From Novice to Broadcast Master - 7 Stages of Building your Home Studio - Teacher: Junaid Ahmed

Hello Useful Content Creators, and this intro today is mainly for the people who will be listening to this in audio only.

Why is that important for me to mention? Because today we're going to look at Home Studio Buildout. And there's going to be a section in the middle. Where there's going to be a lot of visual references. And the only way you're going to see that is if you go check the video out. Now, this is going to stream to LinkedIn and my personal Facebook, as well as the Relate Studios YouTube page.

So go check it out there if you're listening to this audio right now. But if you are content with only hearing and not seeing what we're talking about, you could do that as well. Or you could listen to it twice. You could listen to it here, then go and check it out. In visuals thereafter, but we're going to be talking with a home studio expert and we're going to explore his seven stages of home studio build out and the five things you need to focus on when building out your own home studio.

And in the middle, there's going to be a really cool lighting demonstration. So if you want to see that and not just hear it the episode is dropping at noon on the day of release of the audio. So you could hop across at that time to see it live, or you could check it out thereafter. But in the meantime, let's talk about home studio build outs and let's make useful content. Hello and welcome to the Useful Content Podcast, and today we have a new teacher in our useful content classroom, Junaid Ahmed. Hi 

Junaid. 

Hey, Jima. So awesome to be here. Thanks for the invitation and bringing me on.

Yeah, it's good to have you on, man. I think, um, we would've actually met on a live stream. Um, can't remember. DJ was there. A couple people were there and we um, we were doing this joint live stream together and that would've been. Some like, like two years ago or something like that. Uh, so it's, it's great to have you back on.

I know you've been doing good stuff in the studio building space. So we came to talk today about some of that, but before we get into that, could you tell the people what you do and how you help your clients make useful 

content?

absolutely. So what I do is I'm a home studio architect, meaning I help you figure out your lighting, your camera, your microphone, your audio treatment, your room treatment, all basically it's all around. Hey, what gear do I get? There's a ton of questions people throw around. Hey, what camera are you using?

What microphone should I get? Uh, what do you have going on with the lighting? Like people are always asking these questions because number one, they're stepping into the space or they've been doing it, but they've been doing it, you know, on their phone because they wanted to get the reps in and get. So I helped them figure out the gear.

I helped them design their space. So it resonates with who they are and. Where do they want to take it? 

I saw that when you were helping, um, a guy, well, people wouldn't know who this is, but I'm going to call his name anyway. Andy. Andy, with his home studio, you asked a really interesting question. The question you ask is, if you got invited to speak, uh, on the news in 10 minutes, Would you be able to join and look your best?

And I guess inside of that, what you've said too, without saying that the sound your best to, Oh, why might it be important for someone to be able to get on camera fast and look and sound their 

best? 

You know, a lot of the times we have a ton of things going on. We were, we were talking in the green room and we were asking, Hey, how many tabs do you have? Do you leave open? Right? So just like we have so many tabs open, we have a lot of things running in our heads. And when we are invited to be on a call, which is going to make or break you present yourself on camera. It's important. That you're not spending too much time on it the only way that's possible is that if you've preemptively set up your space properly, it's like when you have the guests come to your home unannounced, you don't, you're not opening, you're not unfolding tray, you know, chairs and tables like, Oh, let me set up this table because we already have dining rooms, living rooms, family rooms set up so that we can perform the task that we want to. the best chefs spend a ton of time in preparation because they know the food that's going to come to order when the restaurant opens up. So this is the same way you want to make sure that you have things in place so that when you're called upon to show up to share your insights as an expert, because we are all experts as entrepreneurs, you're not spending too much time in setting all of those things up. 

Well, it's interesting because some people like, I know even for you years ago, you didn't have, let's say a dedicated space, but, um, well, I guess the pandemic did a lot of good things for all of us. Yeah. Oh, we created dedicated spaces now. So how can someone, uh, record their videos? What about if they don't have a dedicated space? Is there any way around that? Or is it any way that they can create something out of a tiny space or maybe do it so that they could be more mobile? Is 

that a thing that can 

happen as well? 

Absolutely. You know, the few things that you want to focus on when you're setting up any space, it could be, uh, you could be in your backyard. You could be in your living room. You could be in your garage. You want to make sure that you're. avoiding bright lights into the camera because those bright lights need to be shining on you.

