Auto Focus

From Beginner to Broadcaster: Complete Mobile Studio Kits

Sam Lewandowski

Ready to take your content creation on the road? In this hands-on episode, Brooke Galligan unveils Podcastvideos.com's game-changing mobile podcasting kits that solve a persistent industry problem: incomplete equipment packages that leave creators scrambling.

Brooke  demonstrates our innovative solution - comprehensive recording setups housed in bright orange carrying cases. Unlike competitors who omit crucial components, these kits include everything: quality tripods, phone mounts, professional wireless microphones, and simple connection systems. 

The two-person desktop kit offers impressive versatility with three camera angles (wide shot plus individual close-ups), while the mini kit provides a streamlined option for solo creators or single-angle recording.

What truly distinguishes these solutions is their perfect balance of professional quality and accessibility. Using smartphones as recording devices while enhancing their capabilities through superior audio capture, the kits enable anyone to create professional-looking and sounding content without technical expertise. 

"If I can do it, you can do it," Dan confirms after successfully assembling a kit for the first time. Setup requires no special tools, and the equipment seamlessly integrates with cloud storage for efficient editing workflows.

Currently available for rent at podcastvideos.com's Rogers location with online sales launching in April, these kits represent just the beginning. Brooke shares exciting plans for expanding the lineup with four-person and specialized lighting kits. 

Whether you're podcasting, creating social videos, or capturing spontaneous content on the go, these comprehensive solutions eliminate the frustration of cobbling together imperfect setups. 

Visit podcastvideos.com to experience how professional content creation can fit into a portable case.

Speaker 1:

welcome back everybody. This is autofocus from podcastvideoscom. That's brooke galligan. Hello, I'm dan craft and this bright orange pumpkin uh looking contraption in front of us. He's kind of brooke's baby.

Speaker 2:

We're gonna let her uh yeah take the lead here today cool, yeah, so we even we've developed this thing. So one of the things we've noticed is, uh, in the market is that people will put kits together, but it's never like a full kit, you know. So it's like you can get like a podcasting kit, like a vlogger kit and it has everything you know.

Speaker 2:

It has like a tripod and like you know, a little like or something a little like light, but you know, it never has like a camera with it or never has, you know. So there's always something missing. So it doesn't have like good, good mics, or it doesn't have this or it doesn't have that. So what we try to do is just basically get an entire kit together that is like it's your, it's a beginning mobile podcasting kit so you can basically take it, or just a video setup. Um, so it's something that's really simple that anybody can do, and anybody can set it up and start recording and then and edit their own either like a podcast, whether they want to do interviews, whether they want to do like movies, whatever they want to do.

Speaker 1:

They want to do TikToks, we have it set up, so we've so we're looking at beginner level price point entry, but these quality equipment we're not, we're not using, you know, very cheap, fall apart.

Speaker 2:

No, we, it's all name brand really really good stuff. So it does. It is a little more expensive than, like you know, something that you would find on like Amazon or something. So it's not. You know it's not like it's like a, it's not like a $10. Try you know, try tripod. You know it's not like it's like a, it's not like a $10. Try, you know, try tripod. You know this thing is like really, you know it's versatile, it's solid.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, reputable equipment, but this is your basic on the go. Set it up wherever you are If you don't feel like spending on this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no-transcript, move it around. I thought it wasn't a lunchbox. I'm not moi yeah, I was like no, it's my mobile kit now there's. There's two of them here. There is one, you got another one, so we have one.

Speaker 1:

This is what we call the two-person desktop, and so this is made for to interview, to have for there's two mics, so you can have two people over with a.

Speaker 2:

So the tripods are for the cameras, the cameras fit on the tripods on a desktop and then your mics are just lapel mics, and so it's really easy and it all plugs in to something super simple, which is our cell phones. So what's great about this one, the two-person, is that you have basically three cameras, so you have your wide angle, you have your left angle and you have your right angle.

Speaker 1:

Not totally dissimilar to the setup we actually have right here. It literally matches that Wide angle. And then one pointed at me, one pointed at you, Yep.

