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How to Build a Home Video Studio for under $350: A Step by Step Guide

mr.d

When I first got into vlogging and started uploading videos to YouTube, it didn’t take me long to find out how bad the lighting was in most places and how noisy the world was! Rooms were too dark, the outdoors were too bright, AC units were noisy, and people can’t help but yell while you’re recording for some reason.

This wasn’t a huge problem if I was walking and talking to the camera or filming b-roll, but it was always a struggle to find a good place to record the quiet steady shots of a single person simply talking to the camera.

That’s when I discovered the need for a private video studio so I built one in a small room I had in my apartment this summer. I also wanted to document the step-by-step process I took to accomplish this for under $350 (minus the camera, tripod, and mic — I already had those on hand).

Here are the ten steps to building your DIY home video studio:

1. Plan Your Content

Before you get started with any of the other steps, it’s important to understand the future of this studio and that’s done with a content plan. If you already understand what kind of content you will be creating than skip this step.

The kind of content you create will drastically inform the type of studio you need. So, here is a list of questions to consider before you get started:

Different types of content will also inform the overall look and feel of the studio from the lighting, backdrop, and decor you pick out. And, while there isn’t a formula, most video content will fit within four major categories.

The Four N’s (ish) of Content:

  1. Inspire: These are videos meant to motivate, uplift, and arouse the viewers needs to do more, be more, and expect more. Videos in this category generally include inspirational stories (real or fictional), acts of heroism, rousing speeches, religious sermons, or recordings of people doing the impossible.
  2. Inform: Not all stories are inspirational, but we still like to hear them. Informative videos are often seen in news broadcasts and other journalistic endeavors. Documentaries videos also belong in this category.
  3. Empower: To empower your viewers to educate them. To show, explain, or teach them how to do something, think differently, or accomplish something they could not do before. Videos that fit into this are lectures, how-tos, demonstrations, and expert interviews.
  4. Entertain: This is the broadest category and the most difficult. These videos are meant to amuse and are for the viewer’s pure enjoyment and fun. Videos in this category are movies, most TV series, comedy skits, music videos, most vlogs, and many many more.

Naturally, these four categories can overlap but which categories do you think you will need the studio to help you make videos for?

As an example, I am sticking primarily to using my studio to inform and empower (educate). I just needed a quiet well list space that looked nice to teach others a wide variety of topics. That decision informed my more neutral backdrop and decore, and focused on just me and a laptop where I often have a keynote slide to cut to.

Think through all the types of content you will want to make to inform the rest of the decisions in the following nine steps.

2. Pick a Location

For most people, like myself, you may have already selected the one empty room you have to make a home video studio in. There are other options, however, that you might want to consider.

Different types of content will require different locations. Creating a food channel will likely require a studio in your kitchen while an auto mechanic will need to figure out how to build a studio in his garage. While those are some obvious situations, not all content will easily inform where you should record.

Before you select that empty room, consider the connotations of the other rooms of your home. You might want to figure out how to build a studio around them rather than build a studio from scratch.

3. Paint the Walls

After you select a location, you may want to paint the walls. This is especially true if you want to use the room fully for media. So, here are a few use cases for different colors depending on if the location is used for multiple purposes or if it will become a dedicated studio.

Wall Colors for Dedicated Studio

Most videography or photography studios stick to white, black, or some shade of grey in between. When you may use a studio for a wide variety of content, you want neutral surroundings to keep unwanted colors from reflecting on your subject or background.

Here are some of the advantages of each of these colors:

Wall Colors for Flexible Studios

For many, a home video studio is the secondary purpose of already functional space. It’s your living room, kitchen, bedroom, garage, etc. You may decide to change the whole decor of that room to fit a more studio aesthetic, but you don’t have to.

The existing colors and decor may already work. Ask yourself: Does it match your brand? Do the wall colors reflect who you are and what your content is about?

4. Select a Backdrop

Getting to your backdrop is the fun part and it may or may not have much to do with the wall colors you selected. If you are new to this, you may be asking then…

What is a video backdrop? A video backdrop is what is behind the main subject of your photo or video. Backdrops can range from pure black/white backgrounds to focus on the subject to elaborate sets to compliment the subject.

There are hundreds of options for backdrops, but I will focus on a few popular ones here.

5. Design a Set

If you want to move beyond a simple backdrop or functional set, you can go all out and decorate your own set solely for your videos. Many of you may want to skip this step if you found something suitable.

