We’re delighted that our BII podcasts are getting so much interest – we’ve even been getting questions about how we make them look and sound so good. Here, our podcast professionals, the BII’s Jess Topping FBII, Teodora Pancheva MBII and Gueniver Warren MBII share their top tips for making your podcasts look the best
Getting started. What equipment will you need?
A camera that can film in 4k – you don’t need to fork out loads of money to film your podcasts, your phone – if it’s less than four years old – will work fine
Microphones – the sound is better if you use a mic with a fluffy head – and if yours doesn’t, you can cover it with a sock to minimise wind/breath, etc. You can buy a lav clip-on mic from Amazon for about £20 – buy ones with the fluffy heads, as these will give the best sound.
If you’re using a camera to shoot the podcasts, there will be an AV port to plug your mic into. Downloading software, like Audacity, to record can give a better result. You can always record the audio separately using your phone, while recording on your camera
The filming process
Pick your location. Make sure you have good lighting, whether you’re filming inside or outside If you don’t, the image will be fuzzy, as the camera won’t have enough light
Have your ‘stage’ well lit, but avoid light that casts harsh shadows
When it comes to sound, the mic shouldn’t be too close to your lips. A clip-on mic should be at chest level and a standing mic needs to be a hands-width away from your mouth. If your location becomes noisy, pause filming
Always test to check sound and picture quality before you record the real footage – you want to be confident that when you replay your footage later, it looks and sounds great
It’s useful to get lots of footage, to help when editing content, so a camera on every participant helps
Editing
Thanks to great software and technology, editing videos is pretty easy these days. For short reels on Instagram and TikTok, you can use their in-app editing facility. Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the interface, it’s easy to use. Or you can use CapCut for subtitles and other editing tricks.
For longer content, use Davinci Resolve. It’s a free desktop software for editing videos. It has everything you need to make a cohesive video, with pre-sets ready for you to just drag and drop onto your footage
In Davinci Resolve, you can also add a noise reduction effect to your audio, so if you encounter any fuzz to the sound, you can improve it
Posting
Once you’ve finished editing, you’re ready to post. Make sure you post it everywhere – on all your social media platforms and your website. Use the content more than once, the more people who see it the better, and as we’ve said before, one post won’t reach all your followers, due to the way people’s algorithms work.
For long form videos and podcasts, post it on YouTube and Spotify.