Speaker 2:

So it's like a wide, a close, a close, and then you can just do that, and then the next thing you do is you put the little tripod together and it makes fun toys.

Speaker 1:

You know what I mean. I was going to say we're zippering, we're Velcro-ing.

Speaker 2:

I love Velcro. You know, I love Velcro. So back to the Velcro.

Speaker 1:

They're going to hate the editing in this episode, aren't they?

Speaker 2:

I know I love it ASMR. So what's ASMR? What's great is that this little tripod system. It just screws together and you can, and it just goes on a desktop.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we're going through the whole setup here, apparently.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Good time, is there one for me? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, dan, show us how easy it is.

Speaker 1:

Well, you take the pieces out. If these are right, it is Well.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Take the pieces out.

Speaker 1:

If these are right-handed tripods, we could have a problem here.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean it could go either way, shut up. So yeah, you take this part. Yeah, screw that yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you don't need any tools for this.

Speaker 2:

No, that's why you don't know how this works, because I didn't ask you to help me put it together.

Speaker 1:

Also, we're going to have a fun episode on all the tools we use in the studio.

Speaker 2:

I can see that, yes, so yeah, there you go. That looks right, it looks right. Yeah, perfect, good guess Next is Still kind of right-handed in my opinion, but okay. Cell phone.

Speaker 1:

Doesn't everything just hold on the table?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is. It's for desktop Cell phone mount, uh-huh. So you put it in there, you're doing great.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you go into the, there's like two little, there's like a big hole in the hole. Yeah, use this little hole. And then you have to make weird noises when it doesn't go the way that you want it to. Then it's great about this thing too. Like, so you can use this. So the little cell phone mount goes back and forth you can shoot vertical ball here and a swivel here yeah, and so the ball helps you make it level, and then the swivel makes you perfect the angle, gotcha.

Speaker 2:

So phone, phone, yes, phone goes the way I do it. This is, it's just me. So whenever you turn on a camera, like on a phone, right? Mm-hmm 5, 1, 0, 2.

Speaker 1:

I don't even know the phone's around.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So whenever you go, you know like so you want to be able to see, like the camera angle right. So I always want to like make sure that this part doesn't get in the way of like this. So you just put it over this way, pull it up, plop it in, and then you just turn on your camera.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to turn it on. You've done the turn on, it's fine. You can see that, though. Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so then you've got this part, and then you've got. This is not level at all and it's fine.

Speaker 1:

It's okay.

Speaker 2:

I'm not recording on that one. Then we have our mics, which is my favorite part.

Speaker 1:

I have a quick question for folks out there before we go to the mics. You've got that firing through. I'll pull this one off. The camera on this side of the phone, on the keypad side, depending on the phone you're using is there a difference in camera quality? Would there be any point in taking the camera off the back of the phone and mounting it?

Speaker 2:

This camera is better than your selfie camera. The selfie camera, which is the one that comes at you, the selfie camera isn't as high of quality as the one coming off here, off the front of the camera. Okay, so you don't the front of the camera.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So you want to use, you don't want to use your selfie camera, and the reason is because so you do eventually want that camera pointed to you like, so Mm-hmm, okay Cool. So, yeah, whenever you're setting up your wide angle, you want, yeah, you want this camera pointed, the one on the back of your it, because that is the best quality camera. That's the best quality camera on a phone. Okay, so fun fact.

Speaker 1:

Cool, okay, now we got the video pointed in the right direction.

Speaker 2:

Yes, then we've got the mics, and so, like, these are the mics, so here's your transmitter and these are the receivers. This is like the two mics, and so what's great is, these are just so easy to use, so you plug this baby in here and then.

Speaker 1:

That's the transmitter.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and then you turn it on.

Speaker 1:

I'll leave this one over here for now, like it's aimed at me.

Speaker 2:

Then you turn this one on. If they're not, if they're both, if it's all solid blue lights, that's how you know they're. On the hard part. This is I'm not going to show you.

Speaker 1:

We're going to have a more in-depth episode on these mics, particularly for multiple uses. Yep.

