Meet the 24-year-old Youtuber helping Adidas, Netflix and Disney talk to the world
Content creator Brandon Baum’s virtual videos have clocked up more than eight billion views. He tells Candice Krieger how he does it
When Brandon Baum left his job working for a well-known film company to become a YouTuber everyone thought he was mad. Fast forward a few years and it would appear that Brandon, or Brandon B as he is widely known, made the right call.
The online star has racked up 13.5 million followers (probably more by the time you’ve finished this article) and is taking the virtual world by storm.
Brandon B’s imaginative VFX (visual effects) videos have had over seven billion views across his social media platforms in the past three years, one of which is about to reach one billion views on YouTube alone, making it the third most watched YouTube short in the world (more on this later).
Talented and affable, Brandon also runs production company Studio B, which creates viral videos for some of the world’s biggest brands including Pixar Animation Studios, The Walt Disney Company, Sky, Netflix, Adidas, Universal and a number of Premier League footballers, as well as the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Ryder, Tyson Fury and KSI. Launched in 2022, London-based Studio B currently operates with a team of nearly 20 people, which includes his mum Samantha – the company’s Staff Liaison and Finance Manager. Not bad for a self-taught 24-year-old who, by his own admission, didn’t get on well at school.
He recalls: “I remember stealing my brother’s iPod aged 12. It was one of the first models to have a video and I downloaded this app that allowed you to create VFX videos on it. They were probably as terrible as VFX videos could be but I showed them to my friends and family who told me that they thought they were really cool and that really motivated me to make bigger, better and cooler content.
“I started to teach myself how to use After Effects, an industry software app, and got addicted to learning. I spent every weekend and weekday after school learning how to get better.”
Brandon was a student at Yavneh at the time but says he was “so clocked out. Education just wasn’t for me. No teacher inspired or motivated me but what I loved, and where I was doing all my learning, was YouTube.”
By the time Brandon, who had aspirations of being a film director, left Yavneh to go to a creative film school in Elstree, he had already taught himself most of the course via YouTube.
After completing work experience at Steve Kemsley’s Sassy Films, Brandon joined the company full time as a runner in 2016. “I became king tea and coffee maker whilst absorbing as much information as I could.” After three years, he worked his way up to in-house camera operator.
“Then I quit and started working in YouTube. That makes sense now but back then, if you said you wanted to be an influencer or YouTuber as a career, you were a loser.”
Brandon started working with a variety of different content creators, including some of the biggest names in the country such as Woody and Kleiny. Then Covid struck and they couldn’t meet up to create videos so Brandon decided to take that opportunity to create content his own socials.
Brandon’s video shorts are loaded with eye-catching special effects – he has jumped across buildings as Spiderman (159.7m views), produced the world’s longest tape measure (274.5m views), set off a ‘$1,000 firework’ (300m views) and created a giant ice cream from a statue (885+m views). The latter – YouTube’s third most popular video short of all time, features Brandon drop the top of his ice cream on the floor and replace it by turning a statue into ice cream. He even manages to magic Nelson’s Column into a chocolate flake. You need to see it to believe it.
By the time lockdown ended, Brandon had amassed one million followers. And a platform to build his business on.
As for social platforms, Brandon doesn’t believe one will dominate. “We are seeing that platform diversification is actually a good thing; you know what you go to Instagram for or to TikTok for. Platforms are trying to make the entire 360 on them because they don’t want you going to a competitor site but that’s not how consumers are behaving.”
But he does think copycat platforms will rise. “We’ve just seen Meta copy X (formerly Twitter) with Threads and I think that’s great proof of concept for taking an existing user base (from their Instagram) and converting them into a new platform. Every platform will start doing copycats. It’s too dangerous not to.”
A growing number of people are using online platforms to learn new skills. “So much of what I learn is from YouTube. I love watching Top Ten Fact videos and VOX explainer series. Teachers in classrooms with pencils and paper never connected with me but watching YouTube videos – that really hits the spot.”
YouTube has more than 2.68 billion active users, making it the second most used social media site behind Meta (2.74 billion).
YouTube Shorts is reportedly rising at an annual rate of 135 per cent, with over 1.5 billion monthly users, a number which will only continue to increase alongside the rapidly rising rate of online video consumption.
“We all live such crazy, hectic lives and being able to provide someone with a 15-second or 10-minute video of escapism, and bring them into your world for that short period of time, is the most magical thing you can do.”
A growing number of people are using online platforms to learn new skills. “So much of what I learn is from YouTube. I love watching Top Ten Fact videos and VOX explainer series. Teachers in classrooms with pencils and paper never connected with me, but watching YouTube videos – that really hits the spot.”
Acknowledging the darker side of social media, he says: “Of course, I get it. To survive in the next digital era of where we are going, you need to be adapting and understanding where socials are and understand what’s going on with trends, but you can’t replace experiencing things in real life, and I am the biggest fan of doing things. We shouldn’t let social (media) be an excuse to cut us out of the real world. A majority of our time should be in the real world, seeing people. Socials should be filling the gaps.
“There is a place for socials. In the evenings I love to switch off and go into fuzzy brain mode and watch YouTube videos.”
While much of Brandon’s time is spent in the virtual world, he himself remains extremely down to earth.
“Yes, I’m obsessed about this space and love what I do but I don’t think people should be under the illusion that it’s an easy job. You’re working seven days a week, grinding every second. For a long time, you won’t make any money. If you actually want to succeed, every penny you make has to go back into the business, which is what I do here (Studio B). But I love it and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Some of Brandon B’s Viral Videos
Ice Cream Statue: 885.6 Million Views
$1,000 Firework: 300 million views
World’s Longest Tape Measure: 274.5 million views
Spider-Man: 159.7 million views
Cocktails With Tom Holland: 180 million views
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