Recording & Editing

Camera

The main camera I use for recording is a Fujifilm X-S10, which is kinda pricey but I feel it will serve my needs for quite some time. It takes amazing photos and high quality video, and is more of an intermediate / advanced camera that I just kinda threw myself into the deep end with.

It took me a bit to dial in some of the settings and figure it out, but it wasn't rocket science. I am thrilled using this camera now. I have it mounted on a tripod with a quick release mount so I can yank it off the tripod when needed.

This camera also will record native vertical video when recording on its side, including showing you a level guide to make sure the camera is angled properly.

A really good alternative is the Sony ZV-1 MK II which also can work as a high quality webcam.

Camera Accessories

• Spare battery
• Battery charger
• Tripod

Lights

I use these softbox lights which are an unbelievably good deal. They are easy to set up and have a remote control to turn them on/off, set their brightness and color temperature. It isn't the worlds highest quality remote, but for the price, these two lights do an incredible job and will launch your content quality to the next level, moving past ring lights, etc.

Editor

I use DaVinci Resolve to do most of my editing for video and audio at this point. The free version is extremely generous and supports almost everything most people care about, including the ability to export up to 4k resolution video.

Their business model is basically "have a super capable free version so that people learn the software and then we sell enterprise licenses for major studios"

It seems a bit overwhelming at first, but I actually found it to be quite approachable. Just throw in your sources, cut them up, touch up audio, export. The program itself is set up with tabs along the bottom in the order that you likely would do your editing: cut, edit, color, effects, audio, export.

The paid version of DaVinci Resolve also has a very impressive auto-captioning system which produces much nicer captions than something like CapCut, in my experience.

For smaller stuff I will just use CapCut, either on my computer or phone. It can cut stuff up and add images / text, which sometimes is all you are looking for.

Recut

To save a TON of time, I use Recut to automatically strip dead air from raw recordings. I cannot sing this app's praises high enough! One time purchase, lightweight app, just Does The Thing. Tweak the parameters to your liking and Recut will let you export a timeline with the video chopped up. Then just import that timeline into your editor and finish it up!

After using Recut, I essentially just have every take as individual clips. I then just pick the ones I want to keep and fix up the timing where needed. Amaze.

Audio

For Stuff Keeps Happening and generally for audio that requires roaming around, I use a Rode Wireless Go II, which is basically just a wireless mic system. Plug one box into your camera, clip the other to yourself, and either use the built in mic or attach a lav mic. I use this lav mic, but most anything will do.

When I'm at my desk or streaming, I use a Shure SM7B which is a very high quality podcasting mic which requires using an XLR interface. However, Shure makes an alternative version of this mic which is cheaper and has a USB option rather than just XLR.

The real secret for my audio quality though is the audio processing plugins I use. I do a little bit of cleanup using simple EQs and noise reduction stuff, but the heavy lifting is done using CrumplePop plugins. They are a bit pricey, but they are incredible at what they do. Remove room echo, traffic sounds, automatically fix levels, etc. The plugins work natively with DaVinci Resolve and are fairly drag-and-drop. You just turn some knobs til it sounds best.

Quality

The main thing I focused on for a while was just trying to make my content immediately seem "high quality". For content with original dialogue / audio, having good audio quality and lighting goes way beyond basically anything else.