Equipping Ourselves

FabuRocks Podcast

After making tough family decisions, we decided we were more than all in.

We now needed to equip ourselves with the proper equipment. After much research, we quickly found out we had less than the basics. You may ask, what are the basics? Well, we had a cheap camera (HD camera), a couple of offices all in one PC and a lot of enthusiasm!

After watching several channels about making YouTube videos for beginners, we quickly learned that we were in desperate need of a bunch of equipment we had no clue about. We needed a better quality camera, lights (who knew our home lights would not be enough), a microphone, a recorder (to record the audio from the microphone), a green screen if you want to be more creative, and new a computer that would allow us to edit and render a video on time properly. Can you believe our all-in-one office PC took 21 hours to render a 6 min video? Talk about frustrating.

Some of the strategies we took to get the items we needed was:

1. Looking for the best deal - I went to Best Buy and shopped the open box section. Found a 4k video camera with a considerable discount. Mind you, at that time; a 4k video camera was as inexpensive as it is today. 5 years ago, 4k was the latest technology out. Let’s not forget back in the day; our cell phones only recorded in HD.
2. We needed to educate ourselves with the items we were purchasing - We went to Sam Ash looking for a microphone and recorder. We went into the store asking for the best microphone and recorder for making videos. The sales associate asked us if we needed “a dynamic microphone, with phantom power.” This was when we realized we had no idea what we were doing. This associate gave us a 2-hour tutorial on the differences between microphones, recorders and which one would most suit our needs.
3. Building our own PC – We found that building our own PC would not only be less expensive but would build it using parts that we could upgrade in the future when needed.
4. Lights and Green Screen – Even though we had no idea how to use the lights and green screen yet, we bought these as these would allow us to get creative to keep making it interesting for Fabu. We even bought a Green Suit that would make Fabu invisible after editing.

Our home office, little by little, became a mini recording studio.