Before Mel Lawson recorded a single episode of her podcast, we spent an afternoon in the studio working out how it should look and sound.
Mel Lawson, founder of Bare Biology and host of The Mel Lawson Show
Mel founded Bare Biology, a UK supplement company, and in 2024 she started a podcast of her own, The Mel Lawson Show.
Liv Evans, who was producing it, got in touch with me that January. So after that afternoon we filmed four days at the Projects studio in Brighton, two episodes a day, and I edited the first eight episodes for YouTube.
Where they started
Straight after our first meeting Liv sent me the brief.
Every episode would go on YouTube in full, with short clips cut from it for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. And for Mel's solo episodes, she pointed me to the way Mel Robbins films hers.
I'd offered to set the show up somewhere that looked more like Bare Biology, but they decided to record at the studio at Projects, because it was close by.
So I asked for a day in the room first, with an assistant, to get the lighting, the framing and the sound right.
What working with us involved
Set, light and sound
On 18 January Alex and I spent the afternoon at Projects lighting the set and filming a test with Mel and Liv. I sent Liv a rough cut that weekend with a few different looks, and she preferred the one with more depth in the background, and I was with her on that, so that's the one we built on.
And when I heard a bit of echo in the first edit, I told her what we'd change on the next filming day, which was where the microphones sat, and sound blankets on the floor and far walls if the room still needed them.
Three cameras and three to four lights
Photography
I'd told Liv we'd try to grab photos when there was a chance, so she'd have some for the show's website and socials. We took a set on the set-up day, and the gallery went to her that same evening.
71 photos
Editing
I wanted three cameras on every recording, with the wide as a backup, because it's often the angle that lets you cut between sections cleanly in the edit. I also built an animated version of the show's logo for the edits.
Delivered in 4K
What we made
Most of the episodes we filmed are Mel in conversation with one guest, and they run from under half an hour to well over an hour.
Eight episodes
We filmed the first eight episodes between January and March 2024.
Her guests included Liv, the women's health specialist Tanya Borowski and the Olympic medallist Leon Taylor, and one of the eight was Mel's first episode on her own.
Short clips
I cut twelve vertical clips with captions from the episodes for the show's TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, and even editing those I kept saying to myself how good the show is.
A trailer
For the launch we filmed Mel talking straight to camera about what the show would be, and I cut that into a trailer.
In her words
“It’s about life, and I’m just going to talk about life stuff...”
Mel Lawson, in the trailer for her show
The films
These are four of the twelve clips, and seven of the eight episodes are up in full on Bare Biology's YouTube channel.
