How Fellas Studios built The Last Lap live studio

Fellas Studios has revealed how it turned its F1 podcast, The Last Lap, into a live production by installing a new studio workflow. 

The podcast, hosted by Tom McCluskey and Niran Yesufu, began as a pre-recorded show but moved to live when Elliot Hackney, Fellas Studios managing director, recognised a live format could bring greater fan engagement - particularly during race season. Hackney said: “After the success of shows like ‘The Fellas’ and ‘Saving Grace,’ now the biggest female led podcast in the country, we wanted to keep building a community. Live shows are a great way to do that. The Last Lap is our pilot concept for a watch along show, which meant rethinking our studio capabilities.”

The company, working with livestream consultant Alex Pettitt of Alex.Live, decided to base the workflow on five Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Pro units. Four are designated as singles for guests, with the final unit as a wide position.

Video feeds run over fiber optic HDMI into a racked ATEM Mini Extreme ISO live production switcher, providing one cable operation for two way communication to the ATEM for tally and camera control.

With no camera operators and a production team of just two, simplicity and ease of use were key. Pettitt explained: “While it is typically a case of set and forget, the ability to jump into the ATEM Software Control while live to adjust a camera’s focus was important given there are no camera ops.”

The cameras are now used across several shows and formats, not just The Last Lap, with custom LUTs loaded for each production to give a different feel.

Pettitt said: “One key benefit of this build is that it has a small footprint and can be packed up and moved for external shoots and streams. There are no big audio, lighting or video surfaces that require table space, with everything controlled over the network from a mouse, keyboard and control deck.”

The setup includes a broadcast rack that holds an Ethernet switch and WiFi router to manage the internal broadcast network. The rack also houses a Behringer audio mixer and the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, with an original ATEM Mini providing additional inputs.

Pettitt gives a full explanation of the studio in the video below.

The streaming encoder on the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO is then used to push a program to Restream for live distribution. At the same time, the ATEM is ISO recording to an SSD so that a show can be clipped and repurposed after the live stream for social media.

All aspects of the studio workflow can be operated from a control deck, or the ATEM Software Control. In addition, the HyperDeck Studio HD Plus feeds into the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO as a source via the ATEM Mini, freeing up an input.

Graphics are vital for F1, and an UltraStudio HD Mini capture and playback device facilitates key and fill graphics from a Mac Mini to the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO. This allows the production team to incorporate data fed graphics on the stream using Singlular.live.

The Last Lap has seen success with the move to live, and Hackney said: “Our audience engagement has gone through the roof, giving us the confidence to do more live. Historically, people used to watch live TV muted, with their favorite commentator playing on the radio. We’re now seeing a generation that uses second screens similarly, only with more interactivity, so in some ways, it’s unsurprising that this format works so well.”