It's time for another episode of Studios Undone,
but since we're all stuck at home, this episode's going to be
a little different. Instead of touring another studio,
I'm going to be answering your questions about how I made
the first five episodes. Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and I'm starting with the man in the mirror, and I'm asking
-him to change his ways. -[Michael Jackson] HOO!
All right, so laid out on the table in front of me.
I have all the gear that I take to these tours,
which answers the first part of Alyosha's question
on Twitter, asking how much gear I'm travelling with,
and they also ask if I had just one assistant and how much
we rely on the lighting we find in each studio.
So, yes, just one PA.
I've been bringing my partner Julie with me to these shoots,
and we don't check any bags, so we essentially just bring
what we can fit into each of our carry-ons.
I use this one here from Tenba, which is a fantastic bag that
I like a lot. And then the other bag that we bring, the one
that Julie claims as her personal item, is this
Think Tank bag, which is pretty good. It doesn't really have
the options for, you know, other personal items. It's exclusively
a camera bag, but it's a great camera bag at that.
I'll go over the game more specifically as we go,
but this is what it looks like. And aside from the Aputure MC,
we rely almost exclusively on the lighting that we find
in each location, which I think is a good decision for the
series because it gives me a better understanding of what
it's like to work in that featured
creator's space, and with their stuff.
Sam Beckman asked, "How long does it take to shoot
once you're in their studio, and in what order?"
Well, I try to shoot everything
chronologically whenever possible.
These tours can be a challenge to edit,
and often I'm trying to get them finished to meet a deadline,
so shooting things in order definitely makes that easy.
There's three main chunks to the filming: there's the
opening bits-- like the phone call, the door knock, and the
sponsor read-- and then there's the actual tour, and then
the interview. I'd say each section takes about an hour
and half to shoot, and I shoot them in that order.
The original intention was to put the interview at
the end like I did with MAKE. ART. NOW., but since then,
I've liked intermixing the interview questions throughout
the video to keep it interesting and shift the pace.
Scott, Paul, Amrita, and Julian, and maybe even a few others
asked about the planning and scripting aspects.
So, the only parts that are roughly scripted
are the setups for the first few scenes. I go to each place
knowing how I'm going to do the travelling sponsorship gag,
so the phone call, the door knock, and the sponsor read
all have to contain the setups for that joke.
But it's not too heavily scripted. The advantage of doing
this with other YouTubers is they all know how to carry
themselves on camera and are quick on their feet.
Basically, we just set up their normal shot,
and I ask them to pretend like they're filming a video,
but to make up whatever topic they want.
Usually, it's something pretty absurd, which is great.
All right, so today we're talking about why Jazzercise
is not dead yet! We're bringing it--
[cell phone playing "That's Just What It Is" by Nate Rose]
-Oh, hey Gerald, what's up? -And then they get interrupted
with the phone call. They also have to act during this part
too because the phone doesn't actually ring for them,
I add in funny ringtones in post later on, and then they carry
out my loosely scripted phone call in their language.
I usually talk to them sort of, like, with a pretend
phone in-person, so they have a more natural response to it,
and then when I get home, I film my parts of that
phone conversation based on how they played it.
After that, the rest of the video is unscripted, except
for my parts. My sponsorship read and my intro biography
about the guests are scripted by me, but the rest of the video
is their natural reaction, which I think really
pays off during the tour and interview portions.
I plan my interview questions ahead of time,
but their answers are thought up on the spot,
and the tour has no planning whatsoever.
By the way, if you want a quick way to make a song sound
like it's coming from a phone, just use the EQ in your NLE
and roll off anything lower than about 400 hertz and anything
higher than about 4,000 hertz, and boost the stuffy
midtones in between, and you should be left with a slightly
distorted, dynamically-limited music that sounds like it could
be coming from a phone. Then I like to work with
keyframes to adjust the bass and pan as they pick it up.
If the phone goes from one side of the frame to their ear, pan
it from that side to the centre for a more believable effect.
What's up, Peachy Fam? Today, we're talking about Jake Paul's
69-step program to financial freedom--
[cell phone playing "That's Just What It Is" by Nate Rose]
Why is he calling me right now? Hello?
Some great questions from Paul Feinberg,
two we've already answered, but let's look at
the budget question and the microphone question.
So, regarding the sponsorship a question that was also asked
by Emilio-- no, Storyblocks does not directly pay me to travel.
I think it'd be unfair to ask them to cover the costs
associated with renting hot-air balloons and submarines.
-[crickets chirping] -But no.
It's just a flat rate that I get from them regardless
of how far or how long I travel, and the budgeting is up to me.
