What to Do With the Footage After the Session
After a session at Kreate Vision Studio in Palatine, Illinois you leave with a live multi-camera cut finished the same day, every camera angle raw, and separate raw audio tracks per microphone. The live cut is publishable for most shows without further editing. The correct order afterwards is: publish the episode, add captions and a transcript, then cut short-form clips, then worry about a more produced edit, which most shows never actually need. The most common failure is not a bad recording, it is nobody having decided before the session who was going to publish it.
The recording is not the bottleneck
In our experience the recording is rarely what holds a show up. What holds it up is a folder of files sitting on a drive until publishing them feels like an old idea.
The single highest-value decision about post-production happens before the session: who is publishing this, and when. If you cannot answer that, do not book the room yet.
What you have
Three things, all delivered:
- The live multi-camera cut, finished by the time you stood up.
- Every camera angle, raw, so the episode can be re-cut differently later.
- Separate raw audio tracks, one per microphone.
All three are handed over the same day, and nothing is held back pending a further payment.
That third one is the file people underrate. It is what makes a damaged episode repairable. If one person’s microphone ran hot, or somebody talked over the best line in the episode, separate tracks make it fixable. A single mixed track makes it permanent.
Why the separate tracks are the deliverable that matters most, and how to check you got them, is in why separate audio tracks matter.
The order that works
1. Publish the episode. The live cut is publishable as it stands for most shows. Publishing a good episode this week beats publishing a slightly better one next month, and the compounding is entirely on the side of the schedule.
2. Captions and a transcript. Accessibility is the first reason and sufficient on its own. The second is that a transcript is text, and text is what search engines and AI answer engines can actually read. Video is opaque to them; the transcript is the part that gets quoted.
3. Short-form clips. Three to five good ones per episode, not ten. The moments that stand alone are rarer than an hour of run time suggests, and a weak clip does more harm than no clip.
4. A produced edit. Graphics, music, pacing. Last, and honestly optional. Plenty of shows with real audiences never do this. Do it when the show has an audience worth the spend, not before.
Picking clips that work
A clip works when it is complete without the episode around it. The test is simple: play it to somebody who has not heard the episode and see whether they need context. If they do, it is not a clip, it is an excerpt.
What usually works:
- A single strong claim, stated and then briefly defended
- A specific, surprising number or fact
- A short story with a beginning and an end
- A disagreement, where two people actually diverge
What usually does not: the best part of a long build-up, an inside joke, or anything that begins with “like I was saying.”
If clips matter to you, record for them. Deliberately make self-contained points during the session rather than constructing one long argument that cannot be excerpted.
What to skip
A custom intro animation. Nobody has subscribed because of one.
Publishing every clip you can technically produce. Volume without quality trains people to scroll past your name.
Waiting for a perfect edit before publishing anything. This is the most expensive mistake on the list because it costs you the whole show, not one episode.
If you would rather not do any of it
Captions and transcripts, clip packages, distribution setup and full episode production are all quoted per project. Current prices are on the pricing page. The reason they are quoted rather than bookable by the hour is that the right scope varies by show, and charging a light clean-up and a heavy produced edit at the same rate would mean one of them is wrong.
Further reading
What is included and what costs extra covers where the line sits. How to batch a season in one day covers producing enough material for the schedule to matter.
If you would rather hand it over
Square Appointments, or (224) 328-2853. If you want the finished-show route rather than the files, say so when you book and it changes how the session is recorded.
Is the live cut good enough to publish?
For most shows, yes. The engineer switches between the three angles during the recording, so the multi-camera edit is finished when the conversation is. A more produced edit is an upgrade, not a requirement.
What order should I do things in?
Publish the episode, then add captions and a transcript, then cut short-form clips. A heavier produced edit comes last and most shows never need it.
Why do captions matter?
Accessibility first. Then search, because a transcript is text a search engine can read where video is not, and increasingly because AI answer engines read transcripts rather than watching video.
How many clips should I get from one episode?
Three to five good ones. People aim for ten and publish four, because the moments that work as standalone clips are rarer than the run time suggests.
What are the separate audio tracks for?
Fixing one person without touching anyone else. If a guest's microphone was too hot or somebody talked over the best line, separate tracks make that repairable. A single mixed track does not.