James here with a quick video, it’s a “behind the scenes” video.
I’m here in San Francisco and today, I’m doing my Mastermind calls but I just thought
you might be interested in the sort of setup that I’m using to make these videos and
also to do my calls because I’ll be doing a couple of calls with my business group.
So, I’m just going to show you what we’ve got here.
I’m going to grab this other camera (iPhone 5).
Alright, so you can see here I have the iPad mini just sitting on top of my Mac Air.
Now, I could be using the Mac Air for this video except that the picture display is really
bad.
It’s actually 4x3 I think and the iPad mini and also this iPhone 5 will give me 16x9 – a
good high quality def.
The problem is the sound is not that great so I’ve actually got the Zoom here recording
the sound.
So, you could see when I speak, just focus in on it.
You can see when I’m speaking that the needle is moving.
Now have a look at the baseline volume when I’m not talking, that is the street noise
in the hotel here, so it’s pretty bad.
Now of course, other accessories that I use when I’m travelling, you need the cable
to attach the phone to the laptop to be able to upload the media.
This device here uses an SD card which goes in there so I can simply load the sound in
and then I’ll synch it with ScreenFlow.
Also for my calls, I’ll use headphones for Skype, etc. and the microphone from the computer;
that will be fine, it’s nice and light.
Remember of course, you have to have power for your computer, otherwise it will run flat.
And if you are travelling, be sure to remember your adapter.
You’re going to have to be able to adapt it to U.S. Coffee or as they, sorry they call
this Starbucks here but it’s not, it’s sort of like fake coffee.
It’s okay but not that good.
And, water because you’re inside you’re getting a lot of the air conditioning will
dry you out very quickly.
So, I’m pretty much set up for my day of making some videos, editing videos and attending
my Skype calls.
So, I hope this was useful and that’s basically my travel kit.
I put all of this in the backpack.
I’ve got the Mac Air, iPhone, iPad mini and the good quality sound.
Now with that combination, I can do podcasts, I can do Skype calls, Masterminds, make videos
and of course having two devices means I can record behind the scenes.
The iPad mini is much better for reading Kindles on the plane and it’s fantastic for taking
notes in the event when you don’t want to carry around a bulky laptop or backpack.
You just have your iPad mini, just take down notes.
So, there you go.
The other thing to remember when you are travelling is that data roaming is very very expensive
so I suggest you use Wi-Fi.
If you are using a Mac Air or something like that, remember to bring your Ethernet connection
because not all hotels have Wi-Fi.
Some of them still have an Ethernet cable, so you need that adapter.
And if you are speaking, then you will need the adapter to make it to the projector.
Don’t assume that the event organizer will have one and you should also have a little
tiny memory stick for putting presentations or slide shows on if you’re going to give
it to an event organizer.
So, there you go.
There’s a sort of little travel kit.
That’s what I use when I travel.
I could be away from home for a month at a time with just these bits of these items.
And also a good quality headset with USB is really good if you are doing a lot of stuff,
then this will actually sort of double as nice headphones and a better quality recording
than just the little Apple one.
But in this case, for this particular video, I’m going to use proper audio track and
it should make the sound and the picture much better than the level of equipment.
But what I don’t have with me is I don’t have my DSLR camera, I don’t have a flip
cam or anything like that.
I’m just using the tools that I would use anyway to make phone calls or to work on my
business.
So, I’ll catch up with you in another video this is just a “behind the scenes” because
you’ve told me you want that and please leave your comments below and ask questions
too.
I’m James Schramko, I’ll see you soon.
Just as a comparison, this is what the video looks like from the Mac Air built-in camera
and it’s just not as good as the iPad mini.