In my opinion, the best video podcasts have cameras activated upon the speaker, as this replicates actually being there and watching and listening to the speaker. The alternative is a broad-view camera angle podcast, which is easy to set up but distances the audience from the speaker, making it more difficult to pick up on their facial expressions and other social cues.
Not all of us have Joe Rogan’s Young Jamie to be there and make sure an alternating-camera view podcast is working well. That’s why I’ve engineered a pretty efficient way to produce that kind of podcast yourself – just invite your guest(s) over and your hardware and software will do the work for you. In this article I’ll explain how this is achieved – embedded here is a video to explain the process:
You will need:
- A laptop to run the Zoom meeting
- Zoom installed on the laptop and atleast two smartphones
- Atleast two smartphones (more if you have more than one guest) that can connect to WiFi and can run Zoom.
- Tripods and phone holders to keep the smartphones stable.
- Lapel mics to connect to the smartphones (you’ll need smartphones with an audio jack if you’re using corded lapel mics!).
- Some lighting – preferably a big studio light to shine on the podcast subject’s faces, but other lighting like ceiling lights or attachable ring lights might do.
- A powerboard and charging cable adaptors to keep all the devices charged up.
- A “main” mic – this will be the only voice audio device you will actually use, the lapel mics are just so the software will trigger the cameras to activate upon the person who is talking within the Zoom meeting. Best to buy a mic that has omnidirectional capability, or the ability to pick up sound from all directions, in case you end up having multiple guests seated in different areas. A Blue Yeti mic is pretty affordable and has that function as well as others to block out sound in certain areas if need be.
- You might be happy with the quality of your laptop’s in-built webcam, but if not, you might want to buy a USB webcam – this will be the camera activated when the main mic is considered the loudest audio source within Zoom software, which will show the audience the “full room” view.
- You’ll need some editing software to piece together all of the files Zoom will save for you once the recording and meeting ends – Davinci Resolve is free and extremely powerful, with great YouTuber support.
The video I made explaining the process of setup is the most efficient way to explain what to do once you’ve got all that gear together. Some quick notes:
- Avoid having your meeting shut down within 40 minutes and pay for Zoom Pro which is $22.39 a month.
- If you want to transfer the Zoom recording files to another PC, better get some USBs.
- MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE “Record a separate audio file of each participant” SETTING BOX TICKED:
If you just have the one audio recording after putting this setup together, this audio will result (sorry Lachlan):
- In the editing room, you’re going to use the video file Zoom provided and turn the volume of that to zero, use the audio file of the people speaking that the laptop recorded, as well as the audio file that the laptop recorded “within itself”, if you share the screen and play sounds. Useful to show off videos and music to your guests and the audience! Make sure you hit “share sound” when sharing a screen.
- The final product will not have the audio and video synced perfectly (even if you use Davinci Resolve’s “Audio Sync” tool), I suspect because of the lag from connecting the devices through WiFi. This is unavoidable even if you don’t separate the audio files before recording. Nothing is perfect..see the end result of the above production process and the lip sync issue here:
I hope you all enjoy the fruits of much trial and error.
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