The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential

Looking Your Best on a Budget: Lighting Setup and Podcast Studio Setup Hacks You Need

• Pedal Stomper Productions - Josh Troche

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Ever hop on a Zoom call, hit record, and later realize you looked like a shadowy floating head with a plant sticking out of your head thanks to where it was placed in the background? It happens more often than you'd think. Those little details can really shift how your audience sees you, especially if you're running a video podcast.

In this episode, we dive into practical tips for creating a professional-looking podcast studio setup that enhances both your visual and audio presence. This episode is packed with practical tips for creating a professional-looking podcast studio setup that levels up both your visual and audio presence. From launching your first video podcast to fine-tuning an existing setup, it’s full of real-world advice tailored for small business owners and marketing pros.

We cover everything from optimizing your camera angle and camera positioning to choosing the right lighting setup for a warm, flattering look. You'll learn why heavy, quiet furniture is essential, how to prevent visual distractions, and why soundproofing isn't just about foam panels on the walls. We even discuss simple tricks like elevating your laptop to improve your on-camera eyeline because how to look good on camera starts with the basics.

Recording solo episodes, hosting interviews, or creating video content for social media? Your podcast video setup plays a major role in how your audience perceives and connects with you.

If you're looking to talk podcasting and get more information on how to make your podcast shine, our 30-minute "no pitch" podcast consultation is right for you!  Click the link to sign up for a time. 
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Last week we talked about sounding good and that is a big part of the podcast side. But what about the video side? We want to make sure that you look good. Now, granted, those of you that are watching the video can see me and realize I am not going to help you dress better. That is definitely not the case. But what I can do is I can make sure that you and your room overall are set up to look and sound your best. How are we going to do that? Well, stay tuned. So thank you for coming along again this week. I am back in the studio. If you spend a lot of time here and I'm truly grateful for that. I love this space. And that's part of what we're going to talk about this week, is setting up a space that you love also, and making sure that you look and sound good in that process because you can have a really cool looking space, but that can also turn out to be an absolute disaster. And I've worked with some people on that that are like, hey, check out my cool podcast space. And I'm like, oh yeah, no, I can't see you. But other than that, it's great. That being said, I want to we're going to start with the audio portion of this. Now, I know last week's episode was all about making sure that you sound your best, but as we're setting up the room, a lot of this is video. I want you to keep a couple of things in mind for audio. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back. It's last week's up, last week's episode on sounding your best. You've perfected your microphone technique, and you're starting to kind of control that recording environment. Make sure there's nothing loud, no fans, no Hvac dogs, not barking things of that nature. Remember the most the best microphone in the world. If you've got garbage around you and garbage noise around you, it's going to pick up all those noises. And we want to make sure that you're not doing that. Now, the problem is, is too many people think it's just about taking those cheap foam pieces and plastering those all over the walls, as you can see, like in here. That's not foam behind me, but yet we still sound pretty good in here. There's some foam on the wall over there. And if you look in the studio here, to those of you that have seen some of the shots that I occasionally post on Instagram, that back wall is glass. That is a hard surface. Sound's going to bounce off of that. So why don't you hear a ton of echo in here? It's about making practical choices in what you're doing. Now a lot of people, they put foam behind them because they're like, hey, I want this to represent a really cool studio. That's fine, but the foam behind you doesn't serve as much of a purpose, because what you're trying to eliminate is your voice from bouncing off something in front of you and then coming back. So that's why we make sure that most of the room where we can control things, it's dead. So that way, stuff like the table isn't reflecting a lot of sound. The curtains, like on this wall right behind me here, those aren't reflecting much sound. Those are absorbing that sound and making sure it's not bouncing around. Once again, these curtains that are behind me, that is a sound choice. That also is a visual choice. Because there's the two sections that are right behind me here. You've got the stone section over here, you've got the curtain section over here. Once again, those are visual, but it's also intentional with the sound. The curtain section is first off there too. There's a corner right here. The nice thing about it is you can't see it and you can't hear the fact that it corner is there, because we've got the curtains up to dampen