Transcript ↓

In this podcast episode, host Michelle Frechette  and guest Sam Waines from Barn 2 Plugins dive into the world of video content creation within the WordPress community. They discuss practical tips on equipment, editing software, and the importance of audio quality. Both share personal experiences, challenges, and lessons learned, emphasizing storytelling and authenticity as keys to audience engagement. The conversation also covers adapting to trends like short-form video and balancing technical skills with creativity. The episode offers actionable advice and inspiration for aspiring content creators looking to improve their video production and connect with viewers.

Top Takeaways:

• Content Is King—Even with Imperfect Production: Across the discussion, Michelle and Sam stress that storytelling, relevance, and usefulness matter more than having flawless lighting, audio, or editing. Viewers are drawn to authentic, valuable stories, not just polished visuals. Imperfection is not a deal-breaker if the message resonates.
• You Don’t Need Expensive Gear to Get Started: Michelle began her podcast with just her built-in Mac mic; Sam started with a $12 lav mic. Both reinforced that starting with what you have—whether it’s free software like Audacity, basic webcams, or a phone—is more than enough. You can upgrade incrementally as your content and skills grow.
• Audio Setup and Environment Make a Big Difference: Simple adjustments like mic placement, soundproofing with rugs or curtains, and checking input levels (especially after software updates) can dramatically improve audio quality. Sam recommends keeping recording levels around 25–50% and watching for clipping using tools like OBS or native Mac settings.

Mentioned In The Show:

• Barn 2 Plugins
• Nomad With Us
• DaVinci Resolve
• Blue Yeti
• Sony a6400
• WordPress.org
• Elementor
• StreamYard
• Zoom 
• Adobe Rush
• Audacity
• Descript 
• GarageBand 
• iMovie 
• Screen Studio
• Mira teleprompter software

🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Social Media:

• Sam Waines (Video Editor & Content Producer, Barn 2 Plugins)
• Michelle Frechette (Director of Community Relations, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

Transcript

Michelle Frechette 00:00:23  Hey, Sam. How are you doing?

Sam Waines 00:00:26  I’m doing great. How are you doing, Michelle?

Michelle Frechette 00:00:28  I’m good. And everybody watching welcome to Post Status Happiness Hour Live. I do this most Wednesdays. Sometimes I don’t have a guest. Sometimes I am traveling. And so when those things happen, we don’t have a show. But for the most part, we have a show every Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern here in the United States. And of course, I don’t know what that means to everybody else who may or may not be watching. But it it’s it’s some time in your life. It’s 10:00 where you are, Sam, I think.

Sam Waines 00:00:56  Yeah, yeah. So I’m, I’m currently located in Warsaw in and Poland. And if you don’t know anything about Poland, it’s very beautiful country. It’s kind of like the best of Europe, but at a discounted price. If you if you want to live here. I think a lot of other Europeans are going to complain about that, but then they’ll begrudgingly accept that it is cheaper than, you know, in France and Italy.

Michelle Frechette 00:01:20 But that is true.

Sam Waines 00:01:23  Yeah. 

Michelle Frechette 00:01:25  So, give us a little introduction, introduction, to yourself. Obviously, we know that you’re in Poland, and, and then we’ll talk a little bit more about how you and I met and that kind of thing. But tell us a little about a little bit about who you are, what you do with WordPress.

Sam Waines 00:01:40  Yeah. Awesome. So I am repping the, the, logo today. Barn 2 Plugins. I work for Katie Keith as the video content creator, and other handle other marketing tasks for Barn 2. And, yeah, I’ve been doing that job for two and a half years now, and I have a lot of fun insights into the side of creation and content creation and stuff, which we’ll be diving into today. But yeah, in general, I am a man from a few, like many places, and I’ve lived in many places, so hopefully I’ve got a few fun stories to share with anyone who’s watching today. And I can talk about how I got into WordPress and also video content creation as well. But yeah, the main thing is I work for Barn 2 plugins.

Michelle Frechette 00:02:32  Which I love that your, your logo is just above camera, so.

Sam Waines 00:02:37  I know. I have to, I have to puff up my chest a little bit because the print will be a little higher.

Michelle Frechette 00:02:44  Katy will be happy.

Sam Waines 00:02:46  You know, small aside, we we have all these shirt, I have all these shirts that say Barn 2 Plugins. But Katy actually had to send me some new shirts the other day because she wants the shirts to just say Barn 2 for, for this, because of the fact that we’re actually expanding into Shopify and we’re going to have some Shopify apps starting this year. So there’s a. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I, I just wanted to back up a little bit and say how I got into video content creation in the first place. So obviously I didn’t just apply for the job and, and get it without any experience. So back in the Covid years. I was with my wife or, girlfriend at the time, and we were living in Bali, in Indonesia, and I picked up a GoPro that I had been carrying around with me for a while, and I started filming everything we were doing, and I put that on YouTube. And it’s it’s quite hilarious to look back at these videos now, but they’re, they’re really, wholesome and fun and, yeah. So I’ve created the channel if anyone wants to check it out. I didn’t send this to Michelle in advance, but I’ll. I’ll send it to her after. But it’s called Nomad With Us. And that’s like three words Nomad With Us. And there’s just about maybe two dozen videos there. And some of them have quite a few views. And we ended up with quite a few subscribers as well, which was a lot of fun. But it didn’t, it wasn’t like a big money maker, you know. It was just something I did, to build up the skill set. And the skill set I built up was filming and of course, editing. And that’s like the main skill that I picked up from doing that. And, yeah, I edit with a program called DaVinci Resolve, and I have since the beginning. It’s a free software and I have the paid version just so I can export in 4K and stuff like that, but it’s a great, it’s a great. I wouldn’t say it’s a great one for beginners to learn, but it’s one that you can have with you for your entire time because it does everything. Yeah. So it does. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but, just like any skill online or otherwise, you can you can learn on YouTube basically.

