Guest instructions

Dr. Shawn Baker podcast

Welcome!

Welcome to Carnivore.Diet, and thanks for being a guest speaker on the Dr. Shawn Baker Podcast! Below are some items for you to review for a good podcasting experience.

Basics

If there is another time of the day that works better for you, please reply to the scheduling email you received and we’ll see if we can accommodate you.

To the extent possible, please keep all communications regarding the scheduled event in one email by replying to the scheduling email confirming the event. Receiving separate emails from you for a bio, a photo, your website link, then another photo, a question, etc., makes it difficult for us to track everything we need to know about your interview.

During the interview, you may use a laptop or a mobile device. However, based on our experience, a laptop works better. Therefore, we STRONGLY RECOMMEND the use of a laptop or desktop.

Please read here for best practices for using a computer.

If you have a mobile device, please read here.

The software we use records the host and guest(s) locally as well as on the cloud. This extends the possibility of taking advantage of the guest’s hardware for quality recording, as opposed to using other platforms that record only to the cloud over all types of connections (fast, slow, choppy, etc.).

Please consider the quality of your camera and microphone. If they are old, they might not produce the best results, and the quality of the video and audio track for your recording may be poor even if recorded locally.

For the local recording to take place, please ensure you use one of the approved browsers. At the time of writing, these are Chrome or Microsoft Edge. See here for the most up-to-date list.

For the software to record locally (on your device), you need to have free space. If your device storage is full, the recording might not start or be partial up to the point where the device ran out of storage at best. Please ensure you have at least 5 GB free space. We are unable to give precise minimums for every case as the size of the local recording depends on the guest’s camera.

Ensure you have a stable connection. We do not recommend connecting over cellular data. In fact, if you have a problem with your regular connection on the day of the interview, please do not just go ahead and log on to the interview using cellular data. Let us know and we will reschedule you. 

The interview duration is one hour. Please be mindful of this limit and plan on wrapping up sharing your experience during this one hour.

At the end of the interview, you will have to allow time for the software to complete uploading your local recording (you will see “100%” in the browser). Depending on your connection speed, this may take anywhere from a few seconds to the better part of an hour. Please keep the browser tab open until completion.

If, for any reason, the upload fails, please reach out to us by replying to the email you received upon signing up to the interview.

Preparing for the interview

Consider compiling a cheatsheet to jog your memory of things you would like to discuss, especially if sharing a carnivore success story. From time to time, after the interview is recorded, we get emails from guests about having forgotten to mention something, at which point there is nothing we can do. 

Ensure you have access to a quiet, private space. Logging in from the seat of your car, a restaurant or cafe, locker room, or similar location are NOT ACCEPTABLE. We reserve the right to not reschedule guests who fail to address this before the interview.

Please ensure there are no distractions in the background. If there are others in the room with you, please request that they be quiet or not walk behind you. Please also make sure the background isn’t cluttered. The software we use for recording does not support virtual backgrounds natively; therefore, unless you’re tech-savvy, you will not be able to blur the background or use a virtual background.

Make sure the device you use to log in to the event is set on a STEADY SURFACE. A device bobbing up and down in your hand or lap is NOT acceptable. We reserve the right to not reschedule guests who fail to address this before the interview.

Make sure your video is being recorded in landscape mode. PORTRAIT MODE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. If you plan on using a mobile device, please confirm you are able to have it record you in landscape mode without showing you sideways. (This can be done through auto-rotate settings.) Please test for this before the interview. If you run into issues, please reach out to us by replying to the event confirmation email and we’ll see what we can do. We reserve the right to not reschedule guests who fail to address this before the interview.

Check lighting in this private space. Make sure your face is lit and not dark. A light source only in the background will make you appear dark, and one only on one side will cast a shadow over your face. 

To the extent possible, make sure the camera you are using is at eye level.

Avoid “Zoom chin.” We also do not want to see your ceiling behind you. See here for some good tips.

Ensure your head and shoulders are in the frame. Dominate the frame as much as you can. We don’t want your face to be in the center of the screen with a huge space above your head.

