Behind the Scenes, How My Virtual Training Studio Is Set Up

In a little over an hour, I'm going to be kicking off a two-eek live training course. And so, I thought I would just give you a bit of a behind the scenes of my studio so that you can see how this is all run and how it's all coming together. So, basically, we've got my camera which is uh somewhere just behind that screen. That is an Elgato Prompter XL. Actually, the monitor itself is there, but you're seeing the reflection of that. And behind the sort of sloped glass there is the camera itself. That is a Sony ZV10 with a Sigma 30 m uh 30 mm lens. Uh and that is where I'm basically going to be looking at my output from uh from ECAM the software. And what that means is that here you can see that uh as I look into it, you can see that the camera is looking back at me if you like. But if I switch to any of these other views that I've got in eCam, it's going to change that. And so basically what I'm looking at there is the production. So at times I'll be bringing up guests onto the screen and so they'll appear in that uh slot just there. But it means that I'll be looking in the camera maintaining eye contact all the time that uh that I'm doing it. Then we have the gallery view. So this will be down here in Zoom. So I use Zoom with dual windows. Uh first window will be up there and second down there with the the gallery on it or or other way around maybe the primary down there with the gallery. Uh and then that will be the uh me the active speaker or spotlight uh view. Then I've got the uh touchscreen monitor down here. This is the Dell P2424HT. And this is where I've actually got all of my ecam settings running. Uh when the Zoom is running as well, I will have the Zoom participants, the Zoom chat and things like that. I'm going to be able to control uh things like, you know, asking people to come off mute, uh muting everybody. All the sort of in meeting controls I'll be controlling from here. I'll also be able to just sort of tap to add people's comments to the screen. Uh that kind of thing as well. So, this is really kind of the mission control if you like. Um, but the primary way that I'm going to be controlling the production itself though is going to be using Stream Deck. So, I've got two Stream Deck XL's. These are 32 keys. It's a sort of programmable, basically a programmable keyboard in effect. But it means that when I press buttons on this, it's going to do things that like, you know, change the scene in ecam that happens to be showing into the production, uh, showing, you know, when I want to stop and start the recording, all that sort of thing. It's all controlled via these stream decks. So that is the sort of main control of the production itself and that is what this sort of bank of monitors here are for effectively. Now in terms of the actual production itself uh that is or in terms of the content I should say that is going to be on this main screen. Now this is my main working screen as well. So you'll see that the desk's a bit of a funny shape. It's kind of not quite an L-shape. It goes around in three parts. There we go. Um, and so normally when I'm working, I'm kind of sitting at this position, but then when I'm recording, I kind of move over to uh to this one. So, this is a 43 in Philips monitor. Um, and what this allows me to do is basically have plenty of screen area for all the things that I might want to demonstrate during the video, during the uh workshop or whatever. And then when I'm just working, plenty of space to work on as well. But as you can see there, I've got a web browser up. And then if I go to ecam and I share a scene which I've got set up, this scene is set up to include my camera um which is sort of looking out there at me. Uh but then it's also got this portion of the screen that is over there. So that's how I'm sort of capturing just that little bit of the screen and incorporating it into the production. And then obviously I've got space there to have lots of other things open that I may want to share during the uh during the training. So then over on this side I've also got a vertical monitor. This is not for any of the video stuff. This is more like a productivity monitor. So, uh for task list, to-do list, things like that, calendar, mail, and whatever when I'm actually actually working rather than producing video content. Now, I mentioned that there is a camera uh behind there. There are a few other cameras dotted around. First of all, we've got the Obs Me 2 just up there. That's a top- down camera, so it's facing down at the desk. So, often I'm demonstrating things and I want to be able to show them. It's a great little camera for uh for that. Pretty lightweight as well. There's another Obsessbot uh here somewhere. I can't look in here and actually point to the right place. There it is. It's the OBSBOT tiny two light that one is. And it's a PTZ camera. So, it's a pan, tilt, zoom, which means that I can control, you know, where it's looking. Um, and I can do that all with eCam as well. So, have uh it tied to particular scene. So, it's going to look wherever I need it to look for that particular scene. There's another one of those just there as well. Actually, that's the tiny two, not the tiny two light, but same kind of deal. Uh this one is not currently being used at the moment in this setup. That's the OBSOT tail air. Then I also have this which is the Osmo Pocket. Now this is the sort of mobile uh camera that I use when I'm out and about as well. More for family stuff really, but it's great for in the studio just to be able to uh sort of I need to show something and have something that's more mobile that I can pick up and and sort of point at things. Then that is what what that one's for. I've also got another prompter. So