To build a set, it helps to break down the set into two sections: The foreground and the background. Designing the set in two dimensions gives it some depth and allows you to think about the objects with a different viewpoint.

Set Background

This is the backdrop to the set. It can be as busy as Philip Defranco’s set design below.

Philip Defranco’s set background includes lights, floating shelves with nerdy items, and a couch (that he is not sitting on).

A background set can also be simple with just a bookshelf and an armchair. The important thing is to try to choose items, colors, and furniture that reflect your brand or give your videos some context of what the topic or overall theme of your videos are about.

It’s also important to black the background far enough back to create that feeling of depth in your videos.

Set Foreground

The foreground is all the items that are as close to the camera as the subject. It is often as simple as a table but can include objects that are being discussed in the video or objects that are in every video. Some times the set as simple as a fancy chair the subject is sitting in like in Amy Landino’s videos:

Amy uses a simple chair and blanket for the foreground and the bookshelves and posters in her home office for her backdrop.

For my studio, I used a plain white desk and used a stool so no chair would be seen. I often have my laptop with me as the only other object in the foreground since I am often cutting to a keynote or some other visual on my computer screen while I discuss a topic.

6. Buy a Camera & Lens

There are hundreds of camera’s to choose from and many of them will work great. There is a lot you could consider when purchasing a camera and I will be writing a full post in the future to outline all those considerations.

Here is a brief list of considerations for a studio camera:

7. Select Camera Accessories

Other than lights and a microphone (covered in separate steps) the only other piece of gear that is essential is the camera tripod. Most tripods will work fine for a studio, but if you are going to be traveling often with your tripod, I do recommend getting a travel tripod that can fold down to a more reasonable size.

I use a TYCKA Ranger travel tripod in my studio that I can easily strap on to my camera bag and take with me anywhere. If it’s only being used in the studio, a cheap Amazon Basics Tripod will work just as well. It really only needs to hold the camera still.

Other accessories to make your life easier:

8. Set up Lighting

Lighting is often the thing that makes a studio a studio. This one element is the thing that will transform your video production more than anything else. Luckily, you can start with some pretty affordable solutions and build on top of that. You can never have enough light equipment.

Tungsten or Daylight Balanced Light?

A professional cinematographer would scoff at this question. They would say it depends on the situation—and they would be right. If you are building your first home video studio though, you will likely only be able to buy one light set and never care to get another.

So, let me make it easy for you. Choose a daylight balanced light kit if you can’t afford one that does both or if you can’t buy extra bulbs to have both on hand.

More and more videographers are using daylight-balanced lights as it becomes more affordable to do so. The benefit of daylight-balanced is that they are more neutral, allowing other colors (other than the yellow-orange that emanates from tungsten lights) to show through properly.

There are advantages to tungsten, but that is a post for another day.

Light Positions

Most studios would benefit from a simple three-point lighting set up to start. That means having your brightest light (key light) about 30 degrees to the side form your subject, having the second brightest light (fill light) on the other side 30-60 degrees on the opposite side, and having one small. but bright, hair light pointing down from the back.

In the photo below you can see that I use two cheap DIY lights on both sides and throw in an extra small light on one side to push the brightness up enough to be the key light.

Two of the lights clamp on to the storage racks I have on the other half of my crazy long closet. What you can’t see in this picture is the one highlight I have hanging from the ceiling pointing down at the desk.

9. Set up a Microphone

After the lighting is figured out, being able to control your audio is the next major advantage of having a studio and having a good microphone setup is half the battle.

There is not a “right” way to set up a studio microphone, but some options are better than others. Here are the various microphone setups and my recommendation:

10. Adjust Room Acoustics

The last and final step of building a home video studio is adjusting the acoustics of a room to eliminate unwanted reverb, echo, or unwanted external sounds. This is the most difficult part of building a home video studio in my opinion and it can be hard to figure out why a room does not sound great.

There are generally two types of acoustic issues you are trying to fix in a room, so I will offer some solutions that have worked for me for both.

Reducing Exterior Noise – Sound Proofing

This may be the next-door neighbor’s dog barking, your children playing in the next room, or the air conditioning vent. To address these, we are getting into the world of soundproofing and there are a few simple things that can be done to help (at least a little).

There are steps that can be taken to fully soundproof a room, but that is a major construction project likely not worth the time.

Eliminating Reverb/Echo – Sound Dampening

This is the most common in rooms that are empty, small, or without carpet for flooring. Regardless, there are some simple steps that can be taken to reduce that unwanted reverb/echo.

Here are a few things you can do to dampen the unwanted sound.

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