How Alix Diaconis makes video for The Verge

In addition to news, features, opinions and technical reviews, video has become an increasingly important part of it The edge‘s content. But to make great videos, you need staff with the expertise to make that video – along with the tools that allow those staff to let their imaginations run wild.

Alix Diaconis is one of the directors who helps create video magic The edge. We spoke to Alix about what she does and what tools she uses.

Alix, what are you doing The edge?

I am one of the video directors before The edge. I go to work every day with my three colleagues (but really, friends) to make the videos The edgeYouTube channel of. Sometimes deadlines are fast because technology and news are fast, but our team has been working together for years, so even live events feel seamless and fun. We all shoot, take photos and edit; then the video is handled by our sound and graphics wizards. Then bam, on to the next!

What hardware and software tools are needed to create a video for a site The edge?

It really varies from video to video. For some videos, we will pull out all the stops, while for others we need to be fast and light. Heck, I think we shot videos using just a GoPro.

When we go to a press event, we keep it very light with a monopod, lavalier microphone and a camera that we feel most comfortable with. And then I will edit on my MacBook Pro during the event.

But usually when we shoot on location, we bring a larger kit with an HD monitor, a slider (which allows you to track photos), maybe a drone. And when we do the big stuff, like a flagship phone review, we want to bring it all up, including a probe lens like the Venus Optics Laowa to get intro shots like this one.

Since we upload videos for work, good internet upload speeds make life one a lot of easier. We also have a shared server, so we always have access to our terabytes and terabytes of images.

Oh, and teamwork too. Lots of teamwork.

What specific hardware tools do you use for work?

For photography I prefer to use the Canon EOS C200 – I think it looks very cinematic – and my preferred lens is the Canon EF 70-200mm (for B-roll at least). Sometimes I use the Sony A7S II or III, which look extra sharp, but I’m not a big fan of Sony menus. For sound, I usually use a Sennheiser G3 lavalier or a Zoom H6 recorder. I use the Canon 50D for photos.

For post production in The edge offices, I would edit on a 27-inch iMac, which is due for an upgrade. But at home I have a more powerful editing PC that my producer built for me. It has an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core processor, 2 TB NVMe drive, a Radeon RX 580 series video card, 32 GB RAM and an Asus 28-inch 4K display. Of course there are always technical issues – it’s a part of editing – but the PC is the best editing machine I’ve personally had. (Thanks, Phil!) I do miss the beautiful iMac display.

Since video takes up a lot of space, I sometimes also use an extra SSD for projects. And as for headphones, I use the Sony MDR-7506, which are the only headphones that I can comfortably wear all day long.

And then there’s the fun, random gear: a GoPro Hero 8, an Insta360 panoramic video camera (which we recently used for this e-bike video), a Zhiyun Crane, a DJI Mavic Pro drone … and some more we can get our hands on.

What software tools do you use for your work?

All Adobe everything. Premiere Pro for editing, After Effects for basic images and Photoshop for the video thumbnails. You can do a lot in Premiere, but it does have its bugs, and it’s not always optimized for Apple’s hardware.

Which tools do you use for your own projects?

I taught myself DaVinci Resolve to create color images. I still barely understand the program, but images look 100x better than coloring it in Premiere. And just for fun I shoot 35mm film on my dad’s old Minolta camera.

What hardware and software tools would you recommend for someone just starting out?

Premiere is very common for editing. But if you want to try something for free and you have an iPhone or iPad, there is the Splice app. It’s really intuitive, but you’re limited to clips that are on your device. There is also DaVinci Resolve, which is free and just as advanced as most paid editing software.

As for cameras, just get one you are comfortable using! And for a computer, invest in a good one if you’ve been editing yourself for a long time; iMacs and Windows PCs are both good, and the specs depend on how big your projects will be. I haven’t had a chance to use Apple’s new M1 MacBook Air or Pro yet, but both seem like a good choice if you prefer a laptop.