that is the Elgato Prompter XL. This is the regular Elgato prompter and this one has a Sony ZV1 uh behind it. So here you can see that way that the prompters work. You basically have the uh camera is just here in the back and it is looking through a piece of glass for those that don't know how teleprompterss work. And there is a monitor down here and basically when you look into the glass you don't see the camera because it's in darkness behind it. What you're actually seeing is the reflection of the screen down there. Now, the reason for this one is it's on a sort of wheeled uh stand here, so I can kind of move it around and put it wherever I want in the studio. So, if I need a a different shot like this, for example, looking back, then I could have that one fixed there. But actually, the main reason for this being uh over on this side is that what you'd normally see in my regular videos, if we ever talking on Zoom or whatever, is my primary camera view, which looks a little bit like this. slightly different cropping because it's with my main uh main camera. But this one over here um is actually looking at this other let's call it a set. I designed this room so that I had this sort of different view with a completely different vibe to it. Really I say completely different, they both got pink lighting, so go figure. [laughter] But anyway, um if you can imagine this being a sort of vertical shot and cropped in, it's just a different look and feel slightly to uh to what's going on in the background. Maybe not as different as I first thought, but anyway. Uh and that is how that works. So if I now show you what I would normally be looking at, I'd be able to be looking into there, seeing the output from that uh that camera then. So then uh when it comes to audio, what we also have is back over to the uh audio visual section if you like. Over here we've got the uh the stream decks and the uh touchscreen monitor there controlling all the video stuff. But then the audio itself, I've got the pod mic USB. So this is the microphone that I'm using. It can be connected over both uh USB or XLR into your uh into your computer. Well, USB directly into your computer or by XLR into some sort of audio interface. And that's exactly what this is. This is the Roadcaster Pro 2. And what this allows me to do is adjust levels of the microphone itself, but also with these other faders, I can adjust things like the uh individual Zoom participants, or rather the the the Zoom feed, I should say, coming into my production. control any uh audio levels from uh ecam live or anything else that I'm playing music from maybe Spotify or whatever coming into a production. So I can control all of those from there. The other important thing that this does though is it also acts as uh my audio processing device for the microphone. So uh you may not be able to hear it, perhaps you can. But there is actually an air conditioning unit just up there. Now, I've got an acoustic panel suspended from the ceiling that is kind of in the line of sight or line of sound from the uh air conditioning unit down to the microphone. So, that helps reduce that somewhat, but there's definitely still some air conditioning uh air conditioning unit noise in the room. And so, what the Roadcaster Pro 2 allows me to do though with the noise gate in particular is have it so that when I stop speaking, it cuts out the audio so you don't hear that sort of background noise. And there's a few other onboard audio processing uh uh devices that it has that allow me to to make other adjustments to the microphone. So that is the Roadcaster Pro 2. Technically, I can play sound effects and things like that with the uh the touch of a button. Don't tend to do that too much. Uh the other thing that I do use it for actually is for events when I've got uh speakers. Then I can press a button here to have a back channel to just talk with the speakers if we're sort of backstage and we don't want it going out into the production. So there is some other functionality that you can use those buttons for as well other than just triggering sound effects and whatever. So that is the audio side of things. Uh then in terms of lighting, I've got uh two Nanlight Forza 60s. Uh those are actually both the same light over there and over there. It's just that the softbox that's on the front of them uh is obviously one of them is larger. So that is a three-foot softbox versus that one which is 2 foot. So 90 cm versus 60 cm. Um, actually, although I've been really happy with these lights, I've had them for, I guess, coming up to four or five years, something like that, or just over four years. Um, and they've been flawless. No, they've just basically been pretty much on all the time that I'm in here working. Um, and in this studio, in my previous studio. But the one thing about these, I'm going to say traditional uh, soft boxes, is just the size of them. So you can see for however big they are on the front, you know, this one's 60 cmters, they go back uh as much if not further because then you've got the light itself. So the light fitting is hanging off the uh the back of that there as well. Uh these are mounted onto brackets onto the wall. And that is the 60 cm one. When it comes to this one, the 90 cm, you know, it's even bigger. So, it's a huge dome and it takes up a huge amount of space, which means that, you know, all of this stuff here has to be kept, you know, quite far away from the uh the wall in order to be able to uh sort of give space for those. Now, the way that these are set up, this is classic uh three-point lighting. So, you have what's called the key light, which is the sort of primary light source. That's what this 90 cm one here is. And then you have what's called a fill light. And the purpose of that is to kind