Michelle Frechette 00:04:59 Absolutely.

Sam Waines 00:05:00  So you know the first video you edit, you’ll be spending, more than half of the time, rather than editing, you will be searching on Google, on YouTube, and like how to do this, how to how to do that. And even to this day, I still double-check because they’re updating things and so yeah. 

Michelle Frechette 00:05:18  Constantly. I always think it would be fun. I don’t have a GoPro. I’ve kind of wanted one because I think it would be fun at WordCamps because, you know, I’m on my scooter going around and everything, and at WordCamps. I think it’d be fun to like, have a GoPro on my hat or my shoulder or something. And, just kind of GoPro the whole thing, Especially if and this will show you how much I don’t know. I know I can go live from my phone into places, but I don’t know how to. I’m sure you can tether your GoPro to your device to be able to go live places from there. I think it would be a lot of fun.

Sam Waines 00:05:50  Yeah, I haven’t set that up myself either. Like a live stream through GoPro. I know that maybe a 360 camera would be a more fun way to set that up on your scooter, because then you could get the reactions from people as well as your own face and, like, whatever’s happening. Yeah, that that would actually be quite fun. And you could you could put together some, some cool videos from that. I don’t know about the live stream setup. I broke my GoPro when I was diving. We were on our honeymoon in the Maldives, and I went diving. And on that particular day, we dove down to 12 meters. And the GoPro rating is only 10 meters underwater. And so. And you need a protective case, on the outside of it, if, if you’re going any deeper. And, I didn’t even think about it, to be honest. And so at some point during the dive, it just stopped working. And, I did recover some of the video though, but, not all of it.

Michelle Frechette 00:06:50  But sadly, it never worked again uh?

Sam Waines 00:06:52  Yeah, yeah, it never worked again I tried. Tried everything. I filmed my videos for Barn 2 with this camera. This is a Sony. it’s the a6400, which is actually a good mid-range camera, and it does 4K.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:08  Oh nice.

Sam Waines 00:07:09  Yeah. And it has this flip-up screen so I can see myself. Yeah. But the trick there is you don’t want to have the screen completely visible. And the reason why I push it down like this, so I can only see a little bit. So I can just check that it’s recording. Because if I see myself, I look at myself just. Like we’re having this conversation now.  And if you do that. When you go to edit your video and when you watch back your video, it looks constantly like like you’re looking somewhere else, you know, rather than actually looking at the at the lens.

Michelle Frechette: That makes sense, yeah. 

Sam Waines 00:07:45  So when I, when I record the videos, I tell myself, like, look at the lens, look at the lens. And I have to be careful not to have my display there all the time.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:55  So that makes sense.

Sam Waines 00:07:56  A little tip there for you if you’re starting out.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:58  I love it. I’m doing more and more video for TikTok for WordPress.org. I filmed a lot of TikToks. Well, I should say a lot. I found some TikToks at WordCamp Europe this year, which is where I think you and I officially met for the first time face to face. We’ve known each other in the community for sure before then. But while I was there, I went live a couple times, which was my first experience doing that. I went live through the venue hall, showing all the different vendors. And then, and this is where my, I don’t want to say mistake, I’ll say challenge. This was where my real challenge was, is the folks at dot org said, hey, could you go live for Matt and Mary’s fireside at the end of the Q&A and everything? I was like, sure, no problem. Well, I hadn’t anticipated anything like that, so I hadn’t brought a tripod, which meant that I was holding the camera for an hour and 15 minutes, my phone for an hour and 15 minutes during a live, and for somebody in peak physical shape, that’s difficult to do. But for somebody with fibromyalgia who struggles with joint pain and muscle pain, I think towards the end, if they didn’t publish the whole thing, of course, but towards the end, if you were watching, you could see me shifting, like you could feel the shift in the camera like, oh, Michelle’s moving again. Oh, she’s moving again. Because I was like, my arms were screaming.

Sam Waines00:09:22  Yeah, no kidding, no kidding.

Michelle Frechette 00:09:24  I will never travel without the tripod again. Bottom line.

Sam Waines 00:09:29  No. Fair enough, fair enough.

Michelle Frechette 00:09:29  Still learning. 

Sam Waines 00:09:30  I think it’s such a challenge making video on the go, like, vlog style, like I used to do, with the GoPro was handy because it was small enough you could put it in your pocket. But a lot of these, like high-end vloggers and video creators, they have their whole setup, and they have these real minimal tripods that they travel with that cost $1,000. And it’s like, oh my. Yeah, it’s quite a lot.

Michelle Frechette 00:09:53  You can get a telescoping tripod that’ll go up to like nine feet high, but it’s not weighted. It’s you want it to be lightweight if you’re traveling. But on the other hand, if you’re putting a camera or even your phone at the top of something that’s, you know, even six feet in this, in the, in the air, it’s very tippable. So you have to be really careful. You don’t want to be knocking things down and breaking your equipment for sure.

Sam Waines 00:10:18  Yeah, no. Actually, I, I just saw this. I have to show you this is one of my lights, and it’s actually on a on a telescopic tripod, and it’s also quite heavy. And it goes like it sways back and forth when I move it. So I have to be careful with that one as well. It just stays in the room, though. Not a problem.

