From server room to video studio: the history of our video department
22.3.2018
The new video studio is ready. Professional lamps, a white background and sound insulation ensure a beautiful picture and sound. It wasn't always like this. The road to the studio was long and rocky. I'll tell you how it came about here and now.
"It's a wrap," I call out to Dominik Bärlocher, Senior Editor.
"Cool," he replies.
He's just about to get up when I interrupt him:
"Can you switch off the ceiling camera and remove the SD card, please?"
He stands up on his stool and does what I asked him to do. Then he stomps around the desk and switches on the ceiling light for me. Recorded. It didn't take long for us to get into a routine. He's waiting for me at the door.
I take off the headphones, switch off the camera, remove the memory card and roll the tripod back to the camera's charging station. I turn round again to see if we've made a mess. No. Everything is fine. I switch off the lights on the lighting console.
I remember: two years ago, it was a lot more work, effort and hassle.
How quickly we can shoot a digitec video now. I still can't believe it. It took a long time to get here. Simply switching on the camera and filming was unimaginable to me for a long time.
I walk up to the waiting Dominik.
"Come on. Let's go."
The door slams shut.
A love story
Two and a half years earlier: my back aches, my hands hurt, I'm dragging a huge suitcase behind me. I must look pathetic. 1.63 tall, a suitcase about half as high as me and I'm convinced: at least twice as heavy. I'm pretty sure I have a red head. Very sexy. But in the suitcase is my equipment. Cameras, lights, lenses, tripods and lots of batteries as well as an assortment of tangled cables.
Today is an important day for me. My first day at Digitec Galaxus AG. I'm shaking a lot of hands. I've never worked in such a large marketing team before. All these people expect me to make videos for them. I act brave. But inside I'm cowering and scared. I'm nervous. Because no one has really told me what I'm supposed to achieve as a video blogger at digitec, how I should go about it and what is expected of me in the end.
They want videos. What kind of videos? Unboxings. "And like this". I don't have a specific brief. Neither do cameras. Deliberately. Because that way the video department can grow organically. Just like the company did in its early years.
I haven't worked with my own kit for a long time. I have my old Panasonic Lumix GH3 with me, which I bought in 2013. Now, in 2015, it's a bit outdated but still a treasured instrument - my first system camera. A slightly older Canon 7D is also part of the team - old but gold. But that doesn't make my suitcase any heavier. Everything together makes it heavy. Two large LED lights, three light stands, a monopod, a tripod, a camera rig and as many rechargeable batteries as possible for my Rode VideoMic Pro R microphone make up the total weight. As I don't know what I've let myself in for, I've certainly taken enough with me.
I am excited.
After a week, I'm even given a studio of sorts. In reality, the room is a server room and the wall is a dirty white colour that doesn't fit in with the corporate design. But it's all I have. I share my studio with server racks, tables, chairs and the junk room of product management. The servers hum, the cooling water of the servers splashes in between every now and then - a wonderful background noise. I wish I could say that you get used to it, but unfortunately that's not the case. Even worse: sound editing becomes extremely difficult and tedious.
I'll give it a go. Just give it a try. One day I'll have a Canon 5D Mark II on the console. Cool. After all, I know it from my student days. I learnt the video trade on that camera. A familiar old friend. But yes, just an old one.
I want a new camera. Because it's like this: I've fallen in love. Immortally, in fact. The Sony a7s ii, a system camera, has really taken a shine to me. I need this camera. Now. Immediately. It's small, fast, light, powerful and shoots in pretty much every common video format.
And what about light and all that? And the studio? We wanted to build that too, didn't we?
Many things are complicated and take time. But I'm happy. I love this place. I can feel the drive and energy from above, because it somehow rubs off on the employees, creating a completely different dynamic than elsewhere.
Yay for you! New kit
It takes six months, but then I get the a7s ii - my long-awaited camera. A step in the right direction.
Two months after the Sony a7s ii, there is even a Sony a6500, which I have also bought privately in the meantime. A small camera, but very powerful. A bit like me - small but powerful.
