GitLab Remote Work, 26 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: GitLab CEO Teleprompter Setup

Description

GitLab CEO Sid Sijbrandij gives us a tour of his recording setup for making professional, polished videos while working remotely.

Inspired by Matt Mullenweg's excellent article "Stream Like a CEO": https://ma.tt/2020/05/ceo-video-streaming/

The gear shown includes:
* Rode podcaster microphone: https://www.amazon.com/Rode-NTUSB-Versatile-Studio-Quality-Microphone/dp/B00SF6LGXQ/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=rode+podcaster&qid=1598474573&sr=8-5
* Glide gear iPad teleprompter: https://www.amazon.com/Glide-Gear-TMP100-Adjustable-Teleprompter/dp/B019AJOLEM/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=KOY14IYW4AR1&dchild=1&keywords=glide+gear+teleprompter&qid=1598474560&sprefix=glide+gear+tel%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExVEhETzZUMFVTS044JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODA5NTMyMjFaUFFGWDVDVTk3TCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNDg4NTY2MVFLNzE1TTgzVlZVUiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
* CamLink HDMI to USB: https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link-4k and compatible cameras: https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link/camera-check
* Elgato Key Lights: https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/key-light

A

And go: live okay! We're live awesome, so um I'm going to show how to my teleprompter setup like uh because of the pandemic. Virtual meetings are even more important and I just uh did kill up commit and uh I got some compliments from you brandon on my teleprompter setup. You want to verbalize that because that that's the reason we're live streaming now.

B

Sure, yes, uh like you said uh with with the pandemic, uh I also bought a teleprompter um wanting to be able to present professionally from home, uh and I have not been as happy with the way my setup works because it looks like I'm reading uh sid, you did your live stream and it looked great. It was a polished speech. It didn't look like you were reading, it didn't seem like you're reading.

B

Then I found out you were reading a teleprompter, uh so I was really impressed and wanted to find out how your your setup looks. I think distance from camera and stuff, like that's important, so I'm I'm wanted to see.

A

That for sure- and uh I owe it to the to the innovator in remote work- matt mullenwack, because he uh he tweeted his setup at a certain point. So let me give an overview. This is my home setup. I got a microphone, you can buy any usb microphone. I got my from rode. It's it's really good! Oh long boom got my monitors here.

A

uh My laptop, of course, lighting is important. It always is. Luckily, I got a big window, but also got some additional lighting, and then here is the teleprompter setup. So this is. uh This is an ipad, and this is the glide gear. You can buy it off of amazon and then this is a video camera with uh with a microphone but we're not using that one.

A

It's a kind of run-of-the-mill sony, uh video camera um collapse and then the you kind of uh it becomes part of the teleprompter setup because you don't want light to come through here. So that's that takes some figuring out and it's a nice, nice and level on on an item and then uh the important part is. You also need software for the teleprompter.

A

I'm using, uh I think, prompt smart pro. We're gonna have a look. This is this is what I gotta record today. So this is the text and now I'm on macbook pro and I'm command, seeing that and then apple cloud will hopefully allow me to paste it to this to this ipad here somehow.

B

You're, just using you're just using the copy and then like uh yeah.

A

B

Call it handoff paste or whatever yeah.

A

Yeah, so this is prompt, smart, I'm starting a new script, I'm to call it scriptd now I say paste here, pasting from my macbook pro. Yes, thank you apple. This is great.

A

It's done. I'm gonna go into this again, I'm gonna say play and then I've configured it to be inverted and things like that.

B

And I use that same software using the uh like voice recognition on that software. That tries to know where you are in the script.

A

Yeah, it works well except now, because I've already talked now it doesn't work. So normally I say: hi, I'm sidsey brandy, co-founder and ceo at gitlab, as gitlab virtual commit wraps up. I want to personally thank each and every one of you for sponsoring the event this year etc. um It is working now. So that's pretty cool um and I make sure I'm close to my uh my microphone to record and have that selected.

A

B

No, that's great so you're about about how what distance would you say you are from that camera as you're sitting there in your chair six feet, yeah yeah, let's see.

A

This is this is this, is this? Is my arm so like two arm arms length, like I'm getting used to the metric system now.

B

I was gonna, say yeah, sorry about the imperial yeah.

A

That's probably about about how tall.

B

Are you because about half of your height will be.

