How I Turned My UpLift Desk into a Professional Studio

I felt like a poser––an imposter! There I was, a professed audio video professional––a veteran of 25 years––and I was using my laptop camera and my AirPods to meet with clients over Zoom. I had thousands of dollars worth of lighting gear on the shelves behind me, but I was just relying on ambient light from the window to illuminate my face. I justified it because everybody else looks like crap on their Zoom calls too. Nobody expects anything more, right? At least I was framing myself well in the camera view, unlike many of my customers.

With my lax and lacking Zoom presentation, I knew deep down that I was missing an opportunity to make an amazing first impression. After all, I’m selling video production studios that range from $25 to $65 thousand dollars. Why not give my customers a taste of what professional video looks like, right from the get go?! My discomfiture with my own video conferencing call quality, or lack thereof, was bubbling to the surface. Then UpLift Desk reached out about a possible collaboration. It was the impetus that I needed to finally transform my office into a professional studio.

I was already using an amazing sit/stand desk from UpLift, so why not make it the foundation for my studio? I had been using UpLift desks in my One Button Studio builds for years, so I had complete confidence in their ability to handle all the extra weight I would be adding with the lights, camera, teleprompter, and more. Below you will find images of my completed desktop studio, and a video where you can see my studio in action.

The big round light fixture is an Amaran Verge Max. Its large surface and diffused output make it a great key light. The closer it is to you, the softer the shadows are. The fill light is an Amaran Verge with a Westcott Scrim Jim frame in front to diffuse the light. This is stuff I already had hanging around. The trick was to mount it all to the desk without getting in the way of all the other stuff on the desk.

Good cable management was critical for making this studio build look good. There are so many cables and power bricks inside this thing, but the FlexMount Cable Manager made it easy to hide it all! I wish I had a ‘before’ picture, because it looked like an Italian kitchen. Oh, and I splurged for that solid wood desktop and I have no regrets!

In this picture we have an Elgato Prompter mounted on the end of a Sigma 18-35mm lens. The lens is attached to the Panasonic GH5 II via a Metabones Ultra adapter. It makes for a fantastic image, but it’s probably not what I would purchase if I were building a studio from scratch. I already had it, so that’s what I used. The camera is supported by a stack of matthews mini apple boxes.

I boom this mic overhead for excellent audio. It’s positioned about 10″ from my mouth and the hypercardioid pattern does a great job of rejecting ambient noise. I know it’s popular nowadays to have podcast style mics in the frame, but I still prefer a good mic boomed overhead, out of sight. In that position, it’s not going to inhibit any of my gesticulations!

This is the business end of my Sonnet Echo III Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Chassis. Admittedly, this is overkill for most people, but I had it sitting unused on the shelf. There are more compact, less expensive ways to get your camera signal into your computer. It’s amazing all the things I have connected to my MacBook Pro via a single Thunderbolt cable!

This was one of the handiest bits of kit in this whole build. Three of these Amaran Desk Clamp Stands are holding up both lights, the Scrim Jim frame, and the boompole/microphone. Absolutely solid and surprisingly affordable.

This desktop studio was a bit of work to put together, but it was all worth it when on my first Zoom call, my potential customers started raving about how good my camera image looked. No longer need I be ashamed!

To see my UpLift Desk studio in action, check out the video below. Spoiler: I show off my lighting automation and live switch between three different video sources!