Introduction
Setting up a home studio isn’t just a project—it’s an adventure! 🚀 Think of it like launching a marketing campaign, where you juggle aesthetics, function, and practicality all at once.
In this episode of Content Universe, join me, Mikkel Svold, founder of Montanus, as we dive into my journey of transforming a chaotic 12-square-meter office into a creative powerhouse.
Here’s what’s in store:
✨ Tips for a quick setup
📸 Unlocking multiple filming angles
⚖️ Smart use of gravity poles to keep clutter at bay
You’ll get the inside scoop on turning your creative chaos into streamlined success. If you’re a CMO, head of marketing, or brand wizard in science and engineering, this episode is tailor-made for you!
Ready to take your content game to the next level? Hit play now! And remember to subscribe, share, or drop us a line at podcast@montanus.co with your thoughts—we can’t wait to hear from you! 🎙️
What You’ll Learn
1. Quick tips for a flexible home podcast setup.
2. Creating diverse backgrounds for engaging video content.
3. Effective use of space-saving gravity poles for lighting.
4. Trial and error strategies for optimal camera angles.
5. Organize clutter to enhance visual appeal during shoots.
Episode Transcript
Hello, welcome to the Content Universe. Today I’m a bit sweaty because I’ve been moving around in my home office, and I’ve been moving so much around that I had my brother come and help me because I’ve got a lot of heavy stuff going on. The reason I’ve moved around is I want to have a really quick way of setting up and recording a podcast or a video. Alright, so that is what we’re going to talk about today. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mikkel Svold, and I’m the owner and founder of Montanus, which is a production company that produces podcasts and content. All kinds of content—articles, social posts, all that stuff—for high-knowledge companies. Those are our clients mainly, and of course also for ourselves. That is also why I’ve been really struggling to get my home studio set up pretty neatly.
What you should know about my home studio is that it’s probably like 12 square meters, something like that, 10 to 12 square meters. Also, I need to have some of my children’s clothes in here as well as everything that belongs in a normal office. It could be my computer screen, my computer, but also my printer, some of my books, and all the small gadgets that you just gather, and all of that creates a huge mess. The way that I’ve chosen to create this studio now is I really want more than one background to film from, and that is the outset of the decor we are trying to do right now.
Right now, I’m working with a background that is mainly grey—a dark grey wall—and then I have a background where the computer screen is, and then I also want something that is a little more homey, a little more cozy. So I’ve actually cleaned up one of my bookcases to have that in the background for one of my shots. I actually now have three different angles from which I can film. What is, of course, a bit of a dilemma when you’re filming in a home office also used by your general life is that you sometimes need some lighting, and setting up lighting often comes with a lot of stands, a lot of wires, and they’re just really big and messy.
To help me out with that, I picked up some suspension poles. Basically, they’re called gravity poles, and they suspend from one wall to another and clamp in via pressure to that wall. This means I don’t actually have to have the stand for the lights. I can hang up my lights, and that removes quite a bit of clutter from the floor. I have two of those, and I want to hang up four different lights in each corner so I can adjust my lighting for where I’m sitting. My three different angles will obviously have my face turned in different directions, so I want to adjust my lighting accordingly.
What I want you to know, and I think the takeaway from this very short episode is that it’s been a lot of trial and error. We ended up setting up the camera angles we wanted—the three that we wanted—and then tear out all of the interior, taking it out of the room and placing it back in one by one. The frame of the picture or the image frame would still look nice and tidy for my interview recordings. That, ladies and gentlemen, is my big takeaway from today. There’s no way around it. When you set up your home studio, start by taking everything out, set up your different camera angles—I suggest more than one because that’s just nice—and have all that clutter behind the camera. Then fill up your studio through the camera lens so you clutter your space in the background of where you’re filming.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that is today’s episode of the Content Universe. It’s going to be a short one—I think, yep, just four to five minutes. If you like this podcast, go and hit subscribe, and of course, give it a like or share it with your friends or colleagues or whoever might be interested. Let me know what you think; it’s always nice to hear from you. I’ve started to receive a couple of emails from some of the listeners out there, so please just keep doing that. If you email podcast@montanus.co, that email will land straight in my own personal inbox, so please do that and let me know what you think. Until then, I want to say, see you on another planet in the content universe.