that. So be intentional about where you're putting stuff. Some of the foam squares, they can look kind of cool. You can get the color of your brand and stuff like that, but realize the stuff behind you that's not as soundproofing, that's not a sound deadening as all the stuff that is out in front of you. So keep that in mind. Additionally, use a laptop that's not going to have a fan running. I mean, the computers that we use in the studio here specifically, they have quiet fans and they're all the way across the room. We don't want to be hearing that through the recording. The other thing that I want to say is choose a solid, heavy desk. We made this table here. Now, if I bang on it, you can hear it, but it's solid. It's heavy. Flimsy furniture doesn't work as well in the studios for a couple of reasons. First off, if you hit it, it's going to resonate those frequencies and it's going to be louder that heavier furniture. This is where we're getting into both the sound aspect and the visual aspect of it. The heavier furniture is going to reflect less of that sound, but B it's also going to make fewer sounds itself. I can push on this table and you can't hear any creaks, groans or anything like that. We built the table heavier. We built it, supported for things of that nature. The other thing I want to talk about too is the chairs in here. I always tell people not to swing. I just kick the headphones underneath there so you can hear that noise. The other thing I tell people about, like, chairs and furniture, you don't want typically a swivel chair. We have him in the studio here. It was a choice, and it was a risk that we knew we were taking because we wanted a sleek, smaller chair that could fit. But as I move in, this chair, there's not really any noises. There's no squeaks. I make sure that these things get oiled, because the last thing I want is someone turning in their chair, and every time they turn in the chair. Squeak squeak squeak squeak. Make sure you're buying quality items that aren't going to squeak. Aren't going to make noise, aren't going to do those items. I mean, even stationary chairs, there's some of them you move a little bit. There's others throughout the gallery in here. You move in that chair a little bit. You're all sorts of squeaks and rattles and all sorts of other stuff. Make sure that as you're picking the furniture that you're going to use it. It's not going to make those noises, because once again, those are things that are going to detract from the podcast, both the audio and the video side on that. So once again, we talked a lot of audio in looking and sounding your best. But I want to make sure that as you're buying stuff, like as you're setting up your studio, you're not making these like mistakes that you're later going to paid for, pay for. If you if you sit in a chair someplace and be like, hey, I like the way this chair looks. It's comfortable. Whatever. And then all of a sudden you sit in it in the store and you realize it like squeaks, like or like an old rocking chair on a front porch. It may not be the right chair for you. So those are the things that I want you to keep in mind with that. So now we've talked about the look of sound, which sounds really weird, but let's talk let's transition into video pieces. And this once again isn't going to be this video about how much money can you spend on making your studio look cool. This is going to be all about making sure that we have the basics right. Let's get things right in this setup. If you do that, you're ahead of so many podcasts that are out there. So many videos are shot poorly just because of this. Now, one of the things that I always like to point out is eyeline is your connection to people. And it's the same thing when you go to shake someone's hand, you're supposed to look them in the eye. You can be taller or shorter. We're all within. Most people are within six eight inches of each other. So when you do that, you can look at each other eye to eye. The cameras in this room are specifically at pretty much eyeline height. Obviously it varies from person to person, but we've taken an average and we have the camera's rated eyeline height. So like when I pointed this yeah I it's you can see it's right at that eyeline. And I'm checking the monitor over here while I do that. So you can see we're right at that eyeline height. What happens is there's so many people like the laptop that I have right here in front of me. I'm looking at the cameras right up here that you can see. I'm looking down on this, that can feel condescending, that can feel overbearing. Especially so many people bring their camera, their laptops, so close to them. You have this very overbearing and and dare I say, condescending appearance when you do that. It it can be off putting. It can be intimidating. It can make videos difficult to watch. For me, like I said, when you when the camera is set on that eyeline, that makes a huge difference. It's funny. We're going to go back to Tom cruise is a shorter actor. Cameras come down for him, so it's shot on his eyeline. So no matter what you think, Tom cruise is the same height as you. He's probably not. You're he's shorter than the average person, so there's a good chance you're taller than he is. But you never notice that because the camera is brought down to that eyeline. Now, on the flip side of that, I get some people that will put their webcam up on a shelf up above. And what does that do? It has the exact opposite effect. Now suddenly your audience is