How to Record High-Quality Remote Interviews Without Using Zoom (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: How do you record remote interviews and actually have them look good? Maybe you have a podcast and you want to start incorporating video interviews that you can release on YouTube, or maybe you're like me with a YouTube channel, but you want to throw in an interview here and there, but you don't want to use Zoom to do it because let's be real, it just doesn't look great. I have been deep diving into this investigation for myself and have found an amazing solution that I can't wait to share with you. So let's dive in. I'm Amanda Horvath and I help eliminate the obstacles to getting you sitting where I'm sitting right now, in front of the camera, sharing your message with the world. So if you're ready to use video in your strategy this year, then be sure to subscribe and click the bell to be notified every time I release a new video. And for the fastest way to get up and running with video, be sure to check out my quick start guide to video that is linked in the description below. Now let's dive in by talking about how people typically record their remote interviews. Many, many people are using Zoom in order to do it, but it comes with a few problems. First off, there are two different ways that you can record. You could be side-by-side in gallery view, which leads a lot of black space at the top and bottom of your screen. And if you wanted to Zoom in to one person in post-production, let's say, it's not going to be the highest quality and you are at the mercy of your internet speeds and Zoom cutting in and out. Overall, not a great option altogether. The second way that you can do it within Zoom is to use the speaker view where you are popping up on screen if you are actively speaking, but this can sometimes be awkward because if someone makes a sound on their end, they might pop up for a short second. And when you are recording that video in real time, you can't go back and edit that later. Altogether, Zoom is not the best way to go about a remote interview. Now, previously, one way that I have gone about doing remote interviews is to have each individual set up a camera on their end and talk directly to the camera. And then there are headphones that you're plugged into and you are listening to each other on either your phone, on Zoom, or you're actually on a phone call or whatever. And then that person would have to send me that video file in order for me to edit it. Obviously, that's a big hurdle for someone that is just getting started in video and it can be a lot to have to explain to the person that you're interviewing as well. So you need a different solution. Introducing Riverside.fm. This is an amazing tool that I recently came across and used for a remote interview that I released on the channel several weeks ago. And I've been consistently iterating and tweaking the process ever since behind the scenes to figure out the best approach for you guys. So I want to hop on the computer and really show you the back end of Riverside and how it works and talk through some key features that make this an absolute no-brainer when it comes to filming remote interviews. Now, if at any point throughout this video, Riverside seems like a tool you'd like to add to your toolkit, then I've linked to my affiliate link as well as a discount code so that you can get up and running at minimal cost. You're welcome. So here we are on Riverside.fm. And if you scroll down right here, they do a great job of showing the difference between recording in Zoom compared to Riverside. And it's pretty significant. And the reason that it looks so much better, you're not changing your camera, you might still be using your webcam, you're not changing your audio either, but you aren't having to rely on the internet to record. So what Riverside does is it's actually recording the video file that you are recording locally and is uploading that to the cloud as you are recording. So it's not having to rely on internet going in and out or anything like that. It will have a smooth recording on both sides of the interview. It also records uncompressed audio once again on both sides of the interview process. So this is awesome because if one person speaks over the other and you're both wearing headphones, then it doesn't matter because that person's audio isn't being heard on the other side. And you can just delete that person's audio during that time during the edits and have it be clean, crystal clear audio on this side. And I'm going to pop in and really show you how this works within the editing room as well. But I just want to give you the overview for now. So here we are in the back side of Riverside, and I'm going to show you how quickly you can get up and running with this. I've already set up a studio. If you haven't, you would do it right here. But we'll click go to studio. I will say whether or not I am using headphones. At this moment in time, I'm not using headphones, so I will say I'm not. But I would recommend using them because then it doesn't have to create echo cancellation in your audio, which can kind of change the way that it works a little bit. So I would recommend wearing headphones. In this case, I am not. I'm going to click join studio. So here we are. We can see what I look like, and I could go ahead and send this link to someone to join. So I would click invite people, and I would share this link right here, copy the link, email it to them. Once they do pop up, then they're going to show up over here where I can invite them in to join me as a guest. And I will go to one side of the screen, and they will go to the other. In order to change any settings, maybe I have a microphone input or anything like that, you just go down here to settings, and you go ahead and change it to whatever microphone that you want to use or what other camera you want to use as well. And if we wanted to get real fancy, I could even take this exact shot that I have right now and use an HDMI to plug into my computer and have my camera be an external webcam. So you get to optimize how high quality this is based on what camera you're using, your webcam or an external camera like this one. So once you have everything set up within Riverside, all you have to do is go ahead and click record, and it will start recording both on your end as well as the interviewer's end. So here's a previous project that I did, and you can see here's the full recording, or I can go and find each of the individual tracks and download those tracks. Or I can click up here just to download all the tracks in one, or use their go-to editor, which is going to essentially do the same thing that Zoom does, in that it'll take the active speaker and make them full on the screen and switch between them. But it does a better job than if someone makes a sound on Zoom and they just randomly pop up. So that is really cool that they do have an editor option. But for me personally, I like to take things to the next level because I'm a video person and I want to edit my video within Premiere Pro. So being able to download all of the tracks and do that is so key. So let's pop into the project file of when I actually did this, and I'll show you what it looks like on the back end. So here we are within the Premiere Pro project file, and this is for a little bit more of you advanced users who've been following this channel for a while. Maybe you've even taken my online course and are super confident in Premiere Pro. A little tiny plug for you there. If you don't know, I have a course I do, and it's really good. But let's talk through how I was able to do this using these two separate files that I got from Riverside. So if you go under O2 footage, you can see I have mine right here that is just recorded using my webcam, which is 720p, and then we have her file as well right here that she also recorded directly to her camera. But they are two separate files, the entire thing, which is amazing. So what I did was I have mine on one track and hers on the second, and if I wanted to be on screen without her being there, then I just deleted her track and I'm on screen. Or if I wanted her to be on screen and I am not there, then I, and I'll find that, then I would just delete my track or have it just be above there. And as you can see, I also had the option to split screen it as well to where we could both be on screen at the same time. This makes the edit super dynamic because I can be cutting back and forth between three different angles compared to Zoom, which is just going to be you guys next to each other. It's going to look like crap and you'll have those massive bars at the top. So you're very limited in the amount of editing that you can do. And just to take things one step further, when you do it in this way, you can also add graphics over your videos so that it can take that production quality once again to the next level. Or you can even add clips of things that you are talking about in the video so that you can add more interesting dynamics to your interviews like B-roll or anything like that. So what do you think? Are you just as much of a fan of Riverside as I now am? Be sure to drop your comments below letting me know. And if this video is helpful, be sure to click like. It really helps me out. And don't forget to grab your discount code linked in the description below. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.