Recording for podcasting

If you've gotten this far, we hope you've invested some time and effort in lighting and composing your subject properly, and have your camera on a tripod, white-balanced and ready to go. Action! At long last, the camera is rolling. Or is it? Much like audio-only podcasts, you need to make sure everything is ready to go before you start recording.

What you never hear in the movies is the responses to the director as she yells out "Lights … camera …" When the director yells "lights," the director waits until she hears "lights ready" from the lighting director. After "camera," the director waits to hear "speed," which means that the camera is running. ("Speed" is a throwback to the days when it took a second or two for the camera to get up to speed.) If any extras or special effects need to be cranked up, they'll be cued before the director finally yells "and … action!"

You don't have to yell out loud, but you should develop a mental checklist that you run through every time you're about to start shooting video. Check to make sure all that your lights are on and that they haven't been bumped. Check all your audio equipment to make sure it's ready to go. Finally, press the record button on your camera, and give it a few seconds before you start your podcast production.

After the tape is running, take a deep breath, smile at the camera, and off you go. When you're finished taping, you may want to take a moment to make sure you've got enough footage for your podcast. You may want to shoot some extra footage, such as a special intro or outro, or some b-roll for safety's sake.

Intros and Outros
If you're having guests on your podcast, you may want to consider doing the intro and outro separately. In fact, you may have to record these separately if you've only got one camera and are recording the podcast interview-style (see the "Filming an Interview with a Single Camera" sidebar). It all depends on the type of podcast you're trying to put together and the level of professionalism you want to achieve.

B-roll
It's always a good idea when you're filming to film some extra content to use as b-roll. B-roll is footage that isn't part of the main story but can be inserted into your production from time to time for color or to cover tricky edits. For example, if you're doing a podcast on the latest gadgets at a conference, you should film plenty of b-roll of people demonstrating their gadgets, people milling around popular booths, people laughing, and anything else that helps convey the vibe of the event. You never know when this kind of material will come in handy.

Room tone
Video professionals always record some room tone either just before or after the taping session begins (usually at the end). They do this because sometimes a line or question has to be rerecorded, or overdubbed. For example, a question from the interviewer might be unintelligible or night need to be rephrased. It may be impossible, or too expensive, to re-tape the interview. Instead, you can cheat by overdubbing the question.

The overdubbing session generally takes place at a recording studio, not where the original footage was taped. When the overdubbed question replaces the original question, it is immediately noticeable because you can't hear the room tone of the original interview space. To compensate for this, you can mix in a little room tone, and your overdubbed question will sound as if it was asked during the original taping session.

Taping room tone is easy. Someone, usually the audio engineer, tells everyone to be quiet, and the cameras (and/or audio recording devices) record about 30 seconds of room tone. That's usually more than enough for later use. Be sure everyone who was in the room during the interview stays where they are, because if there are fewer (or more) people in the room when you record your room tone, it will sound slightly different from the room tone during the taping.