The idea of creating a home studio can be quite daunting when one first ponders the idea, however, in the modern day of technology and low-cost solutions, it doesn't have to be. Many who have picked up an expensive movie editing software may have seen, there is a LOT you can do with the right software. However there is also low-cost alternatives you can find that can offer you the same quality out that those expensive software packages can.
Realistically however, the first step in determining your home studio needs to be the stuff that you normally don't think about. Stuff like sound and backgrounds. One has to keep in mind that, depending on the sensitivity of your technology, one will need to consider what is going on all around the creative process. To this point, background is critical. A quick tour of Amazon.com will produce a list of green-screens sheets that can be hung in the background, thereby allowing you to replace the filmed green-screen with a background more supportive of the message being delivered fairly easily. Ranging from about $16 USD up to hundreds of dollars, the use of a green-screen on the background will go a long way in "upping" the level of your created content. Pleasing backgrounds are a must when creating these higher-end content productions. A substantial part of the green-screen background also prevents unnecessary lighting from entering the scene, thereby potentially blinding the camera.
Next up in the "original things to consider" list is the ambient noises that can be heard when recording audio. Depending on the sensitivity of your microphones, the creaking of the floor in another part of the house might be brought to your recording and require additional editing to get it out. This means that one of the first parts here is to find a quieter part of your home or recording location. In the home, a location that has many heavy drapes around is ideal, as the drapes will absorb much of the unwanted ambient sounds. In addition, heavy carpeting adds to the noise cancellation, allowing a more clear crisper tone to be recorded. This means less audio editing has to be done, so that would be good. A foam covering over the microphone head will add to the noise cancellation and go a long way in reducing "lip smack" (another unwanted sound).
By facing microphones away from a potential sound producer, we can minimize the impact it will have on your recordings. Certainly not removing those sounds, essentially not making them as prominent. Not meaning to offend those that do, but laptop, cell phone, and camera microphones are all sub-standard equipment, and should be replaced (in your process) as soon as you financially can. Even the YETI Blue microphone (about $199 USD on Amazon) is a big step up from those built-in. While we recommend an XLR Condenser microphone, this is another financial step up as one will need some form of pre-amp or amp with "phantom power" to be able to use an XLR, so from a "keeping the costs down" perspective, we'll stick to the YETI.
So far the studio is about $220 +/- (USD) and we haven't even got to what "used to be" the expensive part.
In much the same way those built in microphones of cell phones, laptops, and video cameras are, so too are the video camera portions. So much more flexibility lies in video cameras of the modern-day. A video camera must be able to create the level of content, in the volume you'll need for higher-end productions. In MP4 format (the best digital format (our opinion)), about 10 minutes of recorded footage is approximately 1.5GB in size, so obviously plan accordingly. Also plan on messing up periodically until you get the hang of it, so a good rule of thumb is to have twice as much storage as you're going to record. Having other recordable media around would never hurt either. In our opinion, the most basic camera you'll want to look at starts in the $200 (USD) range. Don't kid yourself, you can spend tens of thousands on a camera, however, unless you are doing a full feature production, it would definitely overkill to go over $500. Our Ordro AC-3 cameras (which we absolutely adore), start right around $200 and our assessment is that they are the best in that range.
Now, you've got sound and video data, what do you do with it? Well, this brings up the O.S. (operating system) you choose to work on. For all our production needs, we have chosen an Apple MacBook Pro laptop. It's super powerful, plus being a laptop makes it portable so we can record and save stuff in the field if we have to. However, some have chosen another path, and from a cost perspective, both Linux and Microsoft machines are very inexpensive. The two major components you'll want to ensure you have plenty of is: Hard drive space (video typically takes up a lot), and processor/memory (bigger the better here). Memory is more important to have more of, as the Intel i7 processor is the baseline in this day and age. Don't even consider a Chromebook, or other low-end computer to try this on, as I said before, video data and, specifically rendering completed movies, is expensive in real-estate on the computer. Go as big as you can afford.
Finally, we address the software. While there are many different audio/video editors on the market today, many of them have a price tag that matches their feature list. However, here are just a few of the ones we use that can be interchanged, depending on what hardware (computer) you purchase:
- Audacity is the audio editing software we suggest, as it's free on the internet, offered in all O.S. platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux) and has many different plug-ins that can be used to manipulate your voice, and the recording.
- Apple's iMovie software allows for the green-screening to be done with very little training. It's super intuitive and user friendly, however, as the name indicates, only available for the Apple computers.
- Capcut is another audio/video editor that offers a plethora of effects and transitions that you can add to your home movie to step it up on the production level. Available in all the O.S. platforms, the Pro version will set you back about $100 a year, however, the free version will get you a small selection of the effects to add.
- Apple's Movie Edit Pro is what we use for our final production editing. Costing only about $8 on a one-time purchase, this software allows you to connect up video with a separately recorded audio recording, add keyframes, and a small subset of video effects. Fairly lightweight, we can export completed MP4 movies to our hard drives for upload to an online service, or adding to our own personal collection.
There are many different extremes you can go in each of the areas listed above, however, you should be able to get into your own studio producing high-end content for under a grand, give or take. I hope this has offered you some insight as to setting up your own in-home studio for recording your own content. Happy creations.