Speaker 2:

And so one of the things that's important with these mics is that these are all Show them, then show me.

Speaker 2:

Well, I can't do it, I'll show you. So there's something that's called. So when you go into the settings on your phone, you want to make sure there's phone mic and then there's wired mic, and you want to make sure you always click wired mic, especially when you're using a mic that is not from the phone, and so that just gives you it's just a higher. You know it's a better mic. So I see that one. Okay, yeah, let's put it in there.

Speaker 1:

And it's just your basic clip. Yeah, lapel.

Speaker 2:

Uh-huh basic clip. Yeah, lapel, you want it just right there, just kind of like right below your mouth.

Speaker 1:

Does it matter which way we aim it? Yeah, you want the little.

Speaker 2:

That's why the clip goes one way With a little dot yeah.

Speaker 1:

There you go, boom. This would probably work a lot better if I wasn't wearing a black shirt with a black mic.

Speaker 2:

Probably not, but it's fine and you just hit record and you're good to go. Set your angles first, don't use these angles, and then you basically hit record, you can start talking. What's great is that when you're editing you're going to use the audio from the hardwired, from your wired mics, and then you can do a multicam thing and you can just basically like switch to the close-ups, but you're always using the audio from this camera.

Speaker 1:

That's the point.

Speaker 2:

When you edit it together.

Speaker 1:

So when you've got multiple recordings on video from this phone, from that phone, even from a wide angle, if you want to use one Mm-hmm but you want to suck the audio in out of that phone because it's the nicer audio the mics are wired too you can scrap this audio. You can scrap the wide angle audio.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep, and you're using the audio.

Speaker 1:

Because it's collecting specifically to that one. Okay.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, and that's it, and that's it. That's all that's in there. That's all that's in there. Okay, yeah, it's literally that easy. And so you can, basically you can have a multicam setup. You can record whatever you want to record. You know that your mics are going to be you're going to have nicer audio than what your phone mics are doing, and then you can take it back and you can edit it however you want.

Speaker 1:

And you're recording this video and audio directly into the phone memory bank.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

And then you can upload it. You can plug it in there or somewhere else at some other point and move on through the editing and upload process. One of the things is we chose to use Pixels this time instead of Samsung.

Speaker 2:

That's a Google Pixel 8?. Yeah, what we like. We like the Google Pixels because Google is already synced to everything Google.

Speaker 2:

And so if you have a Gmail or a Google account, it's already you can just like literally sync the phone to all of that stuff, and so it will. It automatically sees it and we'll back it up to your Google drive. It goes to Google photos, which we know is not Google drive, but um so but it will. It will actually. You can set this to go like auto send to wherever you want it to send, and so it will sync it backs up to your and it just. It's really easy to use.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, if it's not the most intuitive thing in the world, this will come with instructions. There'll be instructions.

Speaker 2:

Already has instructions. We're looking on making this better. I used to do marketing.

Speaker 1:

We could probably load a digital version of that into the phone, couldn't we? Maybe probably. We're looking on making this better.

Speaker 2:

I used to do marketing. We could probably load a digital version of that into the phone, couldn't we? Maybe, probably. But yeah, I like to do. I wanted to do something fun with, like marketing wise, kind of give it a little more PV to add to it. But yeah, this has all the instructions you need to remind you all the steps I just went over.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what's the little one?

Speaker 2:

What's the little what? Oh yeah, the little kit. So this is the mini. It's basically all of this entire setup and it's just a one-person kit. So you get the mics, you get the phone, you get all of this stuff and then you can also do it. So you can do it and do like one-person things or just one angle. So if you want to have, you can do a two-person interview, just one angle so you don't have to worry about the multicam.

Speaker 1:

One phone the mics are late at this and that one, it's all just go up.

Speaker 2:

Sync point yeah and literally all you're doing for editing at that point is just like cleaning it up and so, um, it's super easy. Another thing that and that comes with the same stand. It's everything is the same. Yeah, okay, the only difference with with the mini kit is number one. You get only one phone and not three, but our founder really loves to do podcasts. Sometimes, apparently, when he drives, he has lots of thoughts.