looking down on you. Well, that's not a good look either. You're supposed to be. You're supposed to be communicating directly with people. You're supposed to be connecting with people. You shouldn't look diminutive. You shouldn't look. They mean people shouldn't be looking down on you as you do this. It should be this direct eyeline, this direct eye to eye connection, if that is what's going to create that peer to peer connection that we talk about all the time, where it's it's building it once again, if someone's extremely tall or extremely short, you tend to have an attitude about that in terms of like of dominance or that diminutive thing. So keep that in mind when you're setting up your camera, but put it on the eyeline. I know a lot of them just clip to the top of the computer. The thing that I always tell people, if you have a laptop and you're just using that, go find those dictionaries that you bought 20 years ago that are just now collecting dust and bring that laptop screen up, set those dictionaries underneath that keyboard. So that way you can get that laptop that that camera in your laptop. We know right where it's at. We see it staring at us all the time. Bring that up to your eye level height. You will be amazed at how differently you are perceived. Do me a favor. Just try it in the next zoom meeting or team's meeting or whatever meeting you're in. Just take an extra minute or two to bring that webcam up just a little bit, so it's up to your eyeline. It's going to make a huge difference. The next piece that I want to go into with this is floating head syndrome. So now we've got the camera at the right height. Let's make sure it's pointed up and down correctly. I get in so many cases where people just are not taking up enough of the frame. I always like to tie it like you'll see this large gap up above them. You'll see where people like. Like where my hand is here, they'll. Their head will be from here down to here. And the rest of that frame is empty. Don't be that person. This is about you. You're the one doing the talking. You should be on display. People should be able to see you. Not a bunch of empty space above you. In photography, videography, all these other things that if you look, there's something called the rule of thirds. It doesn't matter if it's in, video doesn't matter if it's in a movie, doesn't matter if it's in just a regular old photo. What I want you to do is I want you to divide your screen into thirds. So it'll be about here and probably about here. Your eyes should be just at or just above that third that the top line in that what we're doing is we're making sure that your filling that frame and that it is about you and that you're in this spot that is comfortable for people. Because what's interesting is, is when people look you in the eye, they can see typically from here to here and from here to here, they're they're not seeing a huge space above you. So make it. Make it how their eye is naturally going to see you that once again you can see for me there's not much room above my head here. I look at the the monitor over there so I can see how much room I've got here. There's not much and that's good. I am filling up the frame because once again, this is about me talking. This is making you the dominant most important piece of the shot. It's that sense of presence that you get from it because once again, you are filling up the frame, not the background, not a bunch of empty space, not a I mean, not the cat walking in the back or anything like that. It's you. It's about you talking. You should fill that frame. And it's the the ironic piece about that is I talk about you filling the frame, and the next thing we're going to talk about is the background, because, yeah, you're going to fill the frame, but you shouldn't fill the entire frame. We've also all been to the, the zoom meetings or everything like that, where someone you swear they've got the camera like four inches away from their face and their face is the entire thing. You don't want to do that either. Obviously you want to be able to see your background. Now, if you're framed correctly, you can see the background. But once again, it's not about the background. It's about me. Yeah, this is that time where I'm going to say, yeah, make it about you. It should normally be about the audience, but when it comes to your camera, it should be about you. The background should support you, not detract from you. And this is there's things that I tell people about this is I get asked all the time. They're like, well, I want to have a bookshelf there. And it's kind of busy. That's great. That's fine. You can do that. Maybe you're going to have a clean, not totally clean, but a minimalist wall. Maybe there's just 1 or 2 things on that wall. That's fine too. Maybe you're going to have some branding stuff. Great. It should still be about you. It should be simple. It shouldn't be cluttered. It shouldn't be messy. The thing that's tough about it is, is it should look intentional. That's the biggest thing because so many people will just, like, sit in their office and be like, yep, here it is. And they've got a cluttered desk behind them. I, I'll be very frank in my home office directly behind my computer desk is an old roll top desk that I probably can't close because I have enough papers, printers and other things and camera gear on top of it that I cannot close the roll top. That's not intentional. That's not a good background. It's cluttered. It's messy. Now, could I have just as many