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🇵🇱Polski 🇬🇧English
IKEA · Warsaw 2019

Stand-up comedy production — five cameras, a live audience and no second run at the punchline

Recording the „Stand-up Polska” series for IKEA in their meeting kitchen. Five Sony XDCAM cameras under full CCU control, our own PA for the room and sound that has to catch the laugh along with the joke.

Get a quote for a comedy shoot +48 722 720 710
  • 5Sony XDCAM cameras
  • 5RM-B150 CCU panels
  • 3sets in the series
  • 1run at each joke
The challenge

Comedy gives you no second take

The comedian delivers the punchline once. The room laughs once. Either you have that reaction in shot or you do not — a camera cannot catch up with it, it has to be there already. That is a different job from filming a concert, where the chorus comes round every two minutes.

The second difficulty is technical: a dark room and a single pool of light on the stage. Five cameras have to hold identical white balance and exposure, because the difference between them shows more than the joke does. That is why the cameras do not stand alone — they run on CCU, controlled from the gallery.

And a third thing that is easy to forget: the audience laugh is part of the material. Recorded badly it sounds like noise; recorded well it carries the whole set.

The gallery during a stand-up recording - multiviewer and camera feeds The gallery: five camera channels and full control of the picture.
The sets

Watch the recordings

Playback starts right here — no trip to YouTube. The video loads only once you click, so that three players at once do not slow the page down.

Karol Modzelewski - stand-up
Set

Karol Modzelewski — „Incepcja”

6:39

Wojtek Pięta - stand-up
Set

Wojtek Pięta — „Bogata koleżanka”

8:19

Ola Petrus - stand-up
Set

Ola Petrus — „Co robię w łóżku”

7:34

Equipment

What went into the room

Video + audio flypackTwo portable galleries
5 × Sony XDCAMCamera channels with crew
5 × RM-B150 CCUFull camera control from the gallery
Sound and PAAudio production and room PA
Blackmagic + Altair intercomCrew communication
IKEA meeting kitchenThe room with the audience
The production position during the stand-up shoot

On a comedy shoot you are not cutting what you can see. You are cutting what is about to happen.

Five cameras tied to CCU so the cut between them stays invisible.
The result

Material that can be released episode by episode

3 setsready to publish as separate episodes
5 angleson every joke, including the wide and the room reaction
One eveningof shooting instead of three separate recordings

The biggest saving is that the whole series comes out of a single evening. The room is prepared once, the cameras are set and balanced once, the audience turns up once — and the brand gets material for several weeks of publishing.

FAQ

Common questions about stand-up and comedy recording

How many cameras does a stand-up recording need?
Three is the minimum: a wide, a mid on the comedian and a camera on the audience. For the IKEA series we worked with five, which lets you vary the rhythm of the edit and leaves headroom when the performer steps outside their mark. For a sketch troupe with several people on stage the count goes up, because there are more simultaneous reactions to cover.
Why use CCU with five cameras?
CCU lets one person control iris, white balance and black level on every camera from a single position. In a dark room lit by one pool of light that is the difference between footage you can cut together and five different-looking pictures. Without CCU the mismatch only shows up in the edit, when it is too late.
How do you record the audience laugh so it sounds natural?
With separate microphones aimed at the room, mixed underneath the comedian's voice. The laugh must not bury the punchline, but it has to be audible — without it the recording sounds like a rehearsal. We also run the room PA, so we control both what the audience hears and what reaches the recording.
Can stand-up also be streamed live?
Yes. This series was a recording for later publication, but the same camera layout also supports live streaming — you add an encoder and an uplink, and where the venue has no internet, a bonded LTE kit. The difference in price is mainly the transmission and the person watching over it.
How long does preparing the room take?
Usually half a day before the audience comes in: rigging the cameras, setting the stage light for the picture, balancing the cameras on CCU and a sound check. The less improvising on the day, the smoother the evening runs.
Can several sets be recorded in one evening?
Yes, and it is the most cost-effective scenario. At IKEA a single evening produced three separate episodes. You pay for the rig once and end up with several weeks of publishing material.
What do I get after the shoot?
Edited episodes ready to publish, plus the recordings from the individual cameras if you want to come back to the material later. We match the format and length to the channel — a YouTube episode is cut differently from a short piece for social media.

Recording stand-up or a comedy show?

Tell us how many sets and what room — we will price the cameras, the sound and the crew.

Get a quote
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