But it's a great partnership because not only does it
integrate humorously into the videos which, of course,
is awesome from a retention point of view
but it's also kind of self-fulfilling in a way
because I actually have to use the platform
I'm promoting for each of the videos that
I mention it in. In order to make those travel gags each
time, I actually have to browse the platform to find the footage
I want, download it, and so on.
And I always do, and it's always easy.
So, when I say in my videos that Storyblocks is an impressive
collection of stock footage and that the interface
is easy to use and navigate, I'm speaking from experience
as someone who had literally just used it to make
their video. And when I talk about needing footage that would
otherwise be logistically impossible or budget-breaking
to acquire, it's true because it's not like I can afford
to film these crazy travel stunts the old-fashioned way.
I think it's just a neat, full-circle integration,
which makes me much more comfortable recommending them.
Wait. Did I just give them a free sponsor spot in my video?
Maybe I can get them to pay for that. Yeah.
I'm just gonna head over the headquarters real quick
to see if they're cool with sponsoring this video.
Give me about 15 minutes.
[intrepid music]
♪
OK, good news.
This video is officially sponsored by Storyblocks.
OK, so now on to the audio question,
which was also asked by Curtis Judd and a few others.
So, just like the lighting, whenever possible,
I like to use the equipment that's available in the space
to get the full experience. So for most of the single-person
talking head stuff, I just use the guest's microphone that they
usually use and that I mention in each respective video.
But for the tour, I use a camera-mounted
shotgun microphone, this RØDE VideoMic NTG.
Now, this wouldn't be my first choice if audio quality was key,
because, at times, the mic is placed
too far away and can be off-axis when you're trying to film
it from, like, a 24mm lens across the room.
But what I do find is that it gives a more honest experience
of what it sounds like for you guys to actually
be in the space. I considered doing lavs, but then when we're
discussing the reverb of the studio or where the bad waves
or ambient noise is coming from, you wouldn't be able
to appreciate them as much, and I find that it would
kind of take you out of the experience.
Now, for the interview, I focus more on getting clear
audio and in most cases, the featured creator
has either a podcast setup that we could just use,
or a matched pair of microphones.
But for the cases where they don't, I bring a second
VideoMic NTG, a pair of Manfrotto PIXIs,
and some extension cables so that I can run them with
these XLR adapters into the Zoom F6 and record it that way.
I also use the Zoom F6 for the other audio recordings as well,
even when using their microphones, just so I can
record it in the way that I want and keep track of my own files.
The Zoom F6's unclippable 32-bit float audio
is handy here for giving me confidence that the audio
will be usable regardless of any volume changes,
without needing to fuss with it and slow down production.
I'm actually recording the audio that you're hearing right now
on the Zoom F6, so it's in the shot, but I don't want to monkey
with it too much because the XLR cable that you're seeing
run into it is connected to this microphone right now.
But it works great. I love this recorder.
I got a fun question here from Miles,
asking what the most common piece of equipment
was that I encountered at the different studios,
and it would probably have to be the Aputure 120d,
or 300d in some cases, behind a Light Dome.
Some people were using Mark IIs, some Mark Is,
but everybody except for one had an Aputure COB
with a parabolic diffuser. Heck, I'm using one right now.
I got the 300d II behind the Aputure Light Dome II.
Many of you asked about the cameras
and lenses used for this project,
which makes sense. This is a gear channel.
So, let's go over that now.
I try to keep things simple and small, and light
for this series-- again, because of the carry-on luggage.
So camera-wise, we've got the Sony a6600
with the Sigma 16mm f/1.4.
This goes on the Ronin-SC for the tour portion.
Julie operates this using the a6600's excellent autofocus
but occasionally spot-focuses when necessary.
This camera then becomes the wide shot during the interview.
Normally, we switch over to manual focus for the interview,
but I believe the last time, with Tyler Stalman,
we left it on autofocus, and it worked well.
We also bring the Sony a7 III, which I use for any of
the opening scene shots that aren't filmed
on the guest's camera, like the door knock.
It's also used for photos and for the thumbnail,
and then it becomes the tight shot during the interview.
It's sporting Sigma's new 24-70 f/2.8, which is an amazing
lens for the money and gives me enough range to know
that I'm covered for whatever shot I need to get
during these tours. It also doubles as a nice walkaround
combo for travel photography if we get a chance to explore
a bit when not shooting. I shoot an S-Log2
on both of these. That way I have the most flexibility
in post and have the most safety and highlight retention since
I don't usually know the environment that we're going
to be shooting in that well. And I bring a little
X-Rite ColorChecker for setting the custom white balance
and checking for colour accuracy. Alright, before
we move on to the last few questions, let's talk about some
of the other gear that we have on the table here.
