London’s Soho has always played a central role in the UK’s creative industries. Over the years, it has been home to studios, editing facilities, and production companies. But now, it is welcoming a new set of creatives, as London’s podcasting community grows.
At the heart of that community is The Dean Street Podcast Studio. Located in a former ADR room in a building that used to be the home of post production company De Lane Lea, the studio offers visual podcasting facilities with customisable digital sets, AI-driven camera cutting, professional lighting and automation tools.
The studio is 10×10 metres across and stands 3 metres tall, but thanks to some trickery with a green screen, it can appear bigger. “I worked out a long time ago that vertical walls aren’t great for lighting in a small space,” explains founder Rob Chandler. “Leaning a wall backwards allows you to light from the ceiling. We decided to have a bit of a wing to extend the wall slightly. Because everyone is sitting in front of it, with the cameras two metres away and the green screen another two metres behind, it’s a really controlled environment. The cameras are fixed, the speakers aren’t going to move around and we don’t need a green floor.”
The studio includes three cameras, all 4K UHD Blackmagic Micro Studio Cameras with Lumix lenses sitting on SmallRig tripods. Each of the cameras has an SDI output, which is important for the rest of the podcasting process. Chandler describes them as “about twice the size of a GoPro”.
“We didn’t feel the need to spend lots of money because we’re not creating art; it’s a visual podcast,” he adds.
Each of the camera feeds travels into a Blackmagic Ultimatte placed in a rack under the engineering desk in the corner of the studio.
Chandler originally set up the studio as a Proof of Concept, with the aim of seeing whether it could be done on a “bootstrap budget”. But he is already thinking about how it can evolve, with the idea of placing PTZ cameras on a slider to offer clients more automation. “We could even make it a proper virtual production and use complicated Unreal Engine sets. But podcasting is a very price-sensitive marketplace.
“One of the things I like about the podcast industry is that they turn up, record and then leave. They book for an hour, they’ll turn up for an hour, and they’ll leave. The worst that might happen is the conversation gets really, really interesting, and they run over.”
The three tenets
The Dean Street Podcast Studio has been built on three tenets: audio first, focus on the face and keep it simple. Chandler chose not to stray too far from what’s been done before when deciding which microphones and mixing desks to include. The studio has three Rode PodMics and uses a Mackie DLZ Creator mixer. “Our approach is that video is secondary,” he states. “We’ll do video and that can be used for a multitude of things, whether it’s social, or uploading to YouTube or Apple. But if something goes wrong, you’ve still got an audio podcast.”
Other reasons for using the PodMics are aesthetics and price. “These are cost-effective microphones. If I were building the studio again, maybe I would try to find a microphone that is a little bit more directional, but at the moment, until someone says to me, ‘this is rubbish, and I’m willing to pay an X amount more,’ the mics are fine.”
Once the video and audio have been recorded, post production is handled by DaVinci Resolve. The studio also has uMIX for live streaming, and recently hosted an influencer who was on air for over three hours.
Chandler is already using Unreal Engine for set design, although he admits they tend to be simplistic, as some podcasts are more about the conversation than what’s happening behind the speakers. “It’s a very personal thing of having people in your ear while you’re making tea, doing the housework, or watching on YouTube. Podcasts can be long format as well, and anything too complicated, I think, takes away from that format.”
What he’s found from creators who have used the studio so far is that they’ve been particularly excited by the ability to see the virtual set while sitting in front of a microphone. “The green screen disappears pretty quickly in their psyche. We have 10 backgrounds that people can choose from, or they can use their logo or a splash screen. If a producer is interested in spending a little bit more money, we can give them a background that is unique to their show, and then move the assets and speakers around.
“Conceptually, it’s really hard for podcast producers and shows to work out what they need. We don’t overcomplicate it with technology. If I am asked about the technology, I always question, why? Because if a producer is worried about the camera and its colour space and the shutter angle, do they really want to just shoot a podcast?”
An industry ripe for disruption
Chandler entered the media and entertainment industry five years ago after a career in Big Tech. At the time, he felt it was an area that was ripe for disruption, and he’s seen that particularly play out in the visual podcast space. “Netflix announced a year ago that they were going to be doing podcasts, and they’re not doing that because they love podcasting. They see it as a strategic play in order to be able to get peak ‘stickiness’ on their platform.
“Apple has just gone through a huge amount of development to be able to have video. Spotify accepted videos six months to a year ago. On YouTube, there is a podcast channel now that you can upload to. All of those platforms can see revenue from advertising within that, but it also keeps people on the platform. The visual podcast format will develop, and then you’ll get that second wave of everyone else asking, if you’re not doing video, how do you get found?”
He expects the industry to begin to mature and become more complex as advertisers see ROI, and that will lead to further development of show formats. “That’s the exciting bit,” he adds, “because I don’t think the formats have been invented yet.
“There will be opportunities to really cost-effectively produce shows that previously had such risk attached to them. You could work on a format using a podcast studio that could then convert to broadcast or network distribution, because it’s been proven. Just look at Goalhanger and what they’ve achieved over the last couple of years. Originally, The Rest is Football was just Gary Lineker on a webcam!”