Michelle Frechette 00:10:38  Because somebody who wears glasses, obviously I have a challenge right? Because I’ve got if I do this, you can see I’ve got two Elgato key lights on either side. So they’re actually aimed a little bit up and a little bit away from me so that I get the light, but a little less reflection in my glasses. But yeah. If your glasses where it’s just going to happen. So you just. I think most people tend not to notice it as much anymore. But we were all carrying video cameras in our pockets basically. So. But it’s challenging. I’ll just say it. So, what kind of microphone do you use? I mean, we talked about your camera.

Sam Waines 00:11:13  Yeah. Well if I, if I move it too much you won’t hear me very well.

Michelle Frechette 00:11:17  Right. It’s very nice.

Sam Waines 00:11:20  It’s the Blue Yeti. Yeah. And, there are better microphones that exist. But once I got this one, and set it up right with these on the side of, like, editing and everything, once I got the levels, just how I like it. It’s been working great for me.

Michelle Frechette 00:11:37  Yeah. Sounds good.

Sam Waines 00:11:38  Yeah. So. And this is, without any kind of, what do you call it? Correction for the audio. In fact, actually, I would say this is one of the challenges for any video creator, because anyone can get even a $100 camera and start filming, you know, with that camera.  It’s not. It’s not super expensive. You got webcams on your computer or whatever, but audio is such a challenge, and it’s also a challenge. If you’re, for example, if you’re recording something on your phone, most of the time the phone’s audio recording software or hardware is not going to be sufficient for even basic video needs. Because most people will put up with a bad video. They might even watch a black screen if you really have something good to say. But they will not put up with bad audio. And that’s a real challenge. So for the first six months to a year of my of my job, with Barn 2, I was playing around constantly with the audio, trying to get it right, trying to minimize the echo in the room. These panels you see behind me, they’re not actually made of wood. They’re foam. They’re acoustic foam. And I know it’s it’s probably not a huge impact, maybe only 10%-20%, but just bringing down that extra little bit of echo in the room does matter, because this room is only about, you know, ten feet by eight feet or something. I’m not sure, you know, for your American viewers that I tried to translate.  The dimensions. You know. Three by two, it’s three meters by two meters. So it’s it’s not very big. And the echo is a problem, or was more of a problem when I started. yeah. And so I made some changes in the room, about a year ago, and put up these panels and put up these, whatever you call them. Dressers, like cabinets. And, just tried to make this, like, little set for the videos so that the easiest thing for me now is if I want to record something, even if I want to rerecord something like fix something, I can just turn on the lights, turn on the camera, and do that little bit of recording and everything is the same as it was when I did the recording originally. Whereas before, I was using the window light. And this is a huge challenge because in the springtime and summer there are these giant green trees across the road, which I absolutely love, but they make the whole room green in the video.

Michelle Frechette 00:14:07  Oh funny.

Sam Waines 00:14:07  Yeah. So. And also if it’s dark day, if it’s raining, all of those things impact the light levels, you know? And so having a more consistent setup is a real time saver first of all. And it’s also just mentally it’s a lot easier to get yourself ready to record.

Michelle Frechette 00:14:28  You have a routine.

Sam Waines 00:14:29  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I’ve made something like 150 videos for Barn 2 now, and, I can tell you that even now, I still have to kind of amp myself up to do a video recording. which sounds really funny, because, you know, you think you do it often enough. You wouldn’t be such a big challenge. But if you aren’t in the right mindset, it’s hard to either, you know, go through your script if that’s what you have or it’s hard to be off the cuff ready to present or say something in a way that doesn’t repeat yourself, like you’re not repeating yourself. And also make sense. And, I’m a talker, but I wouldn’t say I’m the most eloquent with words.

Michelle Frechette 00:15:14  One of the things that I, So Nicholas Papin, find amazing to me, he is creating content across platforms, and he gifted me with this wonderful tripod for my phone and sent me some amazing DJI. what do you call them? Lapel mics. Yeah. 

Sam Waines: Oh yeah. 

Michelle Frechette: So that. Yeah. So that when I’m out and about. And now when I’m creating TikTok, I put that on because so much better than my quality is so much better. Like you said, the audio is so much better. And so I have now been, like, upgrading my equipment here and there. I have a Shure mic, which I love, which is also a gift from Kathy Zand. And it has some really great, great sound. I do have a Blue Yeti. It’s in a drawer because I replaced it with I had I had the Blue Yeti at the office, and I had the Shure at the home office, but closed the office. And so I have duplicate equipment. And so I just got the Shure here because it’s smaller and takes up less room on my desk. But the this other equipment has made audio so much easier. And when I record TikToks and I record, it sounds silly at 56 years old, it’ll be like when I record TikToks, but I do. I put the lapel mic on, and it makes such a difference in the sound quality. And even especially like this, I don’t think I’m echoey. I think I get told I sound pretty good on here, but I’m in a fairly large room. This is a bedroom or was a bedroom. It’s an office, home office now, but I have rugs on the floor. I filled it with a lot of things that really do absorb the sound that I’ve got curtains on the window right next to me as well. So hopefully. And even a desk pad that, you know, all kind of absorbs those different things. So it makes a difference for sure.

Sam Waines 00:16:56  Yeah, it sounds funny, but when I, when I added all the things into the room, the room became more cluttered. As a result. There’s still a bookshelf. There’s still a whole desk with a bunch of things on it, but I think that it does have a really positive impact on the sound quality, because having pictures on the desk probably breaks up some of the sound patterns and stuff. Yeah, it’s probably all adds up a little bit. Yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:17:21  And even guitars on my wall over here, you know, it’s all wood. Everything’s kind of absorbing. The strings are not resonating. So it’s not like suddenly there’s somebody playing mariachi in the corner or something, but.