So, I bring spare batteries, obviously, for the Sony cameras,
and I bring memory cards as well. I have this little
PolarPro case: here that has all my memory cards in there.
I've been using the Sony Tough cards a lot.
Uh, these are the G ones, but also the M ones are quite
good and definitely sufficient for the Sony cameras
because you actually only need V30 cards for the Sony cameras.
But they're good bang for the buck to still have fast transfer
speeds in post when you want to get the footage off the cards
because that's probably the slowest part of this step,
but the cost is still pretty good on them.
They might be my new recommendation.
Sony Tough M for my favourite SD cards right now.
I also bring this battery bank here from Anker
and some USB cables. I can use this to charge the camera
on the fly if I need, if I need to charge the Aputure MC,
my phone... pretty much everything that I would need
to power over USB, including charging the gimbal,
I can do that using this Anker power bank.
And then I bring some cleaning supplies.
Obviously, the Rocket Blower, I got a lens pen and a cloth,
and then headphones for monitoring. That's part
of the audio thing. These are those Sony wireless ones
I've talked about before, the WHX-1000, whatever
they're called. The reason why we bring them is, again,
to save space, because they're great on the plane
because of the noise-cancelling option. Some of the best
plane noise-cancelling I've ever heard. And then they work as
monitoring headphones for Julie while she's walking around with
the tour just so that she can hear everything and make
sure there's nothing weird going on in the shot.
Sometimes, though, we do hear weird things in the shot,
and then we leave it in anyway, again, for the whole
immersion aspect for you guys viewing it at home.
Phone, obviously, for social media stuff,
and also for some of the gags, like the phone thing.
And then we've got the clipboard over here, which, you know...
It's a big schtick for the video.
Got the purple stars, my clicky pen, and the clipboard.
Nothing fancy really about that. I think I got it
at a dollar store, but, uh, it fits the bill.
And I think that is about it for gear.
If I miss some things that you guys want to know more about,
feel free to ask me questions in the comments,
and I'll be sure to get to them, either in another video,
in a live stream, or I'll try to reply to the comments
down below. Some of you might know me and think,
"Hey, how is he doing this with SD cards? He hates SD cards!
Why isn't he bringing his Ninja Vs and recording SSDs?"
It's purely just for space.
If I could take all that stuff on the plane
and keep space down, then I totally would.
And I think for the studio tours that I'm going to go
that I can drive to, I probably will do that,
I probably will bring cages on these cameras and rig them
out with bigger batteries and recorders and SSDs
and everything, because why not? And tripods-- that's something
I didn't mention-- I don't bring any tripods either.
Again, that would inflate the space a lot,
so I rely on the tripods in each studio.
Luckily, if you're going to a YouTube studio, generally,
there's one or two spare tripods that we can use there.
The only catch is that I've been finding that
I accidentally steal people's quick-release plates
because I leave them on the bottom of the cameras,
and then I go home and realize I still have the
quick-release plates and have to ship them back to them.
I'm still sorry about that, Sara! [chuckling]
Anyway, let's move on to the final question,
which was easily the most asked question and petitions me
to pick my favourite feature I've observed conducting
these tours. Or, as Caleb Pike asked, an idea that I'd like
to take home and implement into my own studio.
So, when I saw Josh from MAKE. ART. NOW.
monitoring himself with a big computer monitor,
I thought as PhotoJoseph put it,
"why the AF haven't I done that yet?"
Being able to see yourself like that while self-filming
is so useful and is something I've stolen
and implemented in my own setup since then.
Then I saw it again at iPhonedo, and at Stalman's.
It's just such a simple, affordable, and useful option
because it can even just repurpose an old monitor or TV,
and it makes things so much easier when it comes
to nailing critical focus or just making sure you don't
have anything weird going on in the frame.
Then something I saw at Potato Jet's and Sara Dietschy's
was the use of a dynamic podcaster mic to deal
with the abundance of reverb in their space.
My approach has always been to just go crazy
with sound treatment, and while I do still think
that's the better long-term solution,
you can get great results by just sticking
a dynamic mic right in your face like Gene does.
So, if your space sounds bad, and you're not afraid
of having a mic in the shot, that's a solid workaround.
Lastly, I just want to close with a question many of you
asked about my plans for the series moving forward.
In my mind, this series is far from over, it's just been
put on a bit of a hiatus until it's safe to travel again.
And I've got several exciting studios lined up
for you guys as soon as it's responsible to tour them.
-[pen clicking] -But that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video entertaining, or at least
helpful. And if you did, make sure you leave it the old
thumbs-up, and consider subscribing if you haven't
already. But if you did not find this video helpful
or entertaining... well, then I'm gonna have to take
some points off.
Alright... I'm done.