So use those windows to light yourself up. Make sure that you have a dedicated microphone or a microphone close up enough to you. There's 10, 20 wireless microphones or lavalier microphones that you can attach because It's all about the message and how clearly people on the other side can hear. So if you can take care of those two things, getting good audio and good lighting on you, I think you're going to be golden because the message is still going to resonate with people listening on the other side.

Yeah,

and I also I'm big on getting that message across, uh, and anything you could kind of set up or do beforehand so that it makes it easier to get that message across because everything is in service to delivering, uh, the, the message. Yeah. So that's good stuff. That's a good set, set up on a Segway to get into the seven stages of a home studio set up, 

so I know you've been doing this for a while and you've, you've Systematize everything. Um, I just kind of built my studio over, over a period of time. And I have a dedicated space now that wasn't there before, even up to last year, we didn't have that. So we, you know, we literally had to renovate the house to do that.

but I know you help people with their spaces and you've systematized it. So let's talk about those seven steps and, um, and really get into. What those steps are and how people can apply those things for themselves, even if they might not want to hire a Junaid, but, um, how they can do it for themselves.

I know you believe we need to get educated on this proper lighting stuff on the audio and the content that resonates and captures audio attention, captures our audience attention. So let's first start with step number one. If you want to start there, or maybe there might be something else you want to put ahead of that to get people's 

studio home 

studio set up. 

100%. So there's actually five steps that I go through, which walk you through, Hey, here's the five different things that you want to look at when you're setting up your space, the seven stages are different stages that you might be at. So the stage number one is the novice. You've got a phone, you have a willingness to share your message.

How would you go about doing that? Well, it's really simple. Get in front of the light. Get it from a window and start recording your content because the reps is really important. So that's stage one, the novice stage two is when you become the hobbyist. Like, okay, you know what? I'm doing a lot more with this. Let me go deeper. Let me go invest in a higher end microphone. Let me see if I can get some lights. So you're going from one stage to the next stage. And then as you keep climbing up to the stages, From hobbyist, you're then the enthusiast, then you are the semi pro, then you become a pro, then you go to become an expert, and then the last stage, which is the seventh stage, you will become the broadcast master, because now you've, you've overcome all of your, things that blocked you from creating content, you've overcome the imposter syndrome. You've overcome all of the things you put in a ton of reps. You're now known as the person that you've been claiming to be. You're known as information that you've been teaching. And you can literally go on any camera or, you know, on your smartphone. Why not? It's basically a full circle because stage one, you start with your phone, you know, just to get the reps in stage seven, you have a nice space set up, but then you can also jump on your phone to create that connection with the audience.

It's, it's really interesting. So the seven stages are essentially that. So step one is we are, uh, We're telling everybody, Hey, just get started, just put in the reps, because if you want to go run the marathon, what do we start doing? Well, we need to first get in the habit of putting our shoes on, get in the habit of start running, get in the habit of doing more of those running so that you can actually do run that marathon. 

Stage one in your home studio is just, just kind of get started.

Uh, just grab your phone, stand in front of a window. Uh, is there anything somebody else needs to know or they just have to kind of take it and just do whatever they can. Are there any, anything as, as, 

important? 

Oh,

why are you even doing this, as you're creating more and more content, as you're standing in front of the camera, you're building your self up and some of the things that you can probably focus on is, before you even get started, what do you think about? Right? So first thing that I say is the first step into setting up your space is. Analyze your room. So we call it the room analysis. In analyzing your room, you're saying, you're figuring out, okay, where do I have my doors and windows? And where could there be distraction in this space? In my room alone, I have this nice cubby area in the back of me. So when I initially set up my office in here to work from home, to do whatever, I set up my desk back there because I saw what I was seeing and I was like, this is going to be a nice little nook for my, my computer. But when I started my podcast and turn the camera on, guess what I saw in it? Saw these two nice, bright windows in my backdrop. And as I continue to move forward, I was like, if I had followed my own steps back then that I hadn't developed yet, I would have set my desk here.

So that's what I did. Right? So windows in front of you. So even if you don't have any lighting, you have light coming in through the window. That's stage step one. You know, analyze your room, make sure that there's no bright lights in there and make sure there's no doors or windows or closets. I mean, if there are. You can create a story around, Hey, this door, I have the guests coming in pretty soon. So hold on, you know, you can kind of like integrate your room into the show. So that's step one. Step two is designing your space. set the camera up, could be iPhone, could be DSLR. What is the camera seeing besides you and how do you want to highlight that? And as you go through these step by step, you'll notice, and we've already noticed a ton of people are sitting in front of walls, plain walls, colorful walls, walls with plaques on it, with photos on it, with logos on it, all sorts of things. That's the evolution as you go through your, uh, your own journey of building your studio space. 

that point you made and I hadn't thought about it like that. Uh, you, you said in step two, which is the design, um, stage of putting up your, your home studio is that you have to figure out what Is the camera seeing besides you? So apart from you, the person who's talking, the subject, the person who is supposed to be on camera, what else is the camera seeing?

And I guess you're referring to like, what is in the background and what is in the foreground and what's in your space that, that people can see apart from yourself, because I, I suspect that those things could either. add or take away from the, from the frame. Uh, could you kind of give an example or maybe, um, in your experience that you've, when, when setting up things, what could add or take away from a frame when people are doing step two and designing their 

studio? 

So what would definitely add is if you have posters, if you have, um, things that you love, uh, memorabilia and stuff like that, for example, if have seen Gary Vaynerchuk's office, right? All of the stuff that's behind him, all the collectibles that he's collected, right? Those are things that he cherishes and that's why they're back there. And now when you frame a shot like that, you can see the things that people resonate with that are in the shot. So I call the people in the shot, the talent. So you're the talent. You know, and then we're focusing on the talent lighting. So those things that go in the background needs to exude your personality. some other people, they've got bookshelves, you're an author, you're a writer, you're, you love reading books. You've got lots of books in in your background or a bookshelf. You just want it really clear and straightforward. It could be just a, be a plain wall, just one small message on there. Again, it all comes down to who you are as a personality. There's a gentleman named Dan Coe. His background is completely dark. He might have things in there, but it's completely dark because he wants you to focus on him and he has a book called the art of focus.

So it's in line with the message that he's trying to deliver. So your video becomes a secondary message, because as we're listening to the message, our eyes are collecting so much more data, that you subconsciously don't know till you know

and I guess, the thing about it is that you, you do something that is important to your memorabilia, um, or maybe something that you like and have different things. Back when my studio was arranged different, I used to have like figurines and different things inside of there. And I still have some things on the side here.

I was my sound troopers inside of that. Uh, and all those different things, but I, I guess to, a big part of it too, and this would lead into, I think your third point, which I think is talent lighting, um, but I, a big part of it is like, how can you set up your studio in a way that also doesn't distracts, but adds, and maybe there might be a danger that people might hear, well, put things you like and memorabilia, and then they stack a set of stuff all around them.

And so that causes a problem. Have you seen that happen to people and how can the next step, which is talent 

lighting, help to prevent 

that? 

Absolutely. So one thing that I say is to have distance between the things that you are showcasing and yourself. Right? So if you have some distance, if you create that distance between yourself and the stuff that you're showcasing, then it creates that, Hey, that stuff is back there to grab your attention.

But the focus should be coming, come back here, listen to what I'm talking about, and we've seen that in videos from Pat Flynn, he's got those things in the background, uh, the. The shoes from Back to the Future, the YouTube plaques that he's gotten, like all those things, they kind of add in because each and every element in that video is adding into your personal brand. And as you build that personal brand, people will recognize you and connect you in on a deeper level. People know about me that I love Star Wars and I love those superheroes. So now we have another element that we could talk about. And that's what, um, builds communities, uh, a deeper connection.

I've seen your Star Wars posters off to your left on the wall, the graphic 

poster. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. I've, I've, I've, I've seen that. Uh, and so let's, let's flow into the third one, which is talent lighting. Why is talent lighting? And when you say talent, you refer to the person or why is talent lighting important?

Well, because, um, when you are invited to a show, it's you, the talent that is invited to the show, not your background. I mean, and we've seen a lot of people use virtual backgrounds with these nice large logos. It's great for your videos that you're going to create for your content, but not when you're being interviewed. on the podcast because those things could go away in the future. For example, I knew somebody, um, they built, they put a lot of effort into building this brand where it's two partners. But after a few years, they went their separate ways because they want to build something on themselves. All the work that they put into that partnership, well, it now needs to go back into thinking, okay, how Do we do this again? One of the saddest moment was when Daft Punk broke up. 

Oh yeah, for real. Well, it made a whole video on 

it.

Yeah. 

right. So it's like, how do you rebrand yourself? So what are you going to showcase and how, what do you want to highlight the light? So I like to focus on talent lighting. And if you'll see my video, I'm turning off certain lights.

Right. For all those who are just hearing the audio right now, Junaid is systematically removing each one of his light setups. So he's gone from very colorful to now almost monochromatic in the background, taking off light. So you have one, one single light 

source on

a one single light. And if I turn that off, you know, I'm basically painting with light 

I know he's completely, I know he's completely dark. Uh, so he's just demonstrating how lighting can go. Oh, so this is 

your, your edge

light. This is on your 

shoulders 

This is my shoulder and 

edge light. Yes. 

Right. So those who are listening to the audio podcast, go look at the video. The video is very interesting as Junaid demonstrates how he is putting together his lighting setup one by one.

So you have one source on your shoulder edge lighting. You have one source that comes into your face. You just put some lights on the background there, which is not colored yet, but it lit up the background a bit. And I suspect you're going to add color. So that's another colored light is kind of a purple light that has come on in his background right now.

And then he adds, this is a really amazing light. It's kind of a hot, uh, maybe. Deep red or pink or something like that light. It meshes with the purple really nicely and it adds some nice dimension to his background. So you're going to want to see this for, uh, for real, like actually look at it and see how he puts together the lighting set up.

So what you're demonstrating right now is that you have the background, but the talent lighting is very important so that they could stand out and separate themselves from the background. 

Yes.

yeah, exactly. So the talent lighting is focusing on you alone. And even if you just start with one simple light that that shines on you, that's all you need to be seen. That's all you need to deliver a message. That's all you need to show up and stand out.

Right. That's excellent. That's excellent. All right. So the talent lighting and, uh, goes along with your studio design to get your visuals. Right. But not only do we want to look right. We also want to sound right. So the fourth step is, 

I think it's Audio treatment. This microphone 

now we've experienced this a lot. If you're on a call with tons of people in the room, there might be one or two people that are either driving or they're on their laptop. And you can also hear the echo or the echo reflection or the audio reflection in their voice. Basically, they're in a room where there's a lot of flat surfaces. So not only do you hear them, but then it also reflects back and you hear them again. at a, you know, millisecond delay because those are audio reflections. Our audio is wave based, right? We call it, it's a waveform because as we speak. We create these waves in our, in our vocal cords, and we send this audio out.

And as these waves travel in our room, if there's any flat surfaces, they're going to bounce back and get caught on a microphone. I had that issue because when I set up my wall on this side. It was really flat, and I really liked the look of it, but I was like, you know what? It's creating a lot of audio reflection. How do I minimize that? So I started adding posters. I started adding. You know, pictures and stuff like that. And that's going to help reduce those reflections. If you have a nice big desk, guess what it's going to do? It's going to reflect the sound off of the desk.

So make sure you have a nice big, large mouse pad or some kind of, uh, had on there that's going to absorb sound or, keep it from reflecting. A lot of the times we have a lot of walls, walls are hard because you can either use Uh, like, just like I mentioned earlier, you can either use paintings or sound absorption, uh, foam panels, or even curtains. All of these things will help absorb the sound. And then the floor. If you have a carpet floor, perfect, you're in good place. But if you have those nice, beautiful wood floors, you want to throw a rug in there. Or if you're using that space for recording all the time. Throw in some blankets because you want to absorb that sound.

You want to keep it from bouncing around. And then all of these things are small treatments in your room to get your audio clean, and you can still use that laptop microphone. It's not going to sound the best, but you're going to avoid, you're going to cut down on all of those reflections. that are coming in. investment would be to dedicate, to get a dedicated microphone. You've got a nice, beautiful red, uh, microphone. I've got a, you know, simple, uh, MB7 microphone, which is a USB microphone, the simplest one that you can get, uh, Which has a, it's a dynamic microphone. So the closer you are to it, the better you sound. And, um, it's going to keep from catching, sound from us and your surrounding. So

is a Rode NT1. I used to, for a tiny, tiny, tiny bit, a short time in life, I was doing, um, audio production for tiny, tiny bit, like two seconds in life. And, uh, I, this is one of the things I got with the Rode NT1. It happens to be a condenser mic. Could you tell the, could you explain the difference between?

A dynamic mic and a condenser mic. So people understand what they should buy and shouldn't buy.

dynamic microphones are the ones that are the workhorse of the performance industry. So anybody that's on, in the, on, on the concert, on the stage, they're using these dynamic microphones because they're holding a really close to their mouths. They're close in holding them in place because there's a lot of performers standing in that room. are on that stage, you want to be, you want to make sure that you're not catching the drum or you're not catching the guitar into the microphone. So these dynamic microphones are designed so they're close to your mouth and it'll capture your sound perfectly. In its, uh, most accurate form condenser mics, uh, can be placed further away, but if they have a lot larger dynamic range and there are a lot more sensitive to small sounds in your room, and I've used a condenser mic when I first started the blue Yeti.

And I started hearing my kids in the recordings like what I didn't hear them initially because I keep my volume down when I'm listening to through the microphone, but the microphone caught all those things. So I was like, okay, time to change from a condenser microphone to a dynamic microphone. So those are the two differences.

Yeah. So dynamic mics are less sensitive and, need to be closer to your mouth in order to, for the audio to sound the way it should sound. And then condenser microphones are more sensitive. So you probably get your kids in the other room if they're loud enough. And, um, those are. Um, probably better for maybe, I don't know, high end production because they have a greater dynamic range, but for podcasting where it's mostly a voice or if you're on a live show, then dynamic mics work really well.

Yes. 

Yes.

absolutely. Yes. And 

Uh, so, so let's talk a little bit more about audio because I think, The visuals people, and we're going to get to the fifth thing, which I think is camera lenses. You're going to get to that. So people can jump from their laptop cameras into that, but let's talk a tiny bit more about audio, because obviously if you have a mic, something has to hold it in place.

Uh, what do you recommend? Like if someone wants to get a mic like yours, which is a Shure 

SM7V. 

V7. 

MV7, right? Which is a USB mic. What would they have to get in order to hold the mic close to their mouth? 

Because it needs to be 

close to their mouth. 

So there's a lot of different options. You can get a simple desktop stand. That'll send right in front of you and you can, you know, mount the microphone right on top of it, or you can get a little desk arm, which is a little longer and you can kind of like sweep away the microphone when you're not using it. So those are two different options that you can use. Uh, I've seen people hold these microphones on these short videos as well, which is, which is looks really funny. Like, all right, you're, you're doing the right thing by, you know, using a good microphone, but Hey, uh, as long as people can hear you. Uh, that's all that matters.

Yeah, I've, I've done both. I've had, well, right now I have, uh, uh, one of these. These low profile, um, boom arms. Hopefully that didn't mess up the audio too much, but I used to have, used to have this and people can't see it. Um, this is

one of these 

here

Yeah. It's a

little desktop stand. 

Yeah. It's all the way down there. And I guess it depends on, I guess, what's convenient for you, I guess, or what, what 

determines which one 

you got. 

Well, the arm is of course costs a lot more than the little desk stand. The desk stand is, you know, uh, anywhere from 20 to 40 maybe, whereas the arm might be from 60 to 60 to a hundred dollars, depending on which brand you get.

Is there a difference in quality from USB to see, I know we haven't spoken about XLR but is there a different cause, you know, some people might hear what XLR mics, I might want to know what they are, is 

there a difference in quality? All 

So the XLR mics will give you probably a lot more gain built into it because XLR mics need an external interface. And in that interface, it has a lot more processing power. So it'll give you probably a little more oomph for your buck. And then you would, you probably wouldn't have to speak as loud when you have a, you know, XLR microphone. So again, there's a, there's a lot of different things in it. It all, it all comes from experimenting. Okay. You start with one like, okay, how am I getting that? There's a ton of research already done. There's tons of YouTube videos where this gentleman tested 10 different microphones. This is what this microphone sound like.

And this is how much this microphone costs. You know, you can spend anywhere from literally a hundred dollars to 1, 200 on the microphone alone. Not even talking about the extra equipment and gear that goes into it.

right. Right. So mics are a big deal. And I, and I kind of was hovering around this part of it because the phones look nice and everything, but that mic quality is really what defines like, uh, people hear the, the audio and they're like, Ooh, that's, that's, that sounds good. You know, you could tell the difference between something that has a decent mic and like a laptop mic.

Laptop mics haven't 

gotten theirs yet, 

Now, the reason laptop

mics are still struggling because they're again attached to the laptop and you're much farther away. But guess what's happening time and time again, better technology is coming up. For example, the iPhone has three I three microphones built in. They use multiple microphones to cut down the. surrounding sound and then boost up your volume. So that feature is already built in these devices. So pretty soon laptop microphones are going to go the same way with AI on the rise. I mean, there's so many things, uh, at play. Pretty soon you wouldn't need anything at all. We'd just be talking to each other in a, in a virtual microphone. Set up or something like the division pros, right? I mean, they've got built in microphones and you're having perfect conversation. 

yeah, well, you can tell the difference right now. Between the microphones, but maybe there'll be a time when you can't tell the difference. Uh, and I guess even unless you're going live, even if you have a recorded podcast, you could then come afterwards and apply some noise removal or something of that sort to enhance the 

sound. 

Post production, right? 

Post production you want to do as little as that as possible. Hopefully 

Yes. 

you don't want to spend two hours on fixing the sound when they could have just

gotten it right on the, on the stream or on the podcast recording. Um, actually right now, I don't know if I should say this, but right now I have. a podcast that I forgot to turn my mic on and it has my laptop audio and I tried to fix the sound and it it's just not sounding good at all and so I'm probably gonna have to re record my pieces on the podcast which I'm not

looking 

forward to 

Well, I've

got a solution for you, my brother. And, um, and this is what I done for my podcast. So post production in my podcast, I used to record intro to the guest that my editor then puts that intro before the actual start of the podcast. And there was a time where we had 50 episodes. They're waiting for me to record an intro.

And I was like, okay, my God, that's 50. It's almost an hour of intro me sitting there and recording intros. And I discovered this tool, this AI tool called 11 labs. 

Oh, 

all 

Now 11

labs could clone your voice from your previous recordings, and you can give it the text and it'll create the speech based on your cloned voice. And now, uh, very recently, they've, so when I first discovered a level of almost two years ago, it was very simple, but as technology has gotten better and better over time, they now have a space called voice labs. Where you can discover AI generated voice and other people are also submitting their voice for professional recordings.

So you can literally hire somebody else to do your intro, hire somebody else to do a question or a segment. through this. So I was like, okay, let me create my

own professional voice. So now I gave it about an hour of my own video voices from our videos. They took about 24 hours or something to tune that voice in. So that it could be used with AI. So now I had to create a solo episode one time. And I was like, Oh my God, I was, I was sick. My voice was out. So I was like, you know, why don't you just use this tool? So I took the text from my script, dropped it in there, play and boom, it was done within seconds. 

Really? 

Yes, sir. 

I know what Eleven loves. I'd love to hear that episode to see how much 

of, how 

much of Junaid is 

in 

Episode 600, uh, on the podcast, um, is my solo episode all done with AI or, you know, I mean, it's my clone voice, but, um, that's what's, that's something you could do. So you don't have to go through the recording because you already have a ton of really good recordings. You could take those, pop them in there and then, uh, create the pieces that you missed out on.

I have to go listen to that episode to see, I wish I had just stumbled across it. I wish I had just stumbled across it. It would have been a good talking point to know if that was, I might have questioned it, who knows? Uh, but I'll go listen to it, uh, when we, when we are done here to see what it sounds like.

All right, let's, let's move on to step five and step five, I think is camera and lenses.

That's right. So, uh, in, in the, the seven stages of your home studio evolution from novice to hobbyist to enthusiast to the semi pro professional and the expert and the broadcast master, it's the enthusiast level, which is the third stage is when you go from your using your smartphone camera to a mirrorless camera. So the first two stages. Use your phone camera as much as you can. In fact, I know people that use two phones in their setup, one phone for their face, one phone to look down on their desk as they're, as they're creating things, um, my friend who is a scrapbooker, he's got a, uh, you know, scrapbooking community. She uses two smartphones. I'm like, why not? It does. It does the job. So enthusiast state is where you start becoming more sophisticated and you invest in a sensor mirrorless camera and add some lighting. So cameras are really essential in capturing your imagery. And if you have the lighting dialed in correctly, any camera will make you look really good. It's just a matter of, okay, now. You're ready to go to that next stage, 

right. So moving from a smartphone to, let's just say a mirrorless camera of some sort. And I, I, I see you deliberately say mirrorless because like DSLRs are on their way out. And all, all the companies, all of these popular companies, well,

uh, Canon and 

Nikon, 

kind of, 

tradit traditional guys, but then like Sony and, and Panasonic and all those guys, they are now only making mirrorless.

Cameras, so you have to jump on that. Is it, is it quite expensive to get the Marillas camera or are 

there affordable 

options? 

So question, you know, that's a really great question. What is affordable for some people? 5, 000 is affordable for some people, 300 affordable. So what I say is check your budget and then see what falls into that. And there's a ton of options. I have at least four. used mirrorless cameras in my studio that cost about 300, 300.

You can get a nice mirrorless camera. They can connect to your computer, uh, through a HDMI capture card, pretty easy to get into. So that's why I recommend, uh, getting a used camera if you can. started. And then of course you want to get a lens that go with it. Most of the times, these cameras, if you buy them, you can get, get them anywhere from 400 to 700 with a kit lens.

And that kit lens does a really good job. Now, I know people watching this, uh, or not watching this. Um, I just switched over my camera from my face cam to.

my overhead camera. And in this camera, I have the kit lens installed so I can zoom in and zoom out 

Right, 

kind of see what I'm

showing. So that's what a kit lens does.

And it gives you a lot of options as your face camera too, because now you can say, Hey, I want to go from 15 millimeter to 45. And then you can figure out how far or how close you want the camera to be from in front of you.

Right, right. And so once you set that up, and I guess it's auto focus right now my camera is manual focus because it's, it's old, but you have your camera on autofocus because once you are in the frame, it will pick up 

on your face. Is 

that what is the 

Yeah. So 

it, it, so these cameras have eye tracking capability now. So no matter how far or how close you are, it'll track that eye and it'll focus in on, on your face because the eye is the one, the main focus that you want to, you know, be focused on. That's how we make the connection with our

guests. 

You want to get that nice and sharp.

Mm hmm. 

Okay, great. So, so let me just jump back a little bit. Um, when you were doing the lighting demonstration earlier, which also I would encourage people to go and watch a video if they listen to the audio only and see junaid's, uh, lighting demonstration where he put on and took off his lights and showed how it's all built up step by step.

Um, you didn't get up from your seat, you sat right in your seat.

yes,

did it right. Um, how, how did that work? How, how do you do that? If somebody said, Ooh, this is my, does he have an assistant? You know, 

um, how does 

that work? 

I do have an assistant and it's a virtual assistant, right? So, um, there's technologies that have been around for over a few decades where you can do automation in your home pretty easily. Back in the days, they were using, uh, 2. 4 G technology to talk to devices in your home. Now we're talking to our devices through Wi Fi. So I've, when we moved into the home, I was like, I want to make my home a smart home. So I've upgraded the light switches and power strips in my home. So they talk to each other and they're all on HomeKit. That's a pro, that's, uh, Apple's, uh, Smart home, uh, platform, but you can do this with Alexa. You can do this with Google home.

You can do this with other, uh, platform providers as well. I don't know if Microsoft has anything. I think they've, they're just a software company now who sells the windows and Microsoft office. Um, but, um, yeah, so Google home, Alexa home kit. These are the three options. So on my computer here, I have something called running the home app. In it, I can see my entire home from cameras to lights. to, um, air conditioning and whatnot. And I can choose my room, which is home studio. And I've set up different scenes in here. So I have a scene called office where, you know, I come in here and I says, Hey, office time. And then only that light turns on and I have a scene set up as studio time, which then enables the five lights that I turned on and I have them on individual, um, poles or individual power strips. That can then turn them on and off. And the cool part is they will turn them on back at where the initial setting was. it just makes it a lot easier for me to, you know, be ready in. A moment's notice to be on camera.