Likewise, we do not want the top of your head to be cut off. Feel free to ask for a moment to frame yourself before recording begins.

Ensure you are centered in the frame and not sitting too far to the left or the right.

Test your microphone and speakers.

Watch this video for pointers on how to appear during a video call. They apply to all platforms.

These interviews are casual conversations with Dr. Baker and do not usually require preparation on the part of either party. The bio you provide us when signing up for the interview should suffice. If you forward materials about yourself, Dr. Baker may or may not have time to review them. You will have to discuss them yourself to give both Dr. Baker and the audience the information they need to understand your background and story.

Feel free to look through other interviews on our channel to get an idea of how they develop. See other videos on our channel here

If you are getting a cold or flu or recovering from one or otherwise feeling under the weather, please reach out to us to reschedule you so you can get well first. An interview where the guest it not feeling their best or the discussion is riddled with sniffs and throat clearing is not ideal.

During the interview

When the host (Dr. Baker) and the guest(s) log on, depending on the circumstances of that day, the producer may or may not be available to appear five minutes early to check that everything is as it should be or reasonably close to it, which is why we are providing you these instructions.

If available, the producer may appear five minutes early to do a test recording with the guest. In the absence of the producer, Dr. Baker may run a test recording to make sure everything is set.

On rare occasions, we have found that even if you are using a compatible browser, there may be a browser extension interfering with recording on your end. You may have to know how to disable browser extensions and be prepared to restart your browser.

Also on rare occasions, even with a compatible browser and no browser extensions interfering, recording might not take place until after you restart your computer. Please be prepared for the possibility of such eventualities and know how to perform the above actions so we do not lose too much time from your interview slot.

If this is your first time being interviewed and you are feeling nervous, please send us an email by replying to the event confirmation email or let the producer and/or Dr. Baker know before recording starts, and we will address any concerns you might have.

During the interview, relax and be yourself. If you have a compelling story, please feel free to share as much about it as you feel comfortable in doing so.

If discussing people in your social circle, please respect their privacy. 

During the interview, please take care to refrain from interjecting with “mm-hmm,” “yeah,” right,” etc., as much as you can. Such would be appropriate during a team meeting to show you are engaged and paying attention to the speaker. However, during post-production processing of the interview, they will interrupt our workflows. A few here and there are fine.

During the interview, there will be an audience consisting of our platform members. They will not be able to participate in the interview but will be posting questions in the chat. Dr. Baker might ask some of them to you.

At the end of the interview, please ensure that your local recording is uploaded fully before you navigate away from your browser. (It will say “100%” and may take anywhere from a few seconds to the better part of an hour.) Please keep your browser tab open while the upload is ongoing. If you close the browser tab before the upload is complete, we will need to get in touch with you to help you complete the upload. If for any reason this is not successful, we will have the cloud recording as backup, which will be of lower quality than a local recording.

After the interview

If you haven’t done so already, please forward a photo of yourself as soon as possible so we may use it in the video thumbnail. Photos that are blurry, are only of your head, have other people in them, have parts of your body cut off, or aren’t of you posing but doing an activity, etc., make our job difficult.

As a last resort, we may take stills from the interview video but those are not always the best option, especially if you were using a headset during the interview. Please take a look at the video thumbnails on our YouTube channel to get an idea of the resolution, frame, and aspect of what we need.

After the interview, it will take on average a couple of weeks for the video to be published. This also varies greatly depending on our other workload and how many interviews we have been recording. Please subscribe to the Dr. Shawn Baker Podcast channel on YouTube to be notified of our uploads!

If your interview was a carnivore success story, we will also eventually be preparing a carnivore success story to publish on our page, with the video to go with it. See examples here. During this process, we may reach out to you for additional information, photos, etc.

The episode will be published first on YouTube. The episode will also be pushed on other podcast platforms the day after first publishing on YouTube, at the earliest.

We do not hand out our raw recordings or the finished product to our guest speakers.

We also do not want our guests to download our videos off of our YouTube channel and upload it on theirs or other platforms. We would, however, greatly appreciate you sharing links to our videos. Thank you!