You Don’t Need A Video Podcast Studio

Hello! In case you don't remember me, my name is Deanna and I help people create great podcasts. You joined this list because you wanted to learn how to do that! Starting today, you can expect to hear from me every Sunday where I'll share one tactical tip to make a killer podcast.

Video has made the idea of podcasting daunting for a lot of people. Even those who have already been podcasting for years in audio form. It’s easy to see big podcasts from places like SiriusXM or The Ringer and feel like there’s no point in doing video if you can’t do it in a fancy studio like the one below.

But I’ll let you in on a secret. Even podcasts on SiriusXM have remote guests. They did it when it was audio only and they still do it for video. I know this because I edit a podcast that’s presented by SiriusXM and even though it’s very video focused, most of the footage I receive to edit is from Riverside (which for anyone unfamiliar, that’s a remote recording platform). So even shows that have budgets are going with the significantly cheaper option.

There are a couple different ways you can cut the footage together for a video podcast, too. So for Stars and Stars with Isa (the aforementioned SiriusXM show I’ve been working on), we do angle switching between the host and guest. For this, we don’t include a “wide” shot, but I’ll show an example of how that looks with footage from Riverside momentarily.

Let’s be real, very few podcasts can either afford to fly guests to them or have a big enough presence that people will do it willingly. That’s not in the cards for 99% of us. So Riverside is a great solution. I swear this newsletter isn’t sponsored by them (but maybe it should be).

I also work on big shows like Fast Politics with Molly-Jong Fast where we use Zoom a lot of times because it is a little more reliable. For instance it still worked when Amazon Web Services (which runs nearly half of the internet) was down recently. Plus, you can’t always get government officials to use something other than Zoom, but thankfully we are here to just talk about podcasts, not the government.

As you can see below, we use more of a news format for that one where both host and guest are on screen at all times. With this being a show about current events, it makes sense for it to have more of a news feel to it.

Important note on this format: You have to use Zoom’s pin feature to achieve this otherwise it will default to the automatic full screen switching, which is not always accurate (i.e. you’ll be looking at the wrong person when someone else starts talking, which is not what you want with video!).

I will say though that if you go this direction, please do still edit the podcast and don’t just toss up the unedited side-by-side video. Unless you would like me to rip all of my hair out, then by all means you do you. But I don’t know, that sounds kind of painful to me!!

Finally, for a podcast like My .4 Cents (hi Jesse, if you’re reading this) which has 4 co-hosts, we do the isolated shots a good portion of the time, but then when there’s cross talk or a lot of back and forth I switch to the makeshift wide view with all four of them on screen. This can be done right within Riverside in their edit page. (If you’d like help with how to do this, I’d be happy to help you out! Just hit reply to this email and let me know.)

If you’re unsure about video, I suggest playing around with it and recording a conversation with a friend (or co-host if you have one). There is no rule that you have to use a video just because you recorded it.

Video doesn’t have to be difficult and it certainly doesn’t require thousands of dollars worth of gear. You can use what you already have, a webcam or a phone! Plus, Davinci Resolve (again, not sponsored but maybe should be) offers a free version of their software that is so robust you probably won’t even use 50% of the features. If you are going the Riverside route, you can do a lot of editing in the backend and they have a great YouTube channel with videos on how to use the platform.

To sum it up: I know video is scary and seems like a lot of extra work, which is why it deters a lot of people. It can be a lot of work if you want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be. Something simple will work!

And to review the options, here they are again in order of level of difficulty/expense:

• Remote side-by-side video (usually recorded via Zoom or Riverside)

• Remote full screen camera switching based on who is talking (better to not use Zoom for this one as they don’t give you multiple video files, use a service like Riverside that gives individual video files)

• Remote multi-cam (I don’t have a better name for this one to fully distinguish it from the last one, but basically this is the one that includes a “wide” shot with everyone on camera at the same time)

• In-studio multi-cam (Which is not harder from an editing perspective necessarily because you can achieve any of the above with it, but it is EXPENSIVE. And let’s be real, we didn’t all get a big pay day from Spotify like Bill Simmons did.)

Still unsure about video? I can help! I’m happy to have a conversation if you’re still stuck on making the leap or you just aren’t sure if it will work for the type of show you have.