How Five Celebrity Video Podcast Sets Stack Up (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm being brutally honest about five more celebrity video podcast setups and rating them on a scale from 1 to 10. I've worked in video production and tech for over 10 years, so I'm looking at lighting, cameras, audio, set design, and how well it all actually fits the show. Now, this is all for fun, these are my opinions, and you guys had some great opinions of your own from the last video, and one of you picked one of the shows for this video and suggested it might be a 9, and well, I didn't give it that, so we've already got something to talk about in the comments. You also asked what I'd change about these setups, so I'll go into that as we go. Rate these podcast setups along with me in the comments, and let's get started. Let's start with Theo Vaughn on This Past Weekend. This Past Weekend is one of those sets where I feel like I could walk in, sit down, and immediately start talking. Theo comes across as such a genuine guy, and the room feels just as welcoming. They've got a wide shot of Theo and his guests together, then a medium of each of them. Pretty classic three-camera setup. My favorite thing they do is when they talk about an article or a photo, they'll pull it up on the monitors and set, and we get to see it along with them in a multi-camera layout. This is really considering the viewer visually. See, if Theo makes a face at a picture, I want to know what he's looking at, and I still want to see his reaction. This show gives you both to enjoy. The Shure SM7B microphones sound crisp on both sides of the conversation, the lighting is pretty traditional, but for that broadcast look, it's about as good as you can get. The one gripe I have is with the set. There's a white book in the background of some of the shows that kept catching my eye and distracting me. Same with some of the soda cans that were lying around. I'd move a couple of those brighter items out of the way and replace them with something else less distracting before hitting record. But when my biggest complaint is where you put a book, I think you're doing pretty well. Nine out of ten. One of you guys suggested the all-in podcast from the last video I made and put a nine out of ten next to it. I get the appeal. In the episodes I watch, you've got three or four people joining remotely, everybody's exposed pretty well, their cameras look decent, and I like being able to see the other hosts react while one of them is talking. This is one of the benefits of remote production. A couple of the guys use virtual backgrounds and they actually look pretty good, but my favorite shot is the main host sitting in a real room. His feels like a spot he picked to record his show, which comes across as much more intentional. Some of the other backgrounds do feel a little bit more last minute. The audio surprised me because there's guests that show up in air pods and even one of the hosts wears them. Now, whether or not they're actually using air pod microphones, probably not. But that host actually sounds pretty dang good. Where I noticed the big differences in this production is in the picture. I'd love a bit more color and contrast from each of their cameras. And speaking of which, the cameras is what I would look at as the next upgrade. I'm personally giving all in a 6.8 out of 10. Very specific, I know. I like the remote format. That's actually what I do for my own personal podcast. But what costs them points for me is how much of the image quality changes depending on who's talking. There's not much consistency between the cameras. In my experience, there's definitely ways to get around that with better lighting, set design, or higher end cameras. But that's really hard to avoid with a remote show either way. I still really enjoyed watching all in and listening to it and think that it's a fantastic show. Great suggestion. Armchair expert has a room I'd love to shoot in. There's all this wood, green, gold, and brown colors, which makes me expect the image to be really warm from that set design. Then I look at the faces and the overall image and some of the skin tones lean blue or cyan. Meanwhile, some of the brighter parts of the shots already look yellow. Now the lighting itself is pretty freaking good. That's not the problem here. And obviously there's the Shure SM7B again. The audio is about as close to perfect as I need for a podcast. My first change would be to check the white balance on each of the cameras. I think that might be where this goes wrong. I'd want the faces to feel natural in that warm room. Go from looking cyan and sickly to red and warm. Also, depending on how they're recording this production, that could be fixed with some simple color grading in post. I'd also adjust the framing for a couple of the shots. This isn't the only show to do this, but in the wide, everybody feels pushed a little to one side with less headroom in the shot than I normally would have, especially for a wide. And the guest sits somewhere between dead center and third of the way across the frame. I'd either center them or leave a little bit of room in the direction they're looking on the right or left third of the frame. This is basic framing one-on-one type of stuff. Seven out of ten. The room and the sound are already there. Getting the color and framing dialed in would make a much bigger difference for me. Whoever's operating cameras on the 85 South Show has their hands full. There are so many people on set and half the time the person I want to watch is somebody across the room reacting to what was just said. That's where the wide shot really earns its place in this show. The set has so much personality, the people are lit really well, and those pops of color from the RGB lights behind them fit the energy in the room perfectly. Even coming to the show fresh, I get what they're going for. Audio is where I would make the biggest changes here. I actually love that they're using lavalier microphones. You don't see this very often in video podcasting, probably because of the iconic look that the SM7B gives and everyone's trying to copy that. But with a lavalier mic, everybody can move around and talk to whoever they want. But there are moments where the voice sounds muffled or somebody turns away from the mic clipped to the side of their collar and you lose the end of the sentence. I would try moving that lavalier closer to the center of their chest, either clipped to the collar still or hidden under a shirt and taped to their sternum. That'll also give you more bass tones. Then I would have them talk to the person on their left and answer somebody on their right. Now that's a big change that I'd want to hear in the sound check from the technical side of things. To be honest, I would love to be a camera operator or an audio engineer on this show. 8 out of 10. This is a fun, chaotic show and the crew does a really good job of letting you in on the jokes wherever it's happening. Lastly, Conan O'Brien's show reminds me of watching an old radio broadcast or Apple podcast show from the 2000s. Four microphone arms around a table and everyone sounds fantastic. Although Conan's microphone even looks a little different from everybody else's. I would love to know if he just likes that particular microphone, how it sounds with his voice, or if they just ran out of Shure microphones. For such a simple looking room, try counting the angles. From the coverage I saw from the episodes, I guess there are at least five cameras running this production. Keeping that many shots consistent is a lot of work, but for the production crew for this show, it's probably pretty easy. Here they can cut from one person to another and the contrast, color, and skin tones hold up beautifully. My only real critique is that the set feels a little plain. I'd love some more detail that felt specific to Conan, but I'd be careful how far you take that because the old school radio feel is part of what I like about it. Conan gets a solid 8 out of 10. Between Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend and Theo's This Past Weekend, my personal pick would be This Past Weekend. I love the set design, I love the look, but honestly both shows sound fantastic. If you're recording remotely, Riverside lets each person record high quality audio and video on their own device. You get separate tracks afterward so you can bring up a quieter guest or cut to someone's reaction. And if everybody's around the same table, you can record in person with Riverside 2 using the Mac app. But now I want your ratings. Which setup did I get completely wrong? And if you're the person who gave All In a 9, I especially want to hear what could earn it some more points. So if you want to try recording your own video podcast with Riverside, you can use the link in the description to get started. And if you want to learn more about recording, editing, and creating better content, I'll link a few more videos for you to watch right up here and in the description down below. Also, if this is a format you guys enjoyed and would love to see more of, this is the second one we've done. Please let me know because these are always really fun to make. Be sure to like this video and subscribe for more content just like this. If you have any questions about your podcast setup, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'll be happy to answer them personally. Thank you so much for watching and we can't wait to see what you create.