The Scott Rea Project

“I’ve got to be honest, when I reached 100 views for that first video I thought I’d made it,” laughs Scott as we discuss his early days on YouTube. He’s the first to acknowledge their rudimentary nature. “Half the time I wasn’t filming on the correct ratio, or I’d film half the video in portrait and the remainder in landscape. It was a case of ‘point it and go’ – I had no idea what I was doing with the camera, really. I didn’t know about royalty-free music, either, and in many of my early videos I didn’t even talk.”

The response to his uploads took Scott by surprise. It wasn’t until he’d reached five years of filmmaking, though, that he started to think he might be onto something. He invested in fancy kit – cameras, lighting, editing software – but eventually realised that it wasn’t really necessary; that’s not what people visit his channel for. To this day all of his content – with the exception of his four (also popular) books – remains free. No subscription charges or paywalls.

Scott’s easy-to-follow style probably has something to do with the popularity of his videos. And there’s no doubt they sing to the movement that has seen an increasing number of people attracted to the idea of ‘nose to tail’ eating and sourcing their own wild game for the table. “The way people cook now has changed, too,” Scott opines. “We don’t spend a lot of time cooking anymore. So being able to break a carcass down into lots of easy-to-use cuts that suit a whole host of recipes, is cost-effective, convenient, and very rewarding.

“I still find it very satisfying myself, when I’ve finished butchering a carcass and laid all the different cuts out on the table. People will comment on videos of the same process in surprise. ‘How did you get all that from a 12kg munty?’ they will ask. Mini roasting joints, steaks, chops, dice and mince sit neatly side by side… all from a little deer”.

Equally satisfying for Scott, is being able to raise the awareness of game meat and promote it as an alternative to the meats he is used to working with. “Recently I put a picture on Facebook of the finest pheasant I’ve ever dressed,” he says. “It got 600 likes. It doesn’t sound a lot, but you’ve got to remember this is a pheasant – this ain’t some dude on holiday with his supermodel girlfriend.”

I ask him what his plans are going forward. There’s another book in the pipeline. The videos are set to keep on coming. His enthusiasm shows no sign of waning. “I genuinely love it,” he tells me. “I don’t want this world to be forgotten.”

I think Scott can rest assured that he’s more than doing his bit.