Sam Waines 00:17:35  I wanted to back up a second and just talk about, so my, first of all, I had a little bit of experience with WordPress before I started with Barn 2. and I was building a site for the same reason as, like when I was making the vlogs. So I was playing around with making a website for that project. And I also, yeah, I think I was working on a few other things, and I was basically I was going on YouTube. I was watching those videos, like how to make a website, you know, using Elementor or something like that. And so, yeah, I got, I got myself like a domain and WordPress site, and I was working on all of those things, but I didn’t turn that into any kind of profitable venture. But when this opportunity came up, to apply for Barn 2, I found the job listing on a remote work website, listing other jobs, a bunch of jobs, and, yeah. So I made my application. I obviously mentioned my YouTube channel, my previous WordPress experience, which wasn’t too extensive, but it seemed to be enough. And then, I got into the next round of, well, interviews. But Katie actually put out, like a challenge for five people to make a video, which is literally to, you know, do the job that you’ll be doing. And I know not everyone has time to do these kinds of projects when you when you’re not even guaranteed to get the job. But I figured, well, this is the only job I’ve come across lately that I really want to do, and I’m just looking for work right now so I have no other job. So I spent two days working on a video and, did you know, did my best to try to understand what the plugin was about and how I could integrate it into this video and stuff, and, yeah, it worked out. So, I’m glad I put that extra time in. And, yeah, I know it’s a challenge because when you apply for 100 jobs and they all tell you to do something, it’s it’s not easy. But when you, in my case, I just really focused in on one thing and. Yeah, here we are two and a half years later.

Michelle Frechette 00:19:41  I was gonna say it worked. It worked for you.

Sam Waines 00:19:43  Yeah, exactly two and a half years and 150 videos later.

Michelle Frechette 00:19:48  Yeah. I remember Katie posting on, I still call it Twitter, because saying posting on X just sounds so weird.  I want to say it was last year. Maybe I bought your setup, and what’s in the background, and all of that. And there was all this debate and all these opinions coming at you about how you should set up your camera and your background and your microphone, and all these things. So how did, like, public input influence how you did set things up? Was there any really good advice that you got, or did you pretty much go, okay thanks, everybody. But I’m doing it my way.

Sam Waines 00:20:23  Yeah. You’ve you’ve just, triggered me a little bit. No. I’m kidding.

Michelle Frechette: Haha!

Sam Waines 00:20:30  This was one of those times where. Because when I was doing this work, I also was pausing my normal video production and when and especially at the time I was only doing videos. Now I have other marketing tasks that I’ve picked up, specifically from Katy, but at the time, it was just videos. So if I wasn’t putting out 1 or 2 videos a week, I wasn’t really doing my job as such, you know? And this project dragged out for most of the month of August. So I had a little bit of time off. So I wasn’t working then. Obviously I wasn’t doing any videos. And then I came back and I was doing this project for three weeks, and it should have only been one week, maybe. But it turned out that our initial ideas, our initial tests of what we had for a background, wasn’t really fitting what we were hoping it would fit, and I even put all these, like, hexagon panels on the wall behind me as a way to, like, test it out. And then I realized that this glue was so strong it actually ripped the paint off the wall after. I took it off. So behind this here is a bunch of ripped paint. But the point is, is that when we ever do leave this place. We’re good. We’re good friends with the owners. And, we’ll just get the wall repainted or something like that. Yeah. So this is it’s semi-permanent. Like, it needs to stay there because it’s covering up all the stuff.

Michelle Frechette 00:21:56  All the sins as  they say.

Sam Waines 00:21:57  Yeah, exactly. And all this feedback was, it’s important to get feedback in, in all aspects of work, and including the videos themselves. I need feedback, but I’m one of those people where, if somebody gives me a critique, it can be completely valid, completely accurate, and totally nice. Like, they can be really nice about it, and I will still go into a corner and cry. No, not literally, but. You know what I mean. Like I’ll be upset. 

Michelle Frechette: Yeah, yeah, yeah a little. Oh, yeah.

Sam Waines 00:22:27  Oh come on, I thought I did a good job, and then I’ll come back and I’ll be like, okay, that’s totally valid. And I’ll, I’ll change something or I’ll fix it or I’ll, you know, I just don’t like feeling that in the moment. Like, oh, something is wrong here. Something didn’t go well. Yeah. So this was a bit of a process. And also getting a lot of, let’s just say like mixed advice and mixed ideas. There was almost like a 50/50 split between what people thought was a better idea. And that made it really hard to proceed. Yeah. So at some point, we just had to make the call ourselves and go for it. And yeah, I wouldn’t recommend that particular process. But at the same time, in hindsight, it’s like, wow, it’s great to have all this now and to have everything set up for the videos. Like I said, it makes it easier to do the recordings. But, yeah, there was, there was a it was it was just a challenging month for me. I think going through that.

Michelle Frechette 00:23:27  I can imagine. Well, I like what you settled on. So the hexagons and things like that they were nice. But I tell people in marketing because I get asked for marketing advice and do some consulting on the side. When people ask me, you know what makes the difference for Brand Voice? I always say humanity. Like, show your human side, right? Be somebody that’s relatable and warmth. And I think a lot of people set up their studio or there’s their, you know, their space to record. And it sometimes has a very sterile feeling to it. Or it’s obviously a fake background. Right? And I get asked all the time, is that your real. Is that your real office, or is that a background? And you might get to ask that as well. Right. If people are doing one-on-one, I’m like, no, this is really mine. I really took the time to set it up to have some warmth and to have my personality infused in it. And if it was going to be fake. It certainly wouldn’t be this busy. But busy is me. I like how it looks, right? And so you have that wood and I know it’s not real wood now but you have that wood panel look. You’ve got some greenery, you’ve got some dark colors and some light and it works really really well. I’ve got flowers. They’re Lego, but they look, but they look real, the Legos. 