of if I only had that one, this side of my face would be in shadow. So the fill light is then intended to sort of fill in those those shadows. Uh now, if you look at news readers, they're pretty sort of flat across all of their face. They have the sort of almost equal brightness on either side. So you could say, well, which one's which? But then you will notice this though when you see people doing interviews and things like that. They might want to give it slightly more moody um effect. And so you might see that somebody's, you know, more in shadow on one side than the other. But anyway, you can play around with that balance to get something that looks right. I've got that one slightly, it's obviously a smaller light fitting or rather smaller diffuser on the front there, but it's also at slightly lower power as well, as in turned down. The brightness is turned down just so that it's slightly more intense on this side. You then have what's called uh I always call it a backlight. Technically, it's called a hair light. And the purpose of that one, if I just sort of sit back down and turn it off, you can see that there's this light here. Normally, it would be out of shot, but the purpose is to just add this light over the back of your shoulder and around the back of your head. And it's to give you some separation from whatever's going on in the background. If I turn that off, you'll actually see the effect. So, there you go. That's with it off. Obviously, I've got quite a vibrant background, so you perhaps don't see it quite so much, but basically, if you look at my shoulder here, when I turn it back on and around the back of my head, it just helps to give that bit of separation from the background and help it pop a little bit. Now, uh, this is I said that I don't necessarily recommend these nan lights, and that's because we've now got this. And if you look at these from this side, we've got the, uh, the 60 cm, um, nanite over here, and this one is also a 60 cm softbox. But I want you to just look at the size of this here. Uh, that is the Nanlight. And now, let's take a look at this one because this is a just a flat panel. Uh, and actually this has got this mesh on here to help direct the light, but you can take that off. It's literally a a tiny thin panel only about, you know, a centimeter, half an inch thick, something like that. Uh, this is the Amaran Verge Max. And basically, this is what I just recommend to everyone. Now, if they're going to want to level up their uh, video studio or get themselves set up with a video studio, just get a couple of these. They come with this stand, so it just sort of fixes to the desk. You can have one of those on either side. You can still call one of them your key light, one the fill light, and adjust the brightness accordingly. And then for the backlight, you could have a third one of those, but actually it's a bit overkill because of the uh the size of it. You could just go with this. This is the uh the Amaran Verge. So that is the Verge Max, and this is the Verge. Uh this would be more than adequate to just add that uh that sort of fill light, sorry, the backlight or the hair light uh for you. And as you can see there, I can turn it on and off. And that's basically done by the Stream Deck. So, you could have all of your lighting controlled uh with the stream deck with the uh the touch of a button. And I'm just pressing that stream deck button now, and it is coming back on. Incidentally, the things that you're seeing around the uh the room there, those are acoustic panels. So, uh you don't necessarily need to go that far, but they do make a huge difference if you've got some issue with echo and whatever in your in your room. Now, you will see acoustic panels or people calling uh things that you stick to the wall acoustic panels like these. So this is sort of foam that sticks to the wall. Um but that is not the same as an acoustic panel like this which actually has you know quite some thickness. It's 2 in thick and you actually stand it off from the wall by again you know about 2 in something like that. And actually having it mounted off from the wall. This is uh some that I made actually. But behind this, look at that. I've got trailing cables. Normally that stuff's out of view. You don't normally see that. Uh but this has got some material on the front and then acoustic foam inside. And it just really helps with the room acoustic. So, if I didn't have these in, you'd hear a lot of sort of reverberation and echo and whatever. So, I've got a few of those dotted around. I've also got one uh directly above my head, and I've got another one there suspended from the ceiling that's kind of helping to directly shield the microphone from that uh uh from that air conditioning unit. Incidentally, spot the hidden door. This is the way in and out of my studio, and I kind of concealed it with uh some of those as well. But that is just a little bit of a tour around uh my studio. Oh, by the way, this is something I'll be making a review of uh very soon. It's the Zoey box and or Zoe box and that converts actually the HDMI from this camera into NDI. NDI is just a way of passing a video signal over the network. So, that is something I'm going to be using in my studio downstairs, um which is uh slightly larger and I've got cameras in difficult places to get to. So, it's going to be a way to connect those easily and then transmit that all over the uh over the network. So, that is just a little bit of a studio tour. Hope hope you found that interesting. It's uh funny. I'm talking about, you know, using all this studio gear and I'm now just on my iPhone with a little road wireless mic. So, uh the audio and video may not be quite what I normally normally put out, but I hope you find that interesting. Anyway,