Podcasting And Community Media: Mike Hall Interviews Adam Grandy | WindyCityRails 2012
🚀 Adam Grandy from WindyCityRails shares his insights on creating high-quality video and audio content for user groups. 🎥 He emphasizes the importance of using the right equipment and the significance of quick distribution. Don't miss this! 🎤 #podcasting #communitymedia #video production #audioquality #quickdistribution
Learn more: https://just3ws.github.io/interviews/adam-grandy-windycityrails-2012
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, I'm Mike with UGtastic. I'm standing here at WindyCityRails with Adam Grandy who does the, I did say that right, thank you. Adam Grandy who does the audio video at WindyCityRails and you've been doing it for a couple of years. Can you just say a little bit about like how long you've been doing the video and how has, how is making sure that, you know, you get good quality video over the last few years. I mean, has that been something that's changed a lot since you first got involved?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Sure, yeah. Yeah, I've been with ChicagoRuby and WindyCityRails for about three years since 2009 and it has been evolution. It's something that I've been excited about. I'm real passionate about live productions. It's a great opportunity to get involved. We've evolved the quality of the production throughout the years and a lot of that just comes from things that we've learned year over year from conference to conference. Certainly the more you do something, the better you get at it if you're kind of looking for ways to improve upon it. And that's really the philosophy that we have here. From me and from the organizer Ray, again, kind of the thing that we espouse and what we'd like to do. Now, if somebody is looking to do like recording of their own user group, you know, I've had a great success with just having a MacBook and a photo booth, but somebody who's been doing it for a long time, I think that's a great opportunity to get involved.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Do you have any suggestions for like a simple way to get nice, good, clean audio?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Sure, sure. Yeah, audio is a couple things. Number one, it's going to depend on the mic that you use, your micing technique, and then, you know, your recording and whatnot. So for ChicagoRuby and WindyCityRails, we're using a Countryman E6. It's about a $300 microphone. It's widely used in live production. Constant. It's a great microphone. It's a great microphone. It's a great microphone for concerts, churches, all kinds of things because it's a great price point, delivers fantastic audio, and kind of getting back to some of the things that influence the quality of the audio, your micing is important. So, you know, for speaking, your options are either a stationary microphone, a handheld microphone. Yeah, exactly. A lavalier microphone or what I'll call an ear microphone. So the Countryman is an ear microphone, which means it's proximity micing.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
And the mic element is just right, by the mouth, and whatnot. So with the E6, you start off with a phenomenal sound, and then once you kind of send that sound to the recording, again, every, you know... Comes very crisp and clear. Yeah, you know, well, you asked earlier about kind of what influences that audio. Well, we use, you know, a wireless channel. So we're using Shure equipment and whatnot. So that's, for our signal flows, is pretty good. So that's how we do it.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
And has there been anything that's been, like, a real big surprise with, like, that you might think would be a common... was there something maybe you had a common assumption about, "Oh, we're going to... we have to have this kind of audio for...
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
" that you've learned didn't work quite the way you thought it would, or...?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Yeah, you know, assumptions are common, and they can actually, you know, you think one thing and another thing happens. I think, especially when you talk live production, a lot of things can happen. And that's where doing things regularly and kind of knowing what you're doing really helps. I don't know that I could put my finger on any real one assumption that's been hard for us.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
I think as it relates to user groups, what we've found is, you know, if you're recording the user group audio or video with the intent of distributing it for people to view or listen to, usually, you know, for user groups, you're working with volunteers or whatnot like that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
So what we try and do is we try and do our production as close to the actual user group as possible. So when we record a video, we want to edit it and upload it that day because that decreases the time when people become less motivated and like, "Oh, well, we'll just do it next time we meet," and things like that. So an assumption for us has been, you know, the quicker we can get to distribution, the better it's going to be for everyone. Yeah, it's the swallow the frog kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be time consuming. It's going to be a little painful, but... and especially if you get a rhythm down to it.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
That's probably the biggest thing is that it's a very machine, you know, it's very...
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Exactly.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
... mechanical.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
That's what I'm trying to say.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Now, the other thing is, is that you're not a developer, but you watch these conferences and you've been doing it for years and you watch all the speakers get up and they have their talks.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
What kind of evolution?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Have you seen... is it like they just are kind of the same thing every year or have you noticed that, "Oh, the... The style of a presentation is drifting or something that maybe those of us in the audience who are there as developers are just listening to the content, maybe not listening to how it's framed? " Yeah. You know, I don't know programmatically if, you know, presenters are presenting differently than they have three years ago. I would say there's a couple of changes year over year. For us, the most basic is the conference has grown. So there's now more people, which means that we now can have more presenters. That also means that we can also have different types of presenters. So you're right. I'm not a developer. I don't really get too much into the day-to-day, you know, coding and whatnot. But I would say beyond kind of very technical things like, you know, our spec and whatnot, we're also getting into kind of more of the management tasks. How do you work with... You know, your staff of developers.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
What are the, you know, ways to improve upon that and working as a team and whatnot?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
So there's... Programmatically, there's been some new talks that have really, I think, been food for developers and managers that can really improve their practice beyond their technical skills. Now, I... And just one last question is dealing with Pacers.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
Has that ever been something... There's a few people that are well-known in the community that like to move that stage.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Sure. Is that something that's been, you know, a challenge?
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
I just want to ask it because it's something I felt bad for the photographers.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
For a camera operator.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
It's not... I don't think it's too much of a challenge for me.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
I've... My background is in live video production. So I've got a lot of experience with camera work and whatnot. I'm sure that it can be a challenge for someone who's maybe new or doesn't do that regularly.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
You know, it just comes down to making sure you've got the right gear. A fluid head tripod helps you out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It helps you understand your framing, your composition when a person's walking across the stage and you're shooting them live with a camera, making sure you give them lead room and whatnot. And then it just comes down to practice.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Adam Grandy
podcasting and community media
You know, having done it before, you know, having maybe been coached by someone, those are opportunities that'll kind of improve your skill. Do you ever talk with the speakers and say, "Oh, hey, this is kind of... This is... Please kind of stay within this area so we can get a nice clean... " Yeah. I have. I don't do that too much anymore. Mm-hmm. I don't do that too much because, you know, typically they aren't following it or it will only marginally improve the quality of the video. Typically the value we're gonna get out of that is much less than the value we'd be getting out of solving other problems like lighting or, you know, for this conference we're using a front projection setup and so people are walking through the projection, you know. So solving that problem for the future, getting a rear projection screen and whatnot would be an improvement over what we've gotten.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak. Yeah. Definitely. Glad to help. And thank you for doing the video.