Speaker 3 00:24:39  Yeah. Okay.

Michelle Frechette 00:24:40  And then I’ve got the wood here with my father’s guitars. You know, some things, and then some nature photos behind me as well. And I think that that really helps people connect when they see you because they’re seeing some of your personality and your surroundings. Not just like, oh, this is some studio I stepped into. And it’s or it’s a fake background that I pulled down off the internet to use. So I think it works. I think it looks really good.

Sam Waines 00:25:00  Can you see the Oscar trophy in the corner?

Michelle Frechette 00:25:02  I do, yeah. Where did that come from?

Speaker 3 00:25:07  I actually don’t know. I have to check again exactly where it came from, but I think it’s just one of those things that turned up one day, and I thought it’d be funny to put it on the on the background.

Michelle Frechette 00:25:17  I had one over here, and I just put it away last week. It was, it was like the little Oscar trophies. And we had done them when I was at GiveWP. We, it was literally the week before lockdown. For somebody’s birthday, we did like our version of the Dundee Awards from The Office. And so, being the boss at that time, I gave myself the World’s Best Boss trophy. And so that’s what sat behind me. All on Michael Scott for the longest time, but it’s in a cabinet now. So I was trying to, like, declutter a little bit and make things a little bit easier to to see behind me. So much fun. What is your advice? So let’s talk. You create, I know you create videos for a specific product, but podcasting is also something that people often ask questions about. And when we set up our studio, like you have and like I have for video creation, it’s also translatable to podcasting as well. And so oftentimes people will ask me, what’s the best microphone or what’s the best camera? How do I set it up? What’s the best lighting? And of course, my advice is whatever you have on hand to get started is good. And then as you grow, you can invest in better equipment. But for somebody just starting out who maybe can’t afford a Blue Yeti or a Sony camera, what would you suggest to them as something that’s a good, here’s how you get started.

Sam Waines 00:26:50  Yeah. Great question. There there is a cheaper line of Sony cameras called the, I think it’s the E1 or EV. I’m trying to remember now, but they are also very capable of recording in high quality, and they come in at around half the price point of the type of camera that I have, which is another about half the price point of the higher level. So there are levels to these. However, if, it depends. Yeah. Because everyone’s starting somewhere, right? At the moment, I’m doing this video on my MacBook, webcam. And I think the quality is great, but not everyone has a MacBook. I understand that not all webcams are made equal, though, and you might want to get an external webcam like a USB webcam, which I think they come in at a very reasonable price point for the type of quality you can expect. Plus they’re, you know, plug and play, right? The downside of this camera is that unless I want to buy another device, which connects it directly to my computer, I’m limited to using the SD card and transferring files over. So for live streaming, I don’t have the option to use this camera without a special. It’s, I can’t remember what it’s called right now, but it’s, it’s a thing that plugs in and it connects the camera directly to the computer. And they’re expensive because they’re trying to transfer a lot of data and, and do it at high quality in real time. Yeah, as far as microphones, I started out with a probably about $12 lav mic. When I was making videos for this channel and I made it work. Was it great? Like, was it perfect? No, but with a little bit of post-processing in the editing side of things, you can make it a lot better. One thing that you just what we were discussing before is just really get the echo down, because that will make a big difference no matter what microphone you’re using.  And then, of course, external noise. Now, when I’m recording videos, this is my big tip to everyone. I use OBS software, open broadcast software. And just like WordPress, it’s open source, it’s free. And, it’s great for live streaming, gaming channels, recording, and basically anything. So I use it to both record my screen because that’s a big part of what I do, and also record my audio. And then I sync the audio with whatever audio the camera gives me. I don’t use that audio, but I just sync it with the video. And so OBS has a feature for audio, like kind of pre-processing the audio, and it’s got this noise reduction option. And when you use that, I promise it will, it will eliminate anything in the background like a washing machine, somebody, unless it’s like a human voice, like, you know, if there’s just some kind of music or chatter, cars out on the street, it will really, like, fix all of that for you. And then last resort, I also have the same kind of technology in my editing software, which, in DaVinci Resolve, they also have a voice mode. I can’t remember exactly what it’s called right now, but if you enable that on your audio track, it will only keep the vocal like spoken word, and it will eliminate any other music or anything else that was happening. And there are people that have tested this and they’ve gone into the markets and the streets of India or whatever, and they’re like, you know, they’re honking, honking horns and people chattering and stuff, and they’re talking to the camera. And when they, you know, snap their fingers and put this post-processing on, it actually just leaves you with the audio of the voice. And it’s brilliant.

Michelle Frechette 00:30:47  Technology has come so far.

Sam Waines 00:30:50  Yeah, exactly. AI processing. And it’s come a long way. So. Yeah, but in the initial phase. Yeah. Do your best to reduce the echo. I think that’s the hardest thing to get rid of.

Michelle Frechette 00:31:01  When I first started my first podcast back in 2018, I literally was using headphones. I didn’t know enough to use headphones. And then the mic that was built into the Mac and the camera that was built into the Mac. And of course, we’re talking, you know, seven years ago. So the technology in your Mac seven years ago is very different than, you know, a newer Mac. And that’s how I podcast for the first year. Until somebody is like, you know, you should really think about getting an external camera and maybe a microphone? And then if you listen to those early episodes versus some later episodes, you really can hear the difference. Now, did anybody complain? No. Were people listening and tuning in, and paying attention anyway? Yes. So that’s why I always tell people, start with what you have and build from there. But yeah, if you have the opportunity to invest even, you know, $25, $50 into an external mic, you’re better off than just using the built-in from the from the Mac.