A

Your arm length yeah, so uh six feet, yeah six, so like social distancing from the camera and then what you, what you want to do like the camera, is not positioned exactly in the middle, so it's slightly higher. I try to read it at the line where the the lens is at.

B

I think that's part of my problem because I, when my eyes aren't reading, which I think that's about distance right distance from the camera, makes it so that when you read it right to left you don't as a human, then when you're watching it, you don't pick it up, but I think the problem is my camera is actually I was using a webcam, and so it was right on the bottom of that I have the same exact teleprompter actually, um and so I think I need to get it up like a little extension or something to get it to go.

A

Yeah because my eyes look like they're.

B

Not looking at the right at the camera like yours did today, it.

A

Wasn't great so I bought a puck that I mounted under it yep just to get it. I think that's what.

B

A

A little bit that's.

B

A big that's helpful, yep, okay, awesome thank you said this was great and.

C

Yeah, I don't have the big.

B

San francisco window, that's really helpful too. I do have a window, but it's not quite as big as yours, which I love. Obviously no, it's it's it's nice, but yeah. The lighting. The lighting was great too. So that's that's good and helpful.

A

Yeah it might, it might even be pretty okay um with just uh these lightings. This is an elgato light, which is pretty good from a common air, and you can. uh You can modify the uh intensity and the color temperature from your desktop. It's pretty cool yeah. I.

B

C

A

It's kind of in line with the rest of the setup.

B

Yeah, I think that in line is really critical, because I I had it where I would stand up, so I have the elgatos as well, um but I would stand up and it would be I had to. I had to change it for where I'm sitting right now, where it's on my face, where you can tell the difference right like now, there's no light.

A

B

No, it needs to be in light, otherwise you get.

A

Weird shadows and stuff in a perfect world, I'd buy another one which would come from the bottom, like one from the top left and one from the bottom right, but uh we're not living in a perfect world.

B

Yeah I was gonna share um my setup, so you can see it so yeah. I've got the two lights. I've got one at the wall and then one at my face um and then I have a.

A

Window here so I'm thinking about maybe next time we can't see it because your zoom is.

B

Oh because my zooms on the thing sorry yeah doesn't.

A

Matter any any questions from the shout out.

B

A

The other participants in this school.

B

Awesome thanks so much sid, I'm going to stop the live stream now so that you can actually uh get what you're would you.

A

Well, let's, let's wait if there's any questions for many other people.

A

C

Clinton said, the one thing we talked about last time you recorded was the ability for someone else to control your teleprompter. Do you feel that, with the voice recognition that you don't need extra assistance.

A

Yeah, it's a bit stressful because sometimes the voice recognition fails and if you're halfway through like it's going to have to do it again, we did some pretty long ones and it went okay. I think you want to project a bit that's good anyway, and the voice recognition has been very good.

A

uh I figured it'd need an external microphone, but it's just going from the ipad and it's it's working and there is an external control option, um but it's only kind of bluetooth. Wi-Fi is so someone needs to be home, so no colleagues can help because they're not at my home, there's a way I've used it before with uh just on my phone, so obviously only my face is being recorded, so I can use my hands to move it, but the auto the auto advance is good enough that it it's not.

A

It hasn't been needed, which is amazing, so I can really uh recommend this. uh What was it from smart pro? I I.

C

B

Yeah, I think that's correct yeah yeah. No, it is. It is amazing. I it works better than I thought it would the only time I've really needed. You can also time it exactly jacqueline. So if you had a time um constraint right, I recorded an ignite talk, which is exactly supposed to be exactly five minutes, um and so to do that, I set my. I knew what words per minute I had to do for the.

C

B

Right and then I could set the time exact like so. Basically it kept me on pace now. That's probably not a typical ceo use case, but um if there's a specific time constraint, sometimes that can be helpful.

C

That definitely happens. Yeah um said I did double check. It is prompt smart pro, so we got it right.

A

Smart pro great- and this is the cam link, so this is hdmi to usb um and that's a 4k uh 4k linkage. That's been working really well. They have like youtube videos of what they are compatible with cool. If there's no further questions thanks, everyone, good luck with uh surviving during the pandemic and if you're doing a ton of presentations- and I can recommend doing a teleprompter setup- maybe not wear a shirt with stripes. Like me,.

B

I'll add some links into the description after we're done too, uh with some of the things we talked about thanks thanks.

A