This guy makes any camera shine.

[Emanuel]

Even one on a smarphone...

 

[maxJ4380]

I'd like a dollar for every time he says oppo find...  I believe the more youtube camera reviews i watch, the more cynical i become and the cynical part maybe exponential... 

i did like the intro, for a guy who lives in the country, its nice to see some travel footage. Although the title,  travel film could be "code"  for you, secretly need a new 8k  camera phone. That in turn would probably necessitate a new tv, new computer, and maybe some other peripherals. So for me, probably not going to happen.  Perhaps this new oppo is amazing, and good on them if it is. Personally i cant take a camera phone seriously if it doesn't have a lens cover. Every single lens i have bought except a couple of 2nd hand lens from japan have had lens covers. If  smart phone manufactures cant put a plastic lens cover on it then their not taking their product seriously.

During the into did think to myself one could  do a similar thing with a gimbal and any phone camera or perhaps even an action camera.  Sure enough a gimbal seems to be the secret sauce, oh and add 8k of course and the occasional hand held shot for added realism.  I shouldn't knock the guy, at least he's out and about doing stuff, while i'm content to simply watch it, in my comfortable desk chair..  It was nice of oppo to send him the phone to vlog with, after that my mind boggles at the boat trips, plane trips, bike hire, and i'm thinking at this point his his business financials must be going backwards. 🙃 I did learn a few things from the behind the scenes part, so thanks for that .

PS. Somebody should probably tell the dude,  that you ride bikes,  you don't drive them. It sounds kinda lame to anyone that does actually ride one.

 

[Emanuel]

Without mention I guess everyone is missing the overheating stuff... : X Hard to beat Apple's external thing. I think there are other Androids out there doing the same, no?

[fuzzynormal]

The secret sauce is skill.  

As someone that used to make my living doing travel videography decades ago, this Brandon guy has really honed the judgement it takes to get the shots.  There's so much going on out there in the environment and he's able to omit it, control it, and/or shape it into something impressive.  It's really quite a thing to do.

He could make any camera in manufactured in the last 15 years look similar to this.  In fact, he has.

This guy is a cinematographer that really knows how to chase the light, compose a shot, and also create advantageous serendipity.  Which might sound like a paradox, but it really isn't.  

But, yes, images like this sell cameras.  Okay, buy the camera if you'd like and start the path to making an edit like this.  You can't buy his boots-on-the-ground experience though.  He's casual about it all during his "how-to" segment, but it really is the biggest factor here.

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, maxJ4380 said:

i'm thinking at this point his his business financials must be going backwards.

I'ma going to guess he's too good for that to happen unless he wants it to.

[fuzzynormal]

5 hours ago, Emanuel said:

there are other Androids out there doing the same, no?

Yeah.  That's why marketing is so important to the companies trying to sell 'em.

[maxJ4380]

6 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

The secret sauce is skill.  

 

Your right of course. I did forget to mention that some skill is involved

6 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'ma going to guess he's too good for that to happen unless he wants it to.

 I was being slightly facetious.  I can see how its a win for oppo to send him a smartphone to "vlog" with. Less clear to me is how brandon li wins ? I guess you could call playing with a 8k smartphone a win. Theres only a link to take you to the oppo site.  Am i over thinking it, if i presume theres some code in the link that tells oppo i have come from a brandon li youtube ? 

Ok i had a look at some of his other vids there are some affiliative links  for gear and there's a camera course and gimbal course to purchase if that interests you. I guess his approach is slightly more refined / tasteful than the usual here's the links to everything i use youtube shrill. 

 

 

[BTM_Pix]

I originally read the title as “This Guy Makes Any Camera Shite” and thought my cloud account had been hacked.

I enjoy watching Brandon Li’s stuff, particularly the self shooting ones. Self shooting as in shooting on your own as though someone else is shooting rather than self shooting in the vlogging context.

Tripods basically.

[Emanuel]

Very good one... priceless ; )

Yes indeed, this guy in particular has charisma as fine character too, no less :- )

 

[fuzzynormal]

13 hours ago, maxJ4380 said:

how brandon li wins ?

