Behind the Scenes: Creating a show to help you look great on camera with Justin Brown & Tristan Pelligrino

Episode Summary

We start each episode of Recorded Content with, ”Recorded Content is brought to you by Motion, a done-for-you podcast agency for small, scrappy B2B marketing teams,” and our goal is to help B2B tech companies get the most out of podcasting.

Podcasts have outgrown the audio-only format, and video has become an essential part. However, the majority of our customers use their home offices to record. Therefore, we decided to launch a new show called ‘On Camera, On Brand’ to help our clients look better on camera and transform their home video setup, making it as professional as possible.

In this episode of Recorded Content, Justin Brown and Tristan Pelligrino discuss the technical and strategic aspects of the new podcast, the show’s host, the guest list, and the style of the episodes.

Featured Co-Founders

Key Insights

Having a subject matter expert as a host adds value to your show. That's why the new show under the umbrella of Motion's Networks of Shows, On Camera, On Brand, will be hosted by Rob Rusher, a cinematographer working on music videos, feature films, and television commercials. The show aims to help Motion's customers create a professional recording environment — for instance, in their homes — without breaking the bank. But why launch a podcast when it might be easier to write a how-to article? ''As someone who doesn't have a background in video, it's tough when people ask me those questions to be a consultant for setting up their video setup remotely,'' says Justin. [...] ''It just goes back to that principle where if we're going to solve this problem for customers, let's not cheat it. Let's find an expert and build a show around their expertise. And then that way, the information that we're able to explore and the different things we cover in each episode will tie into solving a customer's problems,'' says Tristan. Besides, we are a podcast agency, and creating shows is what we do best. Also, we see a lot of potential in this topic, primarily as an opportunity to meet professionals like sound designers, camera operators, and makeup artists and hear their take on how to look good on camera.
Phase one of creating a new show: brainstorming and research. For On Camera, On Brand, searching through YouTube was the first step. ''We took a deep dive into all these different makeover series that are on YouTube. And that was something that spoke to us. How can we showcase a transformation? How can we take someone's home environment and make it something that's appealing, and they can look good on camera right from their home office? The other thing we did well was trying to get a sense of all these behind-the-scenes shows. So we consumed a lot of those types of shows to get an idea of how people are capturing the behind-the-scenes aspect of what they're doing because, in a sense, that's also what we're doing with this show,'' explains Tristan.
Is it possible to pull audio-only content from a visual show like On Camera, On Brand? That’s what we plan to do. Considering the show will comprise makeover episodes, it will be challenging to convey the atmosphere in the audio format, but this is the idea: ''We'll have a script format, and it'll articulate like, 'Here's the challenge; here's the scenario that this person was involved in. They were stuck in an attic. There were no windows, and it was a small room. So here are the three things that I prioritized as we went to make over this space to make it appear more professional on camera.' So all that is going to be done in an audio form. And then, we'll encourage people to check out the slightly longer form video episode on YouTube. So we'll see how that works.''

Episode Highlights

The Why Behind the On Camera, On Brand Podcast

”A lot of our content strategy is about helping the people we work with. And something that we see a lot with our customers — they don’t have studio setting environments that they’re recording in. […]

It says it in the name: On Camera, On Brand. We wanted to help the people we work with, ‘Hey, we don’t expect you to set up a $20,000 studio; you’re likely going to be recording from home. How can we get you to have your environment look as professional as possible, as good as possible, within the confines of what you have available?’

The second thing is we wanted to do a show that was outside the echo chamber of people you always hear from. If you know anything about Motion’s Network of Shows, we work with a lot of people who are very visible, and there are two reasons for that. One, they’re subject matter experts. And second, it gives us visibility. But we wanted to do a show where we talk to somebody outside of who you always hear from.

And so the host of On Camera, On Brand is someone who’s a director of photography. Someone very talented in what they do but maybe isn’t as visible — isn’t being heard from as often,” says Justin.

We Want Each Podcast Under Motion’s Network of Shows, Including On Camera, On Brand, to Answer Our Audience’s Questions

”You hear so much about turning your company into a media company. Tristan and I have done this over the last three years. We’ve launched six internal shows, with another one on the way. And these shows have been carefully concocted based on things our customer base is asking for.

Even for us as a podcast agency that has all of the resources at our fingertips internally, it’s still incredibly difficult not only to execute the work and produce five — soon to be six — every-other-week shows, and then this show is weekly. But aside from that, tackling problems our audience is running into with experts that our audience wants to listen to.

And so […] it’s fine to go out there and say, ‘Launch yourself as a media company.’ But we also wanna say, ‘Hey, here’s what it takes, and here’s what’s gonna go into each show,”’ explains Justin.

We Developed a Strategy for On Camera, On Brand and Then Did a Lot of Testing

”Once we had these ideas circulating, we worked on the strategy, and we developed a theme statement. And so we were working through the formats and how we would structure different episodes.

And so Rob filmed some test footage. He’s like, ‘What the hell? I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do this in reality, but let me film something.’ So he brought one of his colleagues into his studio in Pittsburgh, and they constructed a test episode and filmed it in a lot of different ways.

He had multiple cameras going, and it was a great idea. Not only to understand more about how he would interact on camera with the audience but also about some other parts we were unsure about. For instance, would Rob be the test subject in an episode?

And then the technical workflow. We are recording on Riverside; so it’s a remote podcast recording platform. In this situation, Rob is recording on cameras in a studio, and everything’s digital, and we’re getting these heavy files. So we had to figure it out — what is the post-production workflow?

We had to talk through some technical things, but it does contribute to how you want to work out the structure in the format, how you want to execute each episode,” says Tristan.

What You Can Expect From On Camera, On Brand: Before-After Sessions, Episodes With Tips, and Interviews

”We decided on a makeover series format that speaks to the transformation we want to capture. So this might be a remote recording environment and a remote consulting scenario where we’re working with someone uncomfortable with their home recording setup, and they want that to be completely revamped. Rob is going to take someone through that transformation.

The second format is tactical tips. We’re going to create these smaller, almost micro episodes. They might be five- to seven-minute videos that we then are able to have an audio form of as well.

And then the third, we want to have an interview component. It will give us an opportunity to pull in people outside the B2B marketing community, lighting directors, sound engineers, and makeup artists. These are folks that are working on feature films and television commercials for large enterprises. And we’re going to understand a little about how they approach being on camera,” says Tristan.