I have the cameras, but I still use my private one for light. I get a tip from our photo team: three cheap softbox lights are enough to start with. They don't cost that much, then we'll have more budget when it comes to building my studio.
Okay. Deal. I can live with that.
The daily routine with server cooling
The routine has yet to materialise. There was a big change when Dominik Bärlocher, now Senior Editor, joined us. Although he really annoyed me at first - he just can't shut up - we quickly realised that we still made a good team. Dominik isn't that bad and only annoys me a little. My job behind the camera has become a lot more fun since he's been here.
Dominik does quite well in front of the camera and doesn't mind if I interrupt him because he's digressed too much again and has to start again from the beginning. He quickly develops a great passion for vlogging and now even films himself. After all, he's always chattering away, so why not use the camera as well? Fits.
We're currently working on a long shoot with Remo Pascale, who was responsible for laptops at the time. Dominik is doing editorial support for Remo and I'm behind the cameras as usual. Dominik takes care of the words, I take care of the picture. The results are impressive, given the circumstances.
In mid-sentence, Remo, who is about to present the new Windows Laptops flagships, is interrupted. The door to the server room studio opens and David N'Doye, Departmental Operations Specialist, bursts in. He and his team now have to carry about half a dozen tables out of the room. Normal. We become more and more experienced, there are unboxings, reviews, interviews with the executive board and Dominik and I are allowed to attend a trade fair together for the first time: Pure adrenaline.
Yes. A studio at last. But where?
We're not the only ones running out of space. The location in Zurich is bursting at the seams. In the course of the relocation and remodelling, the decision is made by the management: we're getting a studio.
Cool!
And where?
Unfortunately, nobody knows. The architect has been given the task of finding somewhere to put me and my cameras. I'm curious.
After the first planning meeting, I am disillusioned. They want to put me and my future team in a box measuring 3.5 by 4.5 metres. Just before the studio, I received confirmation that I would no longer be the only one behind the camera. The video department has proved its worth. I'm getting reinforcements. At last.
But the box doesn't work at all. Not with me.
When Martin Walthert, Head of Marketing, realised that it was getting too small, we started actively looking for a space for our studio around our location. In our second building in the city of Zurich, Com.West, we are looking at the basement and other rooms.
Somehow not. No.
It's either too small and would mean too much work to make it suitable for studying, or there's something else wrong with it.
In the meantime, I got a tip from Sandro Hostettler, Digital Marketing Manager. He knows a consulting company that specialises in production technology and media production environments.
My first meeting with Andrin Egger, founder and owner of the company 42.am, takes place in winter 2016. Andrin doesn't bat an eyelid when he sees our wretched studio. You have to hand it to him. He even goes one step further and shows me what we could do with the server room if we remove the servers and clutter.
A few months, meetings and a few grey hairs later, I'm starting to despair. There is no studio. I'm convinced that I'll have to continue recording between tables and benches. Mrs Tresch has had enough! I'm quitting!
In March 2017, just as things were really starting to crumble for me, the idea came to the rescue. Free up some space in the basement. Why not there? That's almost 7.5 by 5 metres. Wow.
Yes, why not actually?
Basements are really good studios. They have no windows and therefore no disturbing daylight. Then there are the thick walls, which provide good sound insulation and it's also cool. But we still have to remodel our basement, because nobody wants to see ugly concrete walls. And I don't want to film them either.
Hope has a name: Manuel Wenk
In spring 2017, I'll finally have some reinforcements and it will finally be a team and no longer just a solo act. Manuel Wenk, video producer, moved into the desk next to mine. He won me over with his video in which he tried out the Sony RX100 IV at 250fps.
I'm happy to include Manuel, my new partner in crime, in the studio project. We think about what we want to realise in the studio. We decide on cameras, we think about new formats and possibilities that a real studio would bring.
We tinker around and I design a studio landscape for Galaxus. We're doing it all without support or an order. A little secret project.
The Galaxus studio won't exist for the time being, but otherwise the battle is won. And now that the path is clear, I'm leaving the battlefield and letting Manuel, as a tech nerd, run riot. He has more technical know-how and is much more interested in the technical side of our job than I am. I know it's going to be good. If not very well.