The six figure paycheck (I would hope for his sake) they gave him to do it.

[Emanuel]

Very true, he sells but his delivery deserves it anyway : ) His work demands for.

I truly praise his videos, used to follow them whether I buy or not (well TBH, actually not, the most part if not all the time! LOL But I see him a real talent, no doubts left :- )

[kye]

My understanding was that Brandon literally helped make the genre with (what I like to call) "washing machine travel films" like Hong Kong Strong that are like you rolled and spun a camera through a city and then cut it with only match-cuts - they trigger my motion sickness pretty strongly and I literally can't watch them.

However, people loved it and he got a bunch of TV appearances out of it:

As previously said in the thread, he can make any camera from the last decade shine, and he has, and it's skill.  All true.

What no-one else has said though, is that videos like this are film shoots.  They're not holidays, or someone filming while traveling (even slow travel).. These videos are researched, storyboarded, scheduled, and then shot on location with a cast (him and his GF, but often he recruits locals and will direct them like he's shooting a narrative) and crew (IIRC he's mentioned hiring people to fix, drive, translate, liaise, etc).  This is no secret, and his free BTS content shows this openly.

I think he sits in a fascinating space that I don't see a lot of professionals operating in.  He shoots uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) situations, like markets and crowded public places, does so with talent and a shot list, but does so shooting relatively low-impact.  
People shooting a travel doc will be shooting with talent in markets and in the streets but will have huge shoulder-rigs and will build up a little crowd of people who are just staring at the shoot and have to be choralled to keep them out of frame.
People shooting relatively incognito in a crowd are mostly doing it without talent or a plan or shot-list.  
Not a lot of people sit between those two scenarios, and even less will tell you how to go about doing it.

I've paid a lot of attention to his BTS segments (which are excellent if you want to make videos like this) but as someone who travels for the enjoyment of it and shoots along the way, I can tell you that there is very little overlap between shooting while you travel and producing and shooting and editing a travel film.  

I put myself on the email list for when he launched his course, and when it was released it was pretty pricey.  Probably good value as he obviously knows what he's doing, but too much for me considering the differences of our methods.

Maybe it's an aesthetic thing, but his work looks dated to me now, including the Oppo piece.  I understand why he still shoots these things like this, because he's appeared on quite a number of videos like this that are posted on the manufacturers channel, rather than his own channel, so it's obviously how he keeps the lights on.  

[fuzzynormal]

On 5/17/2026 at 3:43 AM, kye said:

a fascinating space that I don't see a lot of professionals operating in.  He shoots uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) situations, like markets and crowded public places, does so with talent and a shot list, but does so shooting relatively low-impact.  

Yeah, this was my job for a while in the middle of my career.  It was to make videos a bit different than what he does, but the field work flow was similar.  My jobs  were maybe a bit faster and sloppier than what he has to work with, but, yeah, similar.  It's a hell of a thing to learn. 

The assignments were fun, but always a bigger challenge than you might imagine.  People, or tourist (especially tourists) going about their lives tend to look unattractive while also being ostentatious.  And humans are hard-wired to look at people being weird and suss them out, we can't help it -- so a shooter, depending on what one needs to do, has to mitigate that or leverage that in various ways.  And, has to anticipate moments that allow a useful capturing of a composition.   

So, yeah, try being on assignment and being tasked with getting decent shots of the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps in the mid-day sun, because 2-3 in the afternoon is the only time the producer gave you ...  

Anyway I can't be a tourist anymore.  When I visit places I'm always looking at situations with my videographer's bias and can't seem to be in the moment.

[MrSMW]

5 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

When I visit places I'm always looking at situations with my videographer's bias and can't seem to be in the moment.

Ha, me, everywhere all the time.

I cannot step out of my house without continually working out how to shoot in any given environment whether it’s public transport, a restaurant, a bus, an elevator…

It’s something that is just hardwired into you! 😂