How are Udacity videos recorded?

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Andy Brown

Great question! I'm one of the Udacity instructors and I just took a picture for you that should help.
This is the primary recording setup!

Looking more or less from top to bottom, we see the following:

• A camera: that's how we get the footage of the hand.
• A computer: we need that for computer-y things. The software we use for drawing is called Sketchbook Pro and we use a program called Screenflick to record what's happening on the tablet screen (I'll talk about this more in a bit).
• Lights: when we record, we shut off the room's lights and just use these. It is a dark and lonely place in the recording studios when filming is happening.
• A bell: A bell?! But why!? It turns out that a rung bell has a unique sound profile which the video editors can easily identify during editing. So we ring this bell when we're recording so that we can get the attention of the editor and let them know if we messed up or something.
• A stand for notes: pretty self explanatory.
• The tablet: this is where we're actually writing/drawing. Note that we have TWO video files that we make for each recording: one from the camera and one recording the tablet screen. This lets us make the hand semi-transparent so that you can read what we're writing even when our hand is obscuring the text.
• Other: behind the whole setup you can see black foam. This is to reduce echo. You can also see a little wire dangling from one of the lights. That's connected to the microphone (though you can't see it).

Let me know if you have any other questions!

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