Go for the sausage
Together with Andrin, Manuel gets down to the detailed planning. They draw up sketches, liaise with the executive board, draw up a budget and equipment lists, request quotes from carpenters, painters and lighting technicians and install all the equipment over the course of a day and a half.
Since we can't shoot on bare concrete walls, but at the same time are still confronted with the problem of building our studio in a shelter, we are forced to follow certain rules. In theory, we have to be able to clear out the room within 24 hours. So walls have to be erected that support beams, which in turn support a camera and six lights and a tangle of cables. A room within a room, so to speak.
We are working with a carpenter who is building the walls for the studio. As we don't want any ugly shadows in the picture, we need rounded corners.
While the carpenters are at work, Manuel orders cameras, batteries, a mixing console, tripods, lights and power cables.
While the carpenters are at work, Manuel orders cameras, batteries, a mixing console, tripods, lights and power cables.
So much wind for almost nothing - that's how fast the set-up goes
The carpenter and his team work for two full days. They put the walls together, fix the beams and putty the individual wall sections with the rounded corners together. Then it's the painter's turn. It takes him one day to paint the walls white.
The studio is finished, the only thing missing is the soul.
While we're waiting for Manuel's order list, I'm already working in the new environment, even though there's no light yet. It's not good yet, but the sound is clean, no hissing and no other unpleasant background noise. That's how it should be.
Two weeks after the studio is up and running, the equipment is slowly rolling in. As soon as everything is in place, Manuel and Andrin plan a set-up day. In the morning, they go shopping for odds and ends, just about everything you need: screws, hooks for the cable routing and lots of power strips.
Why so many of them?
"We want to be as independent as possible and be able to plug something in anywhere when we need it." Ah, okay, that makes sense.
So now it's time to get down to business.
More out of a sense of duty, I ask: "Do you need my help with the installation?"
Manuel even looks like he's thinking about it for a second. I suspect something bad, but he shakes his head. "No, thanks, everything's fine. We'll manage!"
Very good. I'm delighted. I can see Manuel is looking forward to setting the whole thing up. And I can already see a big improvement in the video team's happiness barometer.
The next day, I'm the first to shoot a video in the new environment. But it's not yet what I imagined. There's not enough light. I want twice as much brightness and the face in front of the camera is too flat: it needs light from above.
Andrin, Manuel and our photographer Thomas Kunz are holed up in the studio once again. Thomas is an expert in the field of lighting and is actively helping to fine-tune the lighting. In the meantime, I come down to watch the guys and give my verdict on their new lighting concept. Wow. Not wow. Awesome, actually. The wall is illuminated, as is the person in front of the camera. Light available from above. What more could we want?
When you enter the studio, the first thing you notice is the table for our unboxings and reviews. To the left of it is Thomas' table with softboxes and tripods. But now we have the luxury of having space for more scenarios and ideas. What's still to come is currently open. Live streams or studio situations with several people are conceivable.
Our equipment
We work with Sony system cameras. Manuel and I also have a Sony in our private lives. We like the cameras: they are fast, relatively light and inexpensive. Like Timelord technology, Sony is small on the outside and big on the inside.
In addition to a fixed Sony a6500 hanging from the ceiling, an a7s ii with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens is mounted on a tripod. A disused PC screen always shows us the image of the ceiling camera so that we can see that the product on the table is always nicely centred. If necessary, we equip a second mobile tripod with a moving camera and a zoom lens.
Back in the now of 2018, I sit at my desk, grab the plush horn, Horny, on my table, put on my glasses and the editing can begin. Because as beautiful as the memories are, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you'll want to see a video from our studio. That's exactly my job.
Stephanie Tresch
Video Producer
stephanie.tresch@digitecgalaxus.chMy world moves in 25 frames per second. As a journalist, I report – not because I can, but because I can’t help myself. After all, the world is full of stories that are waiting to be told. Adventures don't wait. From national to international news, hand me a camera and a mic and I've got it covered.