The Mazelee family have gained more than 2 million YouTube followers over a period of 12 years.
Through those years, parents, Alena and Joe used different filming equipment to capture the viewer’s imagination, resulting in them being able to make money in their sleep.
As of June 2021, despite the family rarely posting videos at regular intervals, they made at least £9,000 (13,000usd) for that month alone.
That success is partly down to their filming equipment.
Alena originally started her YouTube channel as Alena Maze, and no filming equipment was disclosed. Once Joe joined and their channel became Mazelee, the couple shared all the details in the description section of multiple videos.
Their initial set of equipment included a Sony mirrorless digital camera as their main camera, an Olympus TG-860 Waterproof Digital Camera, a Zhongyi Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm and a Rokinon FE14M-E 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens – all of these are now rarely available.
The couple used the Rode VideoMicPro Compact Directional On-Camera Microphone with Rycote Lyre Shockmount for their camera and Rode SmartLav+ Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone for their mobile phone.
These microphones are widely known and popularly used by other YouTubers including the likes of Jake and Logan Paul, and Lily Singh.
As the Mazelee grew in subscribers and made more money, they added to their collection a Sony Alpha a6500 Mirrorless Digital Camera for documentary style videos, a Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III Digital Camera for selfies, iPhone 7 plus for vlogging, a Zeiss Batis 2/25 and Venus Laowa Lenses, a Shotgun Lens Shure VP83 Lens and Hopper Camera-Mounted Condenser Microphone for use with DSLR Cameras and HD Camcorders.
They have also used the google Pixel 4a for filming “How Dads Work At Home *with 7 kids” video.
While their filming equipment have played a successful part, Joe stated in one of their videos how the equipment itself only really contribute 20% of the work involved in creating captivating videos.
The other 80% is down to skills, for instance adjusting the white balance, changing the camera settings pre and post production.
The couple work as a team to produce their videos with Alena being the visual and storyline director – organising what should be shown and how it should be placed, Joe takes care of the recording and photography.
Their hard work is paying off as they are estimated to make £100k (138 thousand USD) on YouTube this year, according to socialblade.com. The family also make money through other sources including a children’s YouTube channel and various social media platforms – where they place many adverts.
Alena and Joe currently have a combined 500k+ Instagram, 12k+ Twitter and 2.6 million Facebook followers.
