Media on the Road
Doing TV from a hotel room
Today’s Thursday, which means I normally have a NewsMax segment at 9:25. Due to the tragic airplane crash last night at DCA, I’ve been bumped in favor of covering the breaking news of that as well as the coming Senate Confirmation Hearing for RFK Jr’s nomination to head up HHS.
I’m also on the road this week, spending time in Washington, DC for a Harwood Salon Dinner (last night), meeting with some folks on the Hill today, and then headed to GMU’s Fairfax campus to catch up with friends in the afternoon. This means that I had to prepare to do my media hit from a hotel room, which is less than ideal, so I wanted to take this opportunity to show how I do it in case it helps anyone else.
First, my gear:
Macbook Pro
With a lavalier microphone
Yes, I’m aware that the MacBook has a microphone array and a webcam built in and that I could use those and probably be fine. However, the audio/video are much, much higher quality with dedicated equipment and in the TV space, quality on those fronts (especially audio) matters. For that reason, I also have a lavalier mic that I can plug into my Rode and pin to my tie to get even better audio.
Beyond audio/video quality, lighting and backdrop also matter. In general, I try to follow this guide as much as possible.
Obviously, you’ll want to mess with color temperatures and brightnesses of the different lights to get everything just right. At home with smart bulbs, this can be tedious but the process of setting it up is pretty straight-forward.
Bringing my webcam and a microphone is one thing; they’re super small and easy to throw in pretty much any bag. But I’m not about to bring lighting equipment with me on a plane just for a 15 minute TV hit so I have to make do with hotel lights. Sometimes, this is really, really difficult. This time, though, it was remarkably easy with this room having a lamp that was effectively a track light that I could move around on the floor and pivot up and down. After moving it into position and testing it, it was pretty clear that I needed something to diffuse the light a bit. Obviously, I didn’t bring anything with me to do that, so I used a sheet of toilet paper draped over the light.
And here’s a head on shot of my setup:
I had to position the table/chair/light such that the background did not show the alarm clock/bed but this set up was working remarkably well.
Alas, it was all for not since I got bumped. But now I’ve got some working knowledge of what I can realistically do in the future when this comes up. I’ve previously been tempted by something like this portable, battery powered key light, but at $80 it’s a little hard for me to justify. Especially if a little bit of creativity can solve the problem basically just as well.