoshop. The computer I use is mine, built and paid for with my own money. I render at 1440p even though my monitor is only 1080p. The nicest thing I own in life is a Galaxy S22 I used for the face camera in my last video, and that's only because it was bought for me from a store who were offering an unusually generous trade-in policy. I'd have never bought something that expensive for myself. It's not in me to do that.

YouTube needs people like me more than ever. Those who come from nothing, who want to make something of themselves, as opposed to a sea of disinterested middle-class hobbyist podcasters who harbour minimal passion for what they talk about. Again, I am not accusing Fowler of being such a creator. But YouTube is filled to the brim with people who match my description, and I am sick of it.

Mostly, I am sick of the fact that all the friends I had at the beginning of this project, Razor440 (who helped edit my original project), A.G., Justin, Cracc, Nik, Killian and Savidge (who I believe might have even subscribed to my Patreon earlier in the year) are people I'm no longer in touch with. They helped me out a lot during my toughest days and I wish there was a way to get them back with the extremely limited social life I now have.

For my whole life, I was constantly written off as someone who would achieve nothing. I spent 24 years of my life thinking they were right. Then that first Top Gear documentary picked up steam. Tavarish promoted it. Suddenly I was a big deal. But then my growth stunted. More and more people turned against me. My mental state worsened. And when I got unceremoniously chewed up and spat out by Porter in September 2023, that was it for me.

Nonetheless, I remain proud that I am able to garner more views for my videos than a team of amateurs or pros can with several hundred dollars in the swanny with each video they make, and with zero promotion or sponsorship to boot. I am extremely proud of all 50,000 of you who shared and continue to share my creative vision. I love all of you, even if you don't love me anymore.

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 106

Gearknob Official

One final addendum, as per my latest post on Patreon.

I would like to apologise for my earlier behaviour. The red mist descended, and I believe I have made a grave mistake based on the notion that former Top Gear scriptwriter Richard Porter is personally gunning for me. This is based on the fact he has criticised my work in the past and I saw what he said in "Someone's going to die, probably you fronting the channel" as referring to me personally.

Of course, he could be referring to a lot of people. As you all said, there are evidently a lot of YouTube channels that talk about Top Gear with many subscribers who could make Porter's blood run cold. I perceived it as a death threat. And I take such things very seriously.

With all that said, I do stand by a lot of what I have said elsewhere - the fact that a lot of things he's said behind closed doors aren't as public as he thinks they might be, claiming the Top Gear vehicles were a "liability", his reticence in acknowledging Alex Mills' role in Top Gear's success, and of course, that original criticism of my video all worked in building my ire to a boiling point.

If Richard Porter says anything more direct to me in a similar vein of "someone's going to die", naming me explicitly, I will seriously consider involving the police and otherwise stay out of it. I have far better, less destructive things to do in life than deal with a petty feud that will turn two years old towards the end of the year and started from what I feel what were among the stupidest reasons imaginable.


No-one is going to die.

1 year ago | [YT] | 82

Gearknob Official

Bugger.

I will try to dispute as I successfully did last time, but it's unlikely this will be appearing on YouTube, even though you can watch an upload from 2010 comprised of all the MIRA tests in a fully unedited form, among others. If it does work, there will be no premiere for that reason.

Although I'm sure there are some of you ready and waiting to dunk on my failure as I know there are, the fact is existing copyright detection systems, especially the BBC's, are unnecessarily harsh towards content that is clearly transformative and critical in nature. Most of the episode's sound is gone, it's in a frame, it's been re-ordered, chopped and screwed, interspersed with unrelated footage, and bizarrely, it's even claimed amateur footage of the challenges filmed by pedestrians.

I still do not understand how there have been people who can upload unmodified 5 - 10 minute long segments from 2002 Top Gear and have their content accepted despite doing nothing but ripping footage from downloads I sourced 5 years ago.

If this issue persists, I will look into alternative solutions. If I have to put my series review on a competitor service, I will. Otherwise most of the video will be made up of freeze frames and the occasional <10 second snippet.

1 year ago | [YT] | 221

Gearknob Official

Part 3 of S14 review tomorrow on Patreon, covering the Electric Car episode.

On YouTube, it will be the usual time - Sunday the 1st at 8PM.

1 year ago | [YT] | 73