books on there? Sure. If they were organized and set up and looked to be intentional, they're the this is the big difference. It is the intentionality behind it and making sure that that intentionality is conveyed to your audience. If it looks cluttered, you're they're going to think you're presenting cluttered, and they're going to think your branding is cluttered. That's not what you want to do. So when you look at the the background here, we've got, like I said, we've got the curtains over here. Those are two sound deaden and we use them for, like I said, right here. If you can see the video on this, there is a corner in this room. But when you look behind me, you can't tell that there is a corner there. The curtains are there very intentionally. So that way it makes the room look bigger. It it's a background. There's not a corner there. Now on the same piece of that, you can you round the corners and do what's called a psych wall. Sure. 100%. But curtains are a whole heck of a lot easier. And we just literally at the top of that have two curtain rods that come together like this, and the curtains are hung around the corner. Now, this wall right here, this stone looking wall, this is once again, we use this in our studio because to me, I feel it's got a nice warm look that is universal. It can be. I mean, if we change the color in the camera a little bit, this can be a cooler look. It can be a warmer look. It this is versatile. It's simple. And it can adapt for all the different types of guests that we have in our studio. Once again, a very intentional choice. Additionally, you can see where I'm sitting. I'm sitting a little bit offset from where the curtain is. In fact, I'm going to move this way so you can see it better. There's a line here. If I move over this way, that's coming straight out of my head, and we don't typically want a division there. That's why I sit over here. So that is a little bit offset. So the next thing that I want to say with that is when you're when you're setting up your background, look through your camera, make sure that there's nothing funky sticking out of your head. I recently did a consult with someone. They they went out and they bought these cool vases and I thought, awesome. And they put them on stands behind the chairs. The problem with those is when someone was sitting in the chair, depending on how they were sitting, it looked like there was this weird, odd, flowery like vase type thing growing out of the top of their head. Not a good look. The vases were nice and put it in the rooms by themselves. They looked great, but when you sat someone down in that chair, that thing was sticking straight out of the top of someone's head. And that is not the look you want to have. So do yourself a favor and make sure that you are offset from any items they can come out of the shoulder. Just don't make them come out of someone's head often. Can be very, very, very distracting. I've had other podcast host that we've talked with about. They have bookshelves behind them and they're like, that's busy. They're like lots of colors, lots of stuff like that. I'm like, it's okay. As long as the books look intentionally put there. If half of them are in wrong, if some of them are stacked in front of the shelf, whatever, that's not what you want to do. This person had a bunch of books lined up in the way that they had, in the way that they had read them recently, so that way they can be like, look, these are the books that I've read. They're looking to build that expertise. They're looking to build that knowledge. I it looked great. It was intentional. It looked really, really good behind them. That to me, it is a great way to show that expertise. And like I said once again, because it was intentional. It's not cluttered. It looked pretty good. Now once again, if they just had the books stacked and they had a few of them leaning or anything like that. Once again, not the look you probably want the same. Let's talk. Let's say you do an automotive podcast or a motorcycle podcast. Could you do that in your shop or garage? Yes. Could you do with your toolbox as a background? Yes. But make sure the tools are put away. Make sure I mean, make sure it's neat and organized and looks prim and proper. You don't want this disheveled looking space. That's not what will will add to things. We've all seen podcasts in shows where they've got a very busy background, but, you know, I mean, tons of antique stuff in the background. Maybe it's old motorcycle parts, old car parts, whatever. Those items are intentionally put there and you can tell it's organized. That's fine. Just make sure it's organized. It's all intentional. Another piece that I want to talk about when it comes to your background, some people are like, I would love to use natural light. And as someone that has experienced in natural light, you do not want to use natural light. There are so many reasons why you don't want to do that. Number one, and the biggest one is with this, is you've got a complete lack of control of your lighting. Cloudy days. One minute it's bright woman. It's dark woman and it's bright. One minute it's half dark, the next minute it's full bright. The next minute. Maybe kind of. You get what I'm saying? You have no control over that light switch. Over that light that's coming in through the window. Additionally, like, maybe you record at different times throughout the day, if you record three podcasts in a row, guess what? That light's going to be in a different position

if you one week record at 10:

00, the next time you record at 10:00 at night, guess what? You've got no light then. So it's going to look very, very different. Additionally, the seasons will change. Your light is going to be something someone notices. Probably not, unless they watch an April and a December episode right back to back. But once again, we talk about consistency. We talk about showing up the same for your people all the time, so they're not distracted by stuff. This is a way that I mean, really it can offer a very, very big distraction. It also people that sit with a window behind them, they're they they turn you into a silhouette. Unless you have holy Toledo high wattage bright lights directly in front of you, like burn your retina lights, you're never going to beat the sun. So what most cameras are going to pick up is they're going to pick up the background brightness and turn you way, way, way down. You're going to lose detail. You're going to lose I mean everything basically. And you end up being a silhouette. So the thing that I say with that is I know some people have put a window off to the side, and that's okay. It's big, soft, natural light and I that that's awesome. But just realize you have no control over that big soft, natural light. If you did, you should go into the agriculture industry because those people would love for you to be able to control the clouds and the weather. So how do we fix this? How do we make sure that we've got good lighting for where you're at? First off, you want to put light on you, more light on you, lessen the background in here. We've got a giant softbox, an umbrella light as our key light that lights up both people from the front. That would be our key light once again. Typically, in many cases, you want it up and off to the side of a camera a little bit, and it will cast some shadows on the other side of someone's face. That's good. We want to make sure that we've got detail. What I don't typically like is when someone puts a ring light and they put the camera through the ring light, what that does is that takes like all shadows out that a camera can see, and suddenly we've lost detail in your face. You start to look like a terrible Instagram filter from ten years ago when they first started to come out, and everything just becomes flat. And there's no there's no lines, there's no detail to your face. Suddenly you just you kind of become this flat affect. You don't want that. People want to see you. They want I mean, us looking all a little bit different is what makes people want to be a part of your podcast. They want an individual. They want to hear from you. They want to see you, but they want to see you. Not some flat affect from a ring light. So up and off to one side is what I would say for the key light. Now we also use in the studio here we use some fill lights. Those come in from the sides here and those like those bring in some fill. They basically lighten up underneath the eyes here. Because what happens is, is with just the overhead light, you'll often get some shrouding, especially from people that have like really prominent eyebrows and stuff like a prominent brow. It'll shadow their eyes and suddenly you're like, did you get punched in the face twice last night? It's not a good look for anyone. So we've got these fill lights in to bring in some more light. Once again, they're filled, they're soft, and they help soften the shadows, but they don't remove detail. We don't want eyes shrouded. But what we also don't want to eliminate any, like shadowing around here or underneath my chin or anything like that. We want to see that I'm still human and that will help do that. Additionally, we don't have them in this studio. We do have many other studio. We will do hair lights and that will separate you from that back wall. Typically, we suggest using a different color light. That way when it shines on the back of your head, it gives you, a bit of a glow, which looks really, really nice on film, but once again, not always a key if you're lit correctly from the front. Now, I don't expect everyone to go out and spend a couple of thousand dollars on lighting. That's not what we're going for. What I would tell you to do is get a couple of in expensive ring lights, mount one up here and another one over on the other side, kind of filling in like this. I would make them different powers. Put the big one up here and the smaller one over here. Once again, it is to give you put light on you without removing all the shadows. And the reason why I say ring lights is an easy way to get a soft light inexpensively. Soft light means bigger light that makes it so. Shadows don't have hard lines to them. Those are the two pieces that I would suggest with that. And it often times the nice thing about all this is it's a set up that you can leave up. So like if you get a microphone stand or just have a microphone that's plopped down on the table, move that off to the side, flick your lights on, put your camera in the right spot. If you're just using the laptop camera, set it on. Slide the two dictionaries underneath there and in minutes you are set up to look good rather than just showing up on your laptop camera with a window behind you and, and a crappy sounding mic. Once again, it's spending an hour on this initial setup, and now you've got something that in a minute or so you can have set up that is going to make you look. And if you've done the rest of this stuff right, sound your best that that's really what this is all about. We want to make sure that you are looking and sounding your best. So to wrap this up today, what are a few things we need to look at? First off, control your audio. Make sure that you're eliminating hidden noises. Make sure that you're I mean, looking around your room as you're getting furniture by something that's heavy, by something that's quality, and by something that's not going to squeak. Control your video. Video. We're looking at camera height, camera direction. You want to fill the frame and make sure I believe I said, put it on the eyeline about 15 times. If I hadn't, there's 15. Then this. Really to me, those two things, those are the keys that are going to separate you from the the very base level people to that next level person on that. If you want to keep learning about stuff like this, I would love to have you along for the ride. Go to Dot Pedal Sniper productions.com. There is an option there to sign up for our newsletter. Would love to do that. You will get tips sent directly to your inbox. You're not spammed. You will get tips. We make sure we send you actionable stuff. Additionally, if you have questions on your own podcast, I would love to give you feedback on your own show. We make sure that we talk about what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong, and that you get actionable steps to get better. We call it our 30 minute no pitch podcast consultation. There is zero pitch in this. I am here to help you. Success is a shared thing. Is our core value as a company? If you can become a better podcaster? Well, we know that is just better for the industry as a whole. That all being said, do those two things. I really appreciate you listening this week. If you're willing, give us a review, subscribe to any one of those things. I would greatly appreciate it. As always, take care of yourself if you can, take care of someone else too, and I will see you very, very soon. In. Everybody go!

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Josh Troche

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