Most remote shoots are one of two setups. Either the crew is in the room and the client or the director watches from another city, or nobody from the crew is there and the person on camera records at home, with a kit you shipped or their own phone.
Both tend to go wrong in the same two places. Notes arrive from everyone on the call at once, and the final gets cut from the call recording because it was the file somebody had.
In short
- With the crew on set, the client watches a clean HDMI feed on a call, good for performance and wording but not for focus or color.
- At home, a recent phone on a stand is often enough, and a kit pays off when the video matters.
- One person gives notes, one at a time, between takes.
- Record on the camera or phone at full quality and never deliver the call recording.
- Run a test call two or three days before, in the same room at the same time of day.
When the crew is there and the client isn’t
The client watches through a video call. The simplest feed is the camera’s clean HDMI out into a capture device on a laptop, which the call software sees as a webcam.
That laptop joins with its microphone muted and its speakers off, and the producer talks to the client from a second one.
Tell the client what that picture is good for. A call compresses the image and drops frames when the connection dips, so it works for judging the performance, the wording and the framing. Focus and color stay with the crew.
Keep the call out of the sound. A laptop speaker playing “can she say that line again?” mid-take ends up on the lav.
On set the call goes to headphones only, the client’s microphone stays muted while the camera rolls, and notes go in the chat for the producer to pass on between takes.
Put the time zones on the call sheet, next to the call link. “Call at 10:00” means two different hours when the client is in New York and the crew in London.
When the person on camera records at home
First decide whether to ship a kit. A recent phone records better video than most laptop webcams, so for an internal message their own phone on a stand is often enough. Ship a kit when the video matters or the person will record more than once.
A kit that works fits in one box:
- A phone clamp and a small tripod
- A lavalier with the right connector for their phone
- A small LED panel with diffusion
- A power bank
- Labelled cables and a return label
Add one printed page with photos of the setup, because nobody reads a PDF while holding a tripod.
Those photos should show the camera at eye level, the face toward a window or with the window to one side (never behind), and the chair well away from the wall. Our talking head guide has the rest of the framing and light.
If the phone is the camera, settle its settings on the test call. Match the resolution and frame rate to the project. On an iPhone, check Auto FPS under Settings, Camera, Record Video, since Apple says it can drop the frame rate to 24 fps in low light.
Press and hold on the face in the Camera app to lock focus and exposure, and turn on Do Not Disturb.
One voice, a short delay and a way to talk back
Anyone on a call can unmute, so decide before the day who talks to the person on camera, usually the director. Everyone else writes to the director in the chat.
A presenter who hears three notes at once tries to do all of them, so give one at a time, between takes. How to phrase them is in our post on making employees comfortable on camera.
Everyone on the call is also a little behind the room, and a note that starts as the presenter finishes a sentence lands on top of the next one. Agree on a couple of seconds of silence after “cut” before anyone speaks.
Then decide how the director’s voice reaches the presenter. On set, an earpiece (IFB, in broadcast terms) works, and so does the producer repeating the note.
At home the call is the talkback, but through laptop speakers your voice goes into their recording too. Give them one earbud on the side away from the camera, or ask them to turn the call down before each take.
If the text is read from a prompter, put the screen as close to the lens as you can. Reading a teleprompter naturally works the same at a kitchen table.
Record on the device, watch on the call
The recording happens on the camera or phone in front of the person, at full quality. The call is only for watching.
It lowers the resolution when the connection drops, freezes frames, and runs noise suppression and echo cancellation on the voice, which can swallow the start of a word.
Never deliver the call recording, even when the client says it looked fine on their screen. Record it anyway, as a reference for which take the director liked.
Check that the lav goes into the phone or the camera, not into the laptop running the call. With a lav plugged in, the phone stops using its own microphone, so a second device recording nearby is cheap insurance.
Clap on camera at the start of each take and say the take number, so the editor can match the files to the notes, and record 30 seconds of room tone.
Getting the files back
Before you hang up, ask the person to play back the last take and listen with you on the call. If the lav died halfway through, you want to know while everyone is still there.
A 20-minute session in 4K runs to several gigabytes, and messaging apps compress video sent as media, so the original goes by a transfer link or a shared folder. Sending large video files compares the options.
Some phone apps only upload while they’re open, so leave the phone plugged in with the app on screen, and ask the person to keep the files until you confirm they open on your end.
A checklist for the test call
Do it two or three days before, in the same room and at the same time of day as the shoot, since window light at 9 a.m. is nothing like window light at 4 p.m.
- Framing: camera at eye level, eyes a third of the way down, some depth behind.
- Light: face toward the window or a lamp, nothing bright behind the head.
- Sound: 30 seconds on the lav, played back, listening for echo, the fridge and the air conditioning.
- Camera: resolution, frame rate, Auto FPS, focus and exposure locked.
- Space and power: free storage for the session plus a margin, charger plugged in.
- Prompter: the screen at the lens, text big enough at their real distance.
- Transfer: one short clip sent the way the real files will travel, opened on your end.
- People: who’s on the call on the day, who gives notes, and the start time in each time zone.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview, the teleprompter opens from the shoot plan, and the presenter’s screen joins by scanning a QR code or opening a link, with no app and no login.
The screen connects through RecReview’s server rather than straight to your laptop, so the tablet can be in the presenter’s living room while you run the scroll and its speed from the studio. Each screen has its own mirror setting, and a new one starts unmirrored.
For a note mid-take, you type up to 120 characters and it appears on an amber banner at the bottom of the presenter’s screen until you take it down.
Next to the script you can watch up to four sources, cameras on your laptop or a shared window such as the call with the presenter, with a level meter on sources that carry audio. The panel shows the picture without sound and records nothing, so the call stays on your headphones.
For a client following from the office, the plan’s share link opens without a login and updates on its own. While the prompter runs, the page marks the block on the prompter, and if the plan has a meeting link it shows a button to join the call.
With Google Calendar connected, the plan can become a calendar event with a Meet link, with the team and the client’s main contact as guests, or you paste a link from any other call service. The teleprompter page has the rest.
