How episodes used to be filmed
I have recently moved and I’ve taken some pictures of the old place and it’s time to reminisce about it now that I’ve unpacked my camera. These pictures shows you where Episodes 1 to 7 are filmed. (I’m currently editing Episode 6, and Episode 7 is on a tape that’s in a box somewhere.) I used to film the episodes in front of a sink. That’s right. Why? Because it was well-lit and had (barely) enough depth.
This is the door that I used to tape the backdrops on. The backdrops are just solid color papers that I taped on the door. In some shots where I wasn’t that careful, and in the bloopers episode you should be able to see the tapes or marks left on the paper by the tape. They sure weren’t anything fancy.
In this picture you see the light bulb that provided lighting for our videos. I knew that I’d be moving in the near future so I didn’t want to purchase extra lamps or what-not. I just look for a spot that’s bright enough for filming. In some episodes I actually watched out for the white balance and in some episodes (especially early ones) I didn’t take into account that the light is yellow. But anyway, here’s what our lighting looked like. Simple.
And then here’s the sink that I put my tripod in. Now, why would I put the tripod in the sink instead of on the floor? Well, the primary reason is that, if I put it on the floor, it’d have to be in front of the sink. In that case, I wouldn’t have much distance between the camera and the backdrop, and two puppets wouldn’t be able to fit in the same shot. Here’s the picture of the sink:
Putting the tripod in the sink had an interesting effect, though. Since the sink was a curvature, rather than a flat surface, all you need to do to tilt the camera to different angles is to move it slightly within the sink. Because the three legs of the tripod would be standing on different parts of the sink with different slopes, it would give you all these different angles without having to adjust the length of the legs themselves. It was also very stable. Quite an interesting effect. I wouldn’t do this intentionally but it just happened to have worked that way.
I don’t know what the new set-up would look like yet, but yeah, I’m sure I’d miss this old set-up. It was not the most professional, but man, it worked darn well. 
PS. Oh yeah, and this place was right next to bus stops so I had to film in the middle of the night, otherwise there’s too much noise outside. Also I had a roommate so I tend to film when he’s not there, due to noise issues as well.