About a month ago, I decided to downsize my travel tech. The goal was to do much more with much less. I’ll be posting a full, “what’s in my bag” post soon, but thought my interview setup might be useful to new traveling content creators. It’s compact, and allows me to capture decent video and audio in just about any condition.
The video rig
By far, one of the smallest and most durable cams on the market is the GoPro HERO4 Silver
I shoot interviews tight in narrow view, and attempt to find spots to shoot outdoors during normal daylight hours. Light can be an issue with GoPro video since it’s designed to be an outdoor action camera. While the camera can capture shots with poor lighting, the video will be grainy (like an old broadcast TV station with poor reception). There are cameras that are spectacular at capturing low light scenes, but those can be significantly larger and more expensive.
My GoPro sits atop a MeFOTO Backpacker (pictured to the right) attached using a standard GoPro Tripod Mount.
The audio setup
Whether you’re in a crowded conference hall or oceanside, capturing high quality interview audio is super important. While background noise can be a bummer, having little contrast between background and interview audio can make an entire piece of footage un-usable. Getting bold, tight, crisp audio is essential.
The GoPro Microphone Adapter paired with a splitter, and two RODE Lavalieres does the trick. Again, they’re compact, easy to set up, and capture excellent audio on the go.
Post production
No need to get fancy here. A simple image titling the segment, and rough cuts or fades should be enough to test new concept content. Editing can easily be accomplished with an iPad and iMovie. I use an iPad Pro with iMovie to edit my videos.
Pro-tip on upload resolution
When sharing directly from Photos on an iPad to YouTube, iOS compresses the video for fast uploading over a mobile connection (the same is true with the YouTube app). To circumvent this limitation, share your video directly from iMovie. You’ll have the option to select upload resolution and privacy settings before upload.
Do you have some pro tips? Leave ‘em in the comments section.