My 10 Minute YouTube Studio Setup [Best for Beginners]

I'm here in my son's bedroom, and this room has two really great things going for it. Number one is that the natural light coming into this room through these two big windows is phenomenal. And the second thing is that the color that we picked out, not intentionally at the time because it was 5 years ago, makes for a really nice neutral background for videos. And so what I'm going to show you today is how I'm setting up like a secondary studio here in my boy's bedroom. Really simple, something that I can easily break down or set up really quickly because obviously in a boy's bedroom things get messy pretty quick. But I'm just going to show you how I'm setting this up and a couple of different tips for setting up your own home studio as well. The first thing that we're going to do is just put a couple of prints on the wall to frame it a little bit. The first one is from this artist Jeremy Collins.

First, I I love just his style. There are things like, once you go past your comfort zone, through your perceived—

past your perceived boundaries, the unknown, the unknown, you get back into another level of comfort zone. And I feel like when I make videos like this, it's representative of that, of me going back into that cycle. Because even though I've made over 200 videos on YouTube, when I make a different type of video, or when I go through like, I'm going to publish a lot of videos quickly type of cycle, then I start to be like, "Ah, it's a little out of my comfort zone again." And so I'm moving past my perceived boundaries. And whenever I see that print, it just reminds me that this is a normal cycle of not just personal growth, but creativity and trying new things and getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.

This other print is for Nashville, the Music City.

This is where I live and it's where we've lived for about 8 years now. The store, the shop that prints like this style is called Hack Show Print, and they've been doing country music prints for a number of years. And like all the big acts, and now just any big musical act that comes through like Ryman Auditorium or Bridgestone or one of the big festivals, they will get a concert poster printed at Hack Show. So to have this just for Nashville, Music City, Tennessee, there's a, you know, like the Batman buildings right here. I really like it.

So I go ahead and put that one up as well. Now you can see what I mean by having these posters frame me in the shot a little bit. I'm probably going to move this, both of them over a little bit, give myself a little bit more space. The other thing that I want to point out just as a quick aside is that I'm also shooting on B-roll for my iPhone over here. So this is a Canon M50. This is just an iPhone 12 mini. And I shoot most of my B-roll on my iPhone. This video is sponsored by Western Rise. I'm wearing a Western Rise t-shirt and Western Rise pants. I get so many compliments on these pants. Check them out. They have like this cool, like nylon type of material.

They— I just—

my wife loves them. Other people say like, where'd you get those pants? Like, I got them from Western Rise. Western Rise is an outdoor and lifestyle brand that makes incredible— this is like a merino blend shirt, so it feels great. It looks good. It's become one of my favorite outfits to wear. And so if you're interested in getting some, you know, Western Rise gear, I just really like it. And, you know, they just asked me to talk about them because I've talked with them about them and to them so many times about loving their stuff. So this isn't a paid promotion or anything. I just really like them, and I think you should check out their gear. So If you're interested, check out the link in the description below. Give Western Rise some love, and let's get on back to the video. So far you can see that all I've done to set up my studio is just put a couple of posters or prints on the wall with two-sided tape. Really easy, quick to do, gives it some depth, gives it some character, a little bit of story, inspirational to me if, you know, if nothing. The next thing that I'm going to do is just set up some books that I really like. People are always asking about the different books that I have on my shelf. I'm going to bring some books in here as well. I'm just going to go through each of these really quickly and show you which ones they are. So all of these are meaningful to me. I'm not going to go super in-depth on them, just tell you what they are because I know people are going to ask. Keep Going, Austin Kleon, the third in his like little square book trilogy. I really love these. Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and then Keep Going is the third one. Tribes by Seth Godin. Really incredible book. A foundational book for me in terms of making work on the internet. This is Marketing by Seth Godin. How to Write One Song. Gotta have a songwriting book in if you're gonna be doing videos from Nashville. Jeff Tweedy, who is the frontman for Wilco. Bird by Bird. Another incredible book about writing. Her chapter on shitty first drafts is required reading for anyone who wants to write. Or do any kind of creative work. Running Down a Dream by my friend Tim Grahl. Tim's also the guy that got me into Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but great author, publisher, podcaster. Running Down a Dream, also a great lyric from a Tom Petty song. Shout out to Gainesville's own Tom Petty. How to Take Smart Notes. Again, a really important book for me in terms of like thinking through how to take like quick notes, the Zettelkasten system. They're all like put together really well. Shout out to Natalie Eason and Tiago Forte for recommending this book to me. Really good. Bullet Journal Method. Need I say more? See my review of this book on the channel. Draft #4 by John McPhee. Incredible writer. Real Artists Don't Starve. Friend, mentor, coach, Jeff Goins. And then Atomic Habits. I have a video about this book as well, but incredible book. Foundational for lots of things in life. I mean, they're habits. So I really like one of the things that he says in here, which is, "You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems." This book will help you create better systems in your life. Okay, so these are the books that I'm going to have on the shelf right here. I'm just using like a little like container upside down to give it a little bit of a like quick shelf that I can put things in. So just going to do that. Set these up real quick. Okay, so now we've got that set up and I'm already kind of seeing that I will want this poster to go a little bit taller. So let me go ahead and fix that real quick. I'm just going to fix both of these things while I'm thinking about it because it's bothering me already. That feels better already. So a little bit better framed, a little wider, so I've got a nice little space for myself. I probably will want to put something, maybe like a little lamp. The 3 points of light that you have in a lot of videos, well-lit videos, you would have your key light, which is just the one that comes right in front of you. You have your fill light, which is often like to the side a little bit. So that's just another window for me. And then the rim light is one that provides more depth to the background, like LED light. So you can see I could hold it down here like scary story style. Quick aside, I'm looking at this, I'm looking at the viewfinder way too much. I apologize, bad form by me. But what I'm gonna do for this. <LYRICS>Oh, this world has gone</LYRICS> So now it gives some depth to the books. It gives it like a nice warm glow on the background. So we've got key light, Fill light, rim light. Put something here just to give it a little bit more like character depth. Nothing really comes to mind right now. Let's see if we can find something. Okay, so that makes me feel a little bit better. I don't know if I'm going to keep this, but this is my MacBook on a stand with a Keychron— I think it's the K6 keyboard. Gives it a little bit more depth. It also now feels a little more cluttered, so I don't know if I'm going to keep it. But this is what I've done in less than an hour to set up a new, like, secondary studio. The lighting is good. I get a little a little extra depth with the lamp over there. I can set this up and break this down really quickly for a video because the posters are going to stay for now. I can bring a computer or something to set up over here. And the books, all I have to do to break down the books is just flip the box over, put the books in, shove it away in my office or in the closet over there. And that way I could just flip it around and do it again when it's time time to set up. So thank you so much for watching this video and for watching my channel through the years. I think this is upload number 195 actually, so getting close to that another 100, 100 reps, another 100 rounds of effort and publishing on YouTube. So thank you so much for being a part of this channel. My name is Matt Ragland, should have said that at the beginning, and what I do is I make videos to help creators, makers, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs be more productive and profitable so you can focus on the work that you love and the people that you love even more. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.