August 21

Setting Up a Simple Video Studio

If you want to make videos frequently, setting up a small video studio might be the most cost-effective way to go about it.

Making video in a studio is easier, faster, and therefore a lot less expensive than making video using field production method, which by definition uses only one camera.

Not only would a studio be set-up be more permanent, and therefore you do not have to take the time to set up and tear down every time you use it, but studio production is edited live, on-the-fly, which saves HOURS of post-production editing time.

high school video production classroom wide shot
The video studio with 3 cameras at the first high school where I worked.

How would you go about setting up a simple video studio?

Here is some advice and a list of the basic equipment you would need.

A typical TV studio has three cameras on tripods with wheels for easy maneuverability.   The wheels are part of a tripod stand known as a dolly.  With a good director and decent camera operators, three cameras could be made to look like one-hundred, so you do not really need more than three.

All three of the cameras are then hooked into a piece of equipment known as a video switcher.  (Today you can get computers that operate like video switchers, but for the purpose of this article, I will just use the term video switcher.)

video editing

 

The video switcher is used to edit your production live, and this is the reason why studio production is so much faster than field production. Post-production editing is extremely time-consuming.  Depending on the complexity, an hour-long program could easily take ten to even one-hundred hours to edit.   At a professional level, edit time is estimated at one hour per finished MINUTE.

An hour-long studio produced program on the other hand is finished and ready to go at the end of the hour-long taping session.

Any and all equipment that creates a visual element is hooked into the switcher, not just the cameras.   A graphics generator, a videotape machine or DVD player, a special effects generator.  The director then adds and removes whatever video elements he wants, when he wants, using the switcher.  Think of it as functioning as a router.

video switcher high school video studio
This was our video switcher that we used for live productions. It was not the greatest of course, but it worked. :)

A DVD player or videotape player is used to run video clips during the show.  Next time you are watching a football game, realize that all the player profiles and so forth are pre-edited videos being played on a bank of machines that are fed into the switcher.  Or, when you are watching the news, and they switch from the anchor person to a video of the crime scene, that crime scene video is also a pre-edited video being played on a separate player.

A Gallery Control Room in Celebro Studios London

Audio is handled the same way with its own switcher, which is usually called an audio mixer.  All microphones, all music/sound effects generators, all audio sources of any kind are plugged into the audio mixer.  The audio engineer mixes, adds and removes whichever audio source is appropriate.

The output of both the video switcher and the audio mixer are then plugged into whatever device you are using to record your finished show.

mackie audio mixer
Mackie 802_VLZ3 Audio Mixer with 8 Channels.

Each video source also needs its own monitor.  If you’ve ever noticed the shots of the control room during a news show, there is an entire wall of monitors.  That’s not just there to impress people.  The director needs to know exactly what the video source looks like before he punches it up and the only way to do that is for each source of video to have its own monitor.

video monitor

A video studio usually has lights mounted on the ceiling, hanging off a metal grid.  If you are setting up in a house, this might not be feasible.  However, you can get small, simple ceiling mounts that do not require a grid.  Or you can use lights on a stand, same as you would out in the field.

The control room should be as sound-proof as possible.  The people working in the control room need to have the freedom to talk to each other without being picked up on the microphones being used in the studio.

portacom pro 540 intercom system

A head-set system is used for the crew to communicate.  Everybody wears one.  This way, the folks in the control room can speak to the crew in the studio without interfering with the audio being recorded.  The studio crew usually has to come up with some kind of “puff code” or “tap code” so they can answer back without actually saying anything.

In summary, here is a list of the standard equipment needed for a TV production studio:

  • Multiple cameras
  • Tripods with dollies, one for each camera
  • Multiple microphones
  • Video switcher
  • Audio switcher
  • Lights
  • Light mounts
  • CD player
  • DVD player (or videotape player)
  • Graphics generator (AKA titler)
  • Cables
  • Headset communication system
  • Monitors for each video source

Once you have your studio set up, you can crank out polished, professional looking videos quite easily.  If you are planning on making LOTS of videos, going to the trouble and expense of setting up a studio can pay off in the long run.

For more information on this subject, here is another blog post.  The post itself is quite similar, but there are tons of comments on that post which provide additional insight.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula


Tags

simple video studio, small video production stuido, tv production studio, tv studio, Video Studio


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