Sam Waines 00:32:00  Yeah. And it’s about that proximity to your mouth. Literally. Yeah. So even in high quality productions of movies, they have the guy holding the mic because it’s important to have the mic close to the person’s mouth when they’re, when they’re speaking. And podcasting takes that to another level. I have a couple of podcasts I listen to, and the guy is, a former radio broadcaster, and you can really tell. You know, he’s right up close to the mic and he’s speaking with his deep voice, you know, and also, Bob does this he’s got a he’s got a voice for radio.

Michelle Frechette 00:32:42  Yeah. When I record intros and outros for things like that, I get up really nice and close to the to the microphone as well. And you can really hear you change your timbre of your voice. You change the tone of your voice, the volume of your voice. And it makes a difference, right? People are like, wow, who recorded that intro? I’m like, I did that.

Michelle Frechette 00:33:00  Like, didn’t sound like you. I’m like, good that’s that’s what I was going for. I didn’t want it to sound like excitable Michelle. Right. So, but it is fun and it’s. And the proximity, like you said, it makes a big difference. I have actually gotten on calls. They weren’t recorded, but gotten on calls where I forgot that I had set my microphone way over here, and people can still hear me. But then halfway through, I’m like, oh, and I bring it forward. They’re like, oh my gosh, that just sounded so much better just now. Like, yeah, that was a newbie move. But yeah.

Sam Waines 00:33:32  Yeah, even even if you buy the $100, $200 microphone, you still have to connect it and make sure it’s the one selected for the live stream call recording or anything like that. So that’s yeah, that’s and actually one little tip I have is when you record on a microphone like the Blue Yeti or any other double check what your computer’s settings are for audio recording level, because it doesn’t matter what microphone you have plugged in, the level might be really high or really low, which can lead to either clipping or issues with picking up all of the sound that you’re, that you’re, making. So, occasionally, due to some software updates or something else on my Mac, I actually have to go into my settings and just regulate this a little bit. It’s a it’s setting in the volume for like audio recording level. And I have it set at about 25% right now. But earlier I needed it at around 50 and at a different time, around 10%. So you do have to be aware of this. Software like OBS will show you when you’re in the red or in the green or in the yellow. I like to be somewhere in the yellow when I’m recording. Because I don’t want to miss anything, but also I don’t want to be clipping in the red too much. And this is actually a computer setting separate to OBS and separate to your microphone.

Michelle Frechette 00:35:00  We have a couple of people in the, you know, who are watching. If you do have questions, throw them out there. Right. I’ve got about another five minutes or so before I think we’ve exhausted our content, but we do want to answer any questions that you have.  I have a lot of experience, but not necessarily wealth of knowledge, because I’m just like, fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to this stuff. And Sam, you certainly have a lot more expertise. I will say for this.

Sam Waines 00:35:26  What I wanted to say, Michelle, is that it’s really important not to get lost in the weeds of the technology. When what you have expressed a few times already in this conversation, and what I have yet to say, is that it does actually come down to the content itself. the content of the content. So we talk a lot about content creation. Content creation. You know, you got to get lots of content out there for SEO and everything. And yes, it’s true. You do have to have a presence online. But if what you’re sharing is really either important to people useful, or just tells a really great story, that’s when people will pay attention. Not when you get the perfect edit. Not when you have the perfect sound.  Not when you have the perfect background, but when you have something to share that’s actually, you know, really good for them. And, one of my challenges, I’ll be a little bit candid here, is that I do feel a bit like an impostor sometimes, although, you know, everyone feels like that in their job. Because there are times where I have to learn something about WordPress or about websites in general. Within the same week as when I’m making a video about it. Because it’s relevant to the video and I’m learning it as well. And this is, you know, this is really challenging. Sometimes I feel like I should take a year off making videos and just get really good at this, these skills, and then come back and share that knowledge. But sometimes I just have to do it on the go because, you know, I’m making videos on a regular basis. So it is a challenge, but if you have something, you know, really good to share, I would, I would honestly say that somebody who is, less of a video guy or girl and more of a expert in a particular thing, they’ll always have a better shot at making a good channel than somebody who can just put together a good edit with good, you know, with good presentation.

Michelle Frechette 00:37:28  Yeah, that makes sense for sure. We talked about equipment. You’ve mentioned Da Vinci a few times as far as software. I’ll throw in some of the software I’ve used over the years, which is. So I’m using StreamYard for live streaming. I will admit that I record podcasts for recorded podcasts using Zoom still. It seems to be just easy. Everybody has access to that kind of thing. But as far as editing, I have been an Adobe user forever. So I use Adobe Rush for video editing, and then I use Audacity, which is a free software for audio editing. I use those mostly because I already had like when I got Photoshop Rush came with it. So I was like, okay, I’m just going to use that because I’ve already got it. And I couldn’t figure out GarageBand for anything on my Mac. And so I use things that, you know, that just that I had access to and that other people recommended and those kinds of things. So I say that also to let people know that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on software either. I know people that are using Descript for editing. I know people that are using, like I said, GarageBand for editing their audio or video, things like that. So or iMovie on their Mac. So I always when you ask a photographer what’s the best camera? It’s always the one that you have. And then, if you can invest money, upgrade from there. Right? So if I have my phone in my hand and my my Canon’s are back in the house, I’m pulling out the phone because it’s the best camera for that. You know, it’s there. It’s in the moment. So what the software you have access to is always going to be fine until you can afford to improve it. And sometimes you don’t even need to. Like, Audacity is really good. You can do so much with that software without actually investing any money at all. So, you know, so to use what you have and then improve it as you go.

