What if you could walk into a studio, hit record and walk out with a polished, multi-camera video ready to roll? That's the idea driving StudioMe, and TechVibe Radio gets a firsthand look at the technology making high-quality content creation faster, easier and a whole lot less intimidating. Keith Parish and Joe Leachko join Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo to talk about StudioMe's evolution from traditional video production to automated communication studios that handle cameras, audio and live switching in real time. They also dig into StudioMe's AI-powered Sidekick Coach, which can listen to a conversation, suggest questions and insights, highlight key moments and even score your podcast performance. Plus, hear why authenticity and consistency still matter more than the fanciest camera in the room and how two guys who met at the gym nearly 20 years ago ended up building technology that is changing how companies create content. Hit play. The cameras are already rolling! The Pittsburgh Technology Council produces TechVibe Radio to explore Pittsburgh's technology and innovation ecosystem. Transcript: StudioMe radio cut === [00:00:00] one. Fancy seeing you here, Audrey, in the Huntington Bank Studios. You know how excited I am every time I roll into these studios? I know. You're very protective of the studio. Very protective. I gotta tell you something, if anyone comes in here And he, I think he has like an alarm I do As soon as someone comes in, he, "Oh, what's up?" Yeah. "What are, what are you doing in here?" Don't touch that. "What are you-" We've had some incidents in the past. "What are you touch- what are you touching? What are you touching?" Exactly. That's, that's natural. I mean- Yeah. It's your baby. It's, it's our baby, and because we are talking to our friends from Studio Me here, Keith Parrish and Joe Lechko, who built the Huntington Bank Studios here for us. I know. We have upped our game, Audrey, like it is no one's business. Fantastic. I've gone from iPhones and 10-year-old cameras- You have ... patched up with duct tape and stuff to this full-blown studio where we are having the best conversations with everybody in Pittsburgh's tech sector. And I cannot wait to talk to these guys about... They do this for lots of people. I know. And they got so many things going on between videos they shoot, between their studios where people can come in and create their own content and [00:01:00] have high-quality stuff. We're lucky because we, they built us our own studio here. So we're gonna jump in and have a lot of fun today. So guys, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you guys here. And what does it feel like to be in your own creation here at the Tech Council? It feels weird. Does it feel weird? We're not used to this. We're used to being behind the camera and making this production happen and showing people what we have. But since we walked in, you've shown all the new things you have done inside of your own- Yeah ... part of the software that we built for you. It's just, it's, it's fun to see you make it yours. Cool. You know? Yeah. So- It's, it's always cool to see something that was, you know, just a, a blank canvas before. I mean, you had a table in here. It had... But you didn't have this, this nice background, the TV. And then to see it come together and, and look like a studio at the end of the day, and then to be actually like sitting here and having a conversation is pretty cool. Yeah. For sure. It's really cool. So let's set the stage. Tell everyone or tell us exactly, what's your pitch? So we always had envisioned that we wanted to make high quality content easy to [00:02:00] create for everybody, and we had to build a bunch of systems to make that happen for the general public or whomever we interact with on a video or photo shoot. We wanted to make that easier, easy, so media made easy no matter what it was. ~Keith and I met probably almost 20 years ago. Oh, this is a good story. I like this. Oh, let's hear it. In the gym, right? Yeah, yeah. This is, yeah. I like- Well, it, it's interesting. Yeah, so Keith and I met in 2000 something. By the way, this is our most asked question for some reason. Is it really?~ ~Everybody's interested in how we- How did you meet? ... how we met. How did you meet? Not about the business, but how did you guys meet? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's it was like almost 20 years ago. We met at a gym, and it was Market Square when it was Gold's Gym. Now it's a Taj. And I was in college still. He had just graduated college.~ ~When you see the same people in the same places, you say, "Hi." It's a friendly hi, that sort of thing. That's what it was. And we all came at the same time after, after school for me, I think after work for him. Became friends. Never really hung out, but he invited me to go to a bar one time with his buddies and everything to hang out.~ ~I was not 21 yet, so I couldn't go. So I said, "Listen, if there's a house party or something, you let me know." But it never happened, and I ended up moving across the city. And then I think it was, like, five years later or so, we run into each other at the Southside Gym at LA Fitness down there. And it was like walking past each other through the locker room or something.~ ~It's "Wait a second." And, and he- Where you been? You sound like frat boys telling this story "Yeah, we were at the gym." I love that. Yeah. "There was a bar." And, yeah. But I mean, keep in mind, this is 20 years ago. Yeah, it was, it was 2007, '8, just about. And yeah, so I, you know, he had just moved into a really cool house on Southside Slopes, and I was going into my career in architectural designer at an events company.~ ~And I was like, "I would love to come see your place. It s- looks super cool." And ever since then, we kinda hit it off as buddies and stuff, and knew that we had the same synergies, same morals, everything kinda fit together, and we knew that, we could probably build something together, too on a greater scale, something bigger than ourselves.~ ~And he had an idea. He wanted a, an itch to scratch, essentially, when it came to studios. He was already in, in video production and I didn't know anything about it then. So he said, "I'll pitch to you, and I'll convince you in one workout." Wow. So we went- In one workout? Okay. So we went back to the gym, and for an hour and 15, or whatever it was, he talked me through this idea,~ ~He has a lot of great aspirations toward it, and I had the public facing, 'cause I was more on the marketing side, more of an environmental side of things when it comes to building spaces, and he knew more the tech side, the knowhow and everything. So there was a lot of bouncing back and forth in between sets, you know, at the gym- I love it~ ~and, ... figuring that out. So- Pumping iron and building a business. We, we, we originally looked at a lot of other kinds of businesses to get into, and nothing really seemed to just fit us personality-wise. So I was like, "All right, is there something in our space that we can kinda get into?" And I'd always had this, this idea.~ ~Every time I'd go out on a shoot, I felt like I was doing the same setup every time for a talking head. It was like, you know, same lighting setup, same audio, same camera placement. I'm like, "Couldn't they just build a room that already does this?" And at the time that's more common nowadays, but at the time- Yeah~ ~everything was, like, meant for big productions, big crews, lots of equipment. It was expensive. You needed, your own insurance. And but there was, like, a whole new kind of media creator that was emerging- Yeah, the- ... and there wasn't a space for it ... it was coming together at the time- Yeah ... where, yeah, people were making their own content and so forth.~ Yep. And you're thinking of a space to allow anyone to do that. I mean, there's two sides of the business. We're known for the production work, but we're also known for our automated studios, which we're in right now. For those watching, if, if you wouldn't otherwise know, you might think there's a whole, crew in here working the space and, or, and then a, a whole post-production process. But it's doing everything in real time. And so that's what we've built now, and that's kinