The coronavirus lockdown has made it impossible to record in a studio, which has caused "Late Night with Seth Meyers" to adapt production with a nearly all Apple workflow, highlighted by filming with Meyers' iPad Pro.
A typical shot from Late Night with Seth Meyers, plus (inset) the actual iPad Pro the show films on
Since March 30, 2020, NBC's talk show "Late Night with Seth Meyers," has been producing a special coronavirus lockdown edition produced entirely from the presenter's and the crew's homes. The one-hour show is now predominantly filmed from host Seth Meyers' attic where he uses an iPad Pro.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the setup is a far cry from Studio 8G in New York's Rockefeller Center, but it's become a well-oiled machine. As the team got used to being in lockdown, they revised their production schedule to take advantage of the equipment they had, and to find ways around the problems of having everyone tape themselves.
The most visible part of the process revolves around host Seth Meyers, who continues to present a monologue to camera, as well as interviewing people. All of this is done via his iPad Pro, and specifically its front-facing selfie camera.
That camera has a 7MP resolution, while the rear cameras sport 12MP, but the show accepts the quality difference in order for Meyers to be able to use a teleprompter app on the iPad Pro screen. While an iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max have better front-facing cameras, the size of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro screen is closer to that of studio camera teleprompters.
Meyers is filmed by the iPad Pro in his home's attic, which has been rearranged into a studio with desk, chair, and lighting equipment. As it's his actual home, Meyers told the Los Angeles Times that his children regularly move the attic furniture around. So he and his producer have to reposition and recheck everything from framing to lighting every day.
"I was a TV/film major in college," Meyers says, "but I learned nothing! Literally, couldn't have learned less about TV production if I tried."
The iPad Pro is mounted on a tripod which stands atop a small platform that also houses a small directional light of the kind used by YouTubers. A more TV-standard light with reflector and hood stands to one side, providing fill-in light to prevent shadows.
Seth Meyers' attic studio (Source: Seth Meyers/Los Angeles Times)
While the iPad Pro is using its regular Camera app and so does record audio, Meyers also separately records his speaking via a ClipMic Digital microphone. This is a Lavalier, or lapel mic, which is connected into an iPhone via a Lightning cable. It's not known what app Meyers uses to record the audio, but the ClipMic ships with two, MetaRecorder and Maestro.
Meyers did not name the teleprompter app he uses, but he did comment on how it can't match having a human being showing him cue cards. There are teleprompter apps that will slow down or speed up to match your speaking voice, but Meyers says the one he uses is not attuned to the pace of his jokes.
"It's really given me a lack of faith in AI and in the future, which I guess is good," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I've started to think computers won't take over."
Meyers also conducts the show's celebrity guest interviews via his iPad Pro, and reportedly this is the hardest part of the new production. Getting and keeping a reliable internet signal at both his end and the guest's has proved difficult, and that's exacerbated by the needs of the production.
As well as a straight one to one video conference, the team uses Zoom so that producers can monitor each video. Each guest, and Meyers, have a producer who is watching their video full screen and recording it. The guests do not also record their interviews the way they might do with an audio podcast.
This is one reason why, where the regular show used to be taped in one go as live, it's now built from a series of segments that can be produced separately. While the producers deal with the guest interview recordings, Meyers concentrates on delivering his own material.
He AirDrops his video and audio from iPad Pro and iPhone to his Mac. Both are then sent over Dropbox to the production team which marries the two together.
As well as using Apple gear, the show regularly makes jokes about the company -- most recently to how its Apple Stores are reopening.
Separately, the show's house band, which since the lockdown has seen every member of the band having to record music in their own house. The band records each night's music, many using Apple's GarageBand. Then that audio is the sent to the show. Finalized music tracks are then sent back to the band members, who each film themselves playing along to it.
Increasingly, if it can't ever match a network television studio's production quality, the end result has become about as technically adept as it can be. Seemingly no one on the show wants to continue this beyond the lockdown, though.
That's because, as with all talk shows that usually tape with an audience, the total absence of that immediate feedback is disorientating. "It turns out maybe a lot of us who do this for a living need the adulation of strangers," says Meyers.
"Late Night with Seth Meyers" airs 12:35/11:35c on NBC. It can also be seen on the show's official YouTube channel.