Sam Waines 00:39:21  And it depends on the format you’re trying to create for. Because, like you’re making TikToks, and frankly, most people will be more entertained and interested in a video filmed on a phone.

Michelle Frechette 00:39:34  It’s interesting how that works, isn’t it? There’s also a Teleprompter to use teleprompter software at all?

Sam Waines 00:39:41  Oh, okay. I, I have debated about setting this up because I have a nice studio and setup and everything.

Michelle Frechette 00:39:48  Yeah.

Sam Waines 00:39:48  The reason I haven’t is because while I do script things like intros and outros, I’m not. I try not to be too heavy on the script the whole way through. And I do try to sound like a little bit off the cuff, but, what ends up happening, I’ll be honest, is I just make a lot of mistakes as I go through the script, and I just have to, you know, rerecord in my editor or myself, who, you know, when I have to edit my own videos, I’m just cutting out huge sections of mistakes, but that’s where Descript actually is a good software, because you can use the text editing to cut out all those mistakes and keep your best takes. I did try Descript, because it’s it’s more simple. I didn’t end up keep, like continuing to use it because it just didn’t go into my workflow very well. But one thing I did add into my workflow is a software called Screen Studio, and they’re pretty new. I found them through Twitter, but if you’ve ever seen those videos of people showing off their software where it kind of like zooms in and then they click on something and then it zooms out. This is actually there’s a there’s a specific software called Screen Studio. Now, it is a paid software. There’s no free version, as far as I’m aware. And I invested in it because it was really great for collecting B-roll for my videos because during the intro or during some point of the video, I want to show something else. And I want to show it in a nice way. Like our plugins or things like that. So I record something on my screen, and then I go into this, you know, using the software. And then they have an editing feature where you can add these little zooms manually. So it’ll like zoom in, zoom out, highlight something. And, the main reason I do this is because the zoom feature in my main video editor is, is very good, but it adds about four times the rendering time to each video. If I’m adding for like a minute instead of rendering within a minute, it’ll render within, you know, ten minutes or something. This, this section of the video. And it’s caused a lot of headaches for me. So that’s why I added this one software. And because it makes these really nice, neat-looking, b-roll for showing off software in videos.

Michelle Frechette 00:42:15 Nice.  I, put it in the chat here too. So what I use I when I’m just doing a talk or I’m recording a talk, I’m not using teleprompter, but sometimes I’m recording something very specific, whether it’s a birthday greeting or, you know, somebody asking for video for something and I have scripted it, or if I’m recording in another language that is not my own, and I have to remember how to what what exactly I’m supposed to say. So, for example, I don’t speak Italian, but I recorded a little video for a friend’s son who only speaks Italian, and without a teleprompter. There was no way I was going to remember what to say. So I have a teleprompter app on my phone. I honestly don’t remember if I paid for it or if it was free. If I did pay for it, I know it was under $10. The teleprompter Mira.com/telepromptersoftware.htm which is what I put in the chat, is a free software that you can use, and you can set the speed at which the words go by so that you can actually keep up with what you want to say. So, for example, Blake and I can’t remember.. Sorry, Blake, if you’re listening, I don’t remember what it was that your software is, but he was hitting a million downloads, and so he wanted to know if people like how to celebrate it. And so I made a little video that he could use to put out and ask other people to put, like, congratulations, like, on 1 million downloads. And I want it to be right. I want it to be funny. So I was like a million downloads. That’s like, you know, a million drops of water is this many gallons and a million whatever. And a million feathers is this many chickens, don’t ask like that kind of thing just to be funny. But I wasn’t going to remember all the million things that I had created if I hadn’t put them in Teleprompter, because it wasn’t just conversational. And so sometimes I do use Teleprompter for things, but I really don’t want to forget, or I really want things to come across very organized and not disorganized. Michelle. So, so yeah. So those are some of the softwares that I use. as far as teleprompting.

Sam Waines 00:44:16  That’s a good idea. The only reason I haven’t set it up, specifically, is because, I didn’t want I don’t have, like, an iPad or anything, and I didn’t want to get a whole, like, teleprompter setup, but do you use, like, a mirror with your phone and everything, or do you just put your phone near your camera somehow?

Michelle Frechette 00:44:36 So when I’m filming on my camera, it has my face behind it and it just runs the words over me so I could see myself, but the words over it as well, so I can stay focused right on the camera. And then when I’m recording for like, let’s say I’m recording on Zoom or something, I don’t have to see myself. I can actually just have the words on the screen because I can trim, right? So it’s like at the end I’m like, where’s the button? Where’s the button? It doesn’t matter because I’m just gonna trim that part off at the end anyway. So if you’ve ever seen me, if you’ve ever seen me something I’ve recorded at the end I just stand, smile. And I hold that for like five extra seconds. So that you don’t ever see me go. Where’s the button? So I have. I add those little bumpers for myself so that I know I have trimble,trimble pieces, you know.

Sam Waines00:45:22  Nice.

Michelle Frechette 00:45:22  It’s like margins. I create margins for myself at either end.

Sam Waines 00:45:26  Yeah, I have to do that. I have to do that too, when I record an intro, for example. If you just start talking and start doing the intro, but your head’s still moving or your eyes are still somewhere else, you have to you have to retake that. So I have a little margin of like, look at the camera, start talking. And then at the end, I have to remind myself, don’t look away at the script or don’t look away at anything until you’ve just given that just extra little second. Because if you finish talking but your eyes trail off before you finish talking, you have to retake that, you know? Because it just looks like you’ve lost interest and the viewer, you know, isn’t interesting to you or something like that.

Michelle Frechette 00:46:08  Yeah. Okay, so June’s here, and I have to. I am such a person who does not understand. I can’t even think of what. I don’t know what BTS mean.

Sam Waines00:46:17  Behind The Scenes.

Michelle Frechette 00:46:19  Oh. Thank you. Like god, June is like schooling me on the acronyms right now, but, yeah. So there are methods to the madness. So I finish and I’m just, like, staring at the screen like this, and I’m like, okay, that’s enough time, so I can trim it off. And you’re right, because what you do is you’ll see on TikTok and everything is you’ll see people talk, and then you’ll see them do this. Like they’re reaching to touch that stop. And you can trim anything before it goes live. So why not give yourself a couple extra seconds of that brilliant smile and then click that button so you can trim the end right off.

Sam Waines 00:46:57  Yeah. Fair enough. I haven’t been on TikTok for quite a while. I actually took it off my phone about a year ago, and but I still watch Instagram Reels and sometimes TikToks come over from there and, and, shorts. And actually, we’re making more YouTube shorts for the Barn 2 YouTube channel, which has been an interesting challenge for me. I would say I was a little bit resistant to it because when it comes to our like important metrics, views is not a main important metric for us. But downloads and sales of our plugins are, and we don’t really get a lot of follow-through from short formats into our plugins. But you might argue that that’s because it’s for a different purpose. It’s a top of funnel, you know, broader reach, kind of, sort of.

Michelle Frechette 00:47:47  It’s branding.

Sam Waines 00:47:48  Yeah, exactly. Branding. And just getting, getting our name out there and everything. But it was hard to justify the time put into that versus what I could put into a normal video and have that video do well in search. So, you know, we get about 40,000 views a month on our channel, and about 60% or so come through search, whether it’s Google or YouTube search directly. And that’s the bread and butter of our channel is like keywords search people finding our videos through that way, because they’re already interested in that topic. And we know that they might have an intent to look for a plugin to solve that problem with short videos. I main challenge for me was figuring out what I wanted to make the short videos about, because I didn’t want to condense entire tutorials down into one-minute shorts, because that defeats the whole purpose of doing the main video. And it wouldn’t probably do well anyways. And if I do two broad of topics, then it might not be relevant enough to give people an idea of what the channel is about, because at the end of the day, we’re a channel showing off our software products, our plugins and apps. And, you know, people can decide if they like that or not. They might just come for one video. They might search us up again and find more videos that they like as well. But we’re not strictly like an entertainment channel, you know? And, we’re also not exactly a general WordPress channel either. We have our specific topics that we cover on a regular basis. So one thing that I had recommended to me was actually to cover our case studies in short formats. So we have a bunch of websites that use our plugins, and they’ve agreed to be on our website as a case study, as a showcase. And I actually grab those stories. I try to wrap them up into a nice one-minute-long script and put that into a short format. So I’ve just finished editing three of those. They’re going to go up on the channel soon, and I’ll see how they do. It’s going to be a lot of learning for me basically.

Michelle Frechette 00:50:08  And are your. Are your shorts filmed vertically or horizontally?

Sam Waines 00:50:11  Oh, great question. I actually just film vertically anyway, and I just cut this. And there are two things I do in the editing. Either I have the entire screen full just like this, or I zoom myself out a little bit, and I’m taking up this part of the screen, like down here, and then there’s something to be seen from the computer like a eebsite or whatever, up on the top. And I put my subtitles right in the middle. And so when I’m, when I’m when it’s just me, the subtitles are kind of right over my mouth, which you could argue maybe like not perfect but it’s accessible. And then when you have the two sections, the subtitles are in the middle. And I think that looks pretty good.

Michelle Frechette 00:50:54  Nice. Yeah, yeah. Because I know that for like Reels and Shorts, it’s almost always like phone style, you know, filming. So it’s very different than your long format, which is, you know, horizontal filming.

Sam Waines 00:51:07  Next up, I’ll probably experiment with doing even like some selfie-style videos of like, hey, check out this website, you know, blah blah blah. There are lots of different formats that people are doing and quite successfully on short videos, but the underlying reason why they’re probably finding success is storytelling.

Michelle Frechette 00:51:26  Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Waines 00:51:27  And that means so many different things. And I’m trying to learn what that means for us and for our channel. But storytelling is the big one.

Michelle Frechette 00:51:35  Absolutely. And again, that’s how you connect human beings is with stories for sure. Thank you so much. I want to put some better if people are interested in connecting with you, learning more, they can find you over on formerly Twitter, now X.com/your name SamWaines. And so that’s how you get in touch with Sam. All of this will be in the show notes of course. So if you are listening and you want to find that later, you can just find it over on Post Status Comm under our News and look for this episode. And next week I will be speaking with Nathan Tyler and Natalie MacLees on their transition from strictly plugins. like, the simply schedule event calendars, kind of thing to SaaS products. So and I remember to write the A’s as lowercase, by the way. So.

Sam Waines 00:52:28  Oh, wow. So, when I got my first online job, I had no idea what SaaS even meant.

Michelle Frechette 00:52:37  Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t it? But I’ll be with Nathan and with Natalie next week talking about those things. Sam, thank you. I know it’s very late where you are. It’s going on almost 11:00 in the evening. I hope you have a wonderful night. Thank you so much for spending some time talking video and video content with me today. Everybody else, thanks for hanging in there with us and for being a great audience. And we’ll see everybody next week then. Thanks.

Sam Waines 00:52:59  Thank you so much, Michelle. See you everybody later.

Michelle Frechette 00:53:02  My pleasure.