How to record a video podcast

What equipment do you need for a video podcast?

You can start with phones and a lamp or build a dedicated setup. Either way, the list has the same six lines:

Microphones deserve the most thought, because viewers notice bad sound before anything else. The equipment guide explains which microphones to use and why.

How many cameras do you need for a podcast?

One camera is enough to start. Each camera you add makes the episode livelier to watch and slower to edit.

Whatever the number of cameras, frame each shot the same way:

• the lens at eye level;
• a little space above the head;
• the eyes about a third of the way down the frame.

Each close-up camera looks across the table at its speaker, so that the speaker faces into the frame. Then follow the 180-degree rule: draw an imaginary line between the two speakers and keep every camera on one side of it. In the edit, one person looks left and the other right, and their eye lines meet.

Baltic Podcast Studio in Riga is set up this way, with a 4K camera for each guest plus a wide shot (4 + 1). Its multicam shoots run on 2–5 cameras, with a camera per speaker and an operator.

How do you light a podcast?

Most podcast lighting is a version of three-point lighting:

• a key light: soft, about 45 degrees to one side and slightly above the eyes;
• a fill light on the other side, weaker, to soften the shadows;
• a back or rim light behind the person, to separate them from the background.

For two people at a table:

1. Turn off the ceiling light.
2. Give each person their own soft key light, on the side away from the other speaker.
3. Add one shared fill light, or bounce light off a white wall.
4. Light the background separately, with a lamp or coloured light, and keep it darker than the faces.
5. Set every camera to the same white balance.

In the studio in Riga, the grey backdrop can be lit in any RGB colour, and the colour can be switched during the session; you can see the backdrop in different colours. A green screen is set up on request.

The usual lighting mistakes:

• a window behind the speaker;
• daylight mixed with warm lamps;
• light from overhead only, which leaves shadows under the eyes;
• glare on glasses: raise or tilt the light until the reflection leaves the lens.

How do you get good sound on a video podcast?

Give every person their own microphone:

• dynamic mics close to the mouth pick up less of the room and less of the other speaker;
• lavaliers stay out of sight, but they pick up the rustle of clothing;
• a microphone in shot is normal on a podcast, and viewers expect to see one.

Record the voices into an interface or a recorder, one track each, and keep the camera's own mic on only as a sync reference. Set the levels so that speech peaks at around -12 dBFS, which leaves room for laughter, and turn off automatic gain. Everyone should wear closed headphones, or at the very least the person recording.

Many shows in Riga mix Latvian, Russian and English. When people talk over each other in two languages, separate mics and tracks let the editor tell the voices apart, and YouTube subtitles help a mixed audience follow.

Soft surfaces in the room cut echo. Fixing echo and noise has a guide of its own.

How do you sync the cameras and the sound?

Run through this checklist before every session:

1. Set the same frame rate and resolution on every camera.
2. Match the white balance.
3. Make sure storage and power will last the whole session, with a margin.
4. Check whether any camera stops after a time limit or overheats.
5. Press record on every device.
6. Clap once, in view of every camera.
7. Say the name of the episode.

In the edit, most programs can line up clips by their sound waveform, and the clap is your backup. Long, continuous recordings are easier to sync than lots of short clips. On professional shoots, timecode keeps every device in sync automatically. If you hand the multicam editing to someone else, give them every file, the separate audio tracks included.

Which frame rate to use in Europe

Latvia, like the rest of Europe, runs on 50 Hz mains power. Film at 25 or 50 fps with a shutter of 1/50 or 1/100 s, and LED and fluorescent lights should not flicker on camera. Many guides written for the US recommend 30 fps, which can make the same lights flicker here.

Can you record a video podcast on a phone, or remotely?

A phone works if you set it up with care:

• use the rear camera;
• film the full episode horizontally;
• lock the focus and the exposure;
• turn on aeroplane mode;
• check the free storage;
• put it on a tripod and use an external microphone.

The limits are one angle per phone, the battery and heat over a long session, and colour that differs from one phone model to another. For vertical clips, film horizontally in high resolution, keep the faces near the centre and crop later; turning the episode into clips covers the rest.

To record remotely, each person records their own camera and microphone locally and uploads the files afterwards; some remote recording services do this for you. The video and sound of the live call are compressed, so keep them only as a backup.