Yeah, I love that. My, um, my assistant is at these two things here in my hands. I have to go on manually, turn everything on. Uh, but that's just a, that's just a function of not having the, well, I'm not having the trouble yet to, to, to do it. Like if I was like saying, I needed to get this done because it's too much trouble to turn everything on.

I think it's too close to me. That's why I'm saying that. But as soon as it becomes difficult, I'm going to do exactly what you did. Yeah. So those are the, those are the five stages that we just went through. Junaid, do you have anything else to add before we. Bring things in for a landing with the, um, with the home studio setup.

I know you were supposed to talk about the seven stages as well. And then the five steps 

where we kind of mix them 

all together, which 

is 

Yeah. They're, they're all a combination, right? Because as you go from one stage to the next stage, you're basically just adding in to the mix of. What makes your home studio? Uh, the first stage is, you know, you're using your, your phone as a camera and in the book seven stages of home studio evolution, I have a little questionnaire, you know, discover your home studio avatar, where do you, where are you right now? You're just starting out using basic equipment like smartphones and in ear headphones. You're in the novice stage, right? And then you can, uh, go from that stage. And the hobbyist one, you're then adding in. A microphone to your setup, because that's the number one step lighting is still free from, from our windows. Then the next day that you're adding a mirrorless camera, you already have microphone, you've got lighting, maybe you're adding in some more lights, adding some acoustic panels for better sound. You just go adding. More gear to your setup. It's, it's like a little journey, uh, into expertise. And then as you go higher and higher, you're now adding additional cameras.

For example, I switched my overhead camera to show you the functionality of the zoom lens, uh, or if I'm showcasing a product or whatnot, that's what the overhead camera enables. So you're adding these things as you get comfortable with gear, as you. Evolve from one stage to the next stage. So my final thing would be just get started, try what, you know, and, uh, find a community where you are appreciated and you are, um, encouraged to keep trying new things to keep elevating yourself to keep evolving.

that's good stuff to end up, find a community where you can be encouraged to keep elevating yourself and keep evolving. And of course, as you go along, use the steps and use the stages and set up your studio as you would want it to be. To be, this has been great. You need, some people may want to find you online.

Could you tell the people how they can 

contact

you? 

Superjunaid website as well. Yeah. 

That's right. 

Right. And, uh, your book is on Amazon. Um, that is the, is it the smartphone? 

What, what do you call 

it? 

So I have, I have two, but I have a total of three books out now. The first book that I released last year

was, is a mastering iPhone video production. Then earlier this year, I published a to zoo in animal alphabet symphony for my kids. And then just this week, on my birthday, I published the seven stages of home studio evolution from beginner to broadcast quality.

Okay.

Oh, great. Great. Great. So go pick up the two first and the last for you and then pick up the one in the middle for the kids. Right. So, um, so that will work well. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and thank you so much students for being in the useful content classroom, useful content classroom.

Dismissed

and we're clear, we're clear,

uh, good stuff, good stuff. That's 

uh, 

Yeah, man. That, uh, this was fun. I get to flex my muscles. That's

yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sorry for the people who are just on audio. We're not going to see all the fanciness.

okay. They'll be intrigued enough. Like, wait, what happened? He turned off all his lights while he was on video.

It's true. Like I often tell people about the way in which you, you, you set the thing up is that you need a blank canvas. Your blank canvas is your dark room. Yeah, and then you build up the light piece. I really love your, um, your rim light. It's, I, I noticed it in the other videos, like, oh, this is great.

Define the shoulders, separate it from the background with the heat, nice hair light as well. It's good. It's 

good.

What kind of 

light is that?

which kind of light is which one?

The, the rim 

light, 

The room light. The rim light.

It's just a flat

panel. It's just a flat panel mounted on the ceiling.

Let me show you, 'cause we can show things with camera. 

Mm 

So just turn my camera

off. Here's the setting. I guess I can't switch camera while we're recording. It's still 

recording, 

Yeah, we're still recording. Um, well maybe, you know, there could be another day we demonstrate everything 

and do a walk through. Yeah, and do a walk through. Well, let me just stop the recording. It was great to see all that demonstration. I didn't expect it to do that. That's good. So the people could see the fanciness.

Good stuff.