Speaker 1:

There are so many ways to deal with that none of them positive.

Speaker 2:

So many thoughts, so what he does. So one of the things we did with the mini kit is we added in a suction cup that will fit like on basically your windshield.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if we should be recommending that, but you can stick it to any other, you know yeah.

Speaker 2:

But if you want to have like basically, yeah, and you can have it. So it can basically like have a camera angle that's up high, but his original thought for it was, remember Jeep speaks. Yeah, and you can have it. So it can basically like have a camera angle that's up high, but his original thought for it was, remember, jeep speaks.

Speaker 1:

Let's just say it, so we can have different camera angles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have different camera angles.

Speaker 1:

Eric.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but he does like to set it there. So you can basically do different camera angles. If you have a thought, if you want to just remind yourself of you know some of the things you're thinking, you can hit record whenever you want.

Speaker 1:

And that's just essentially a similar product to a cell phone mount for a car.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can also put it in there, that's what they were built for. It is Because you can put it in your car If you're going and you're using your GPS and then you're like I have a really great idea for a podcast, I'm going to record it. Right now you can just go and hit record at a stoplight and hit record and you can get it.

Speaker 1:

It gives you the option to do some angle work that's not limited by just the ball and tilt right there.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep. And also it just opens up more angles that you can use.

Speaker 1:

Now, where would people find these Brooke? Shameless plug, shameless plug, here it comes yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that's a great question, dan. Thank you very much. So what we're really trying to work on right now is getting these basically available online and so you can buy them online. So right now, we're working on setting up a Shopify site where it will be coming It'll be launching in April, and so we know that that that you'll be able to go online and um you buy the kit. Um also, if you're local to Rogers, you'll be able to rent the kit as well. So, um, come on down to p? P v podcast videoscom here in Rogers. Uh, these are available for rent right right now, and then we are going to start selling them online in April.

Speaker 1:

And when you set a Shopify store, that will actually be a part of the podcastradioscom website. There you go as far as navigation is concerned. Yeah, it's going to be really cool, Cool, well, hey, I didn't break anything putting this together for the first time. I tried, though.

Speaker 2:

See, that's how easy it is.

Speaker 1:

And how durable I it is. And how durable, yes, that's it is, and we did?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because like we got like the different thing, we got the Manfrotto, it's like really it's metal, it's sturdy, it's not like all of this stuff is metal. There's no, there's very little plastic. That might be plastic, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

These are plastic. Last thing Take this back before I lose it, that was.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, okay, so available for right now. You can get some more info on podcastvideoscom. We'll have them up for sale here shortly April. You may already be able by the time people see this. Perfect, so we'll just go with shortly Got it. Maybe even now, if you want to check, podcastvideoscom would be the place to do it. Yep, so that is our breakdown of the one and two person mini kits, the mobile kits that we're. We're looking at other yeah, we're looking into.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we want to try to launch at least six versions this year. So I'm working on a four person kit and I'm also working on a light kit. So one of the things is that we didn't want to. We wanted to make these really compact, and so we wanted to have the light kit be separate. So we are working on a light kit right now so you can you'll be able to buy or rent one of the basically the mobile kit with the cameras and then a light kit.

Speaker 1:

So I suppose in a pinch there is a light on the phone, but it's not going to be an ideal situation.

Speaker 2:

No, it's going to blind you.

Speaker 1:

You've tried to blind me with like six different kinds of lights since we've worked here. Yeah, six different kinds, not six lights, six kinds.

Speaker 2:

It's fine, it's great, all right, yeah, no, I think that it's just really what we're trying to do is make it, make these as easy and simple as possible to set up nice shoots.

Speaker 1:

If I can do it, you can do it. Guys, that's going to be all for this autofocus episode, but come back next week and we'll argue about something else. Me and Brooke and you guys can all weigh in, take sides and tell us why we're running. Love it. Good deal, Guys. This has been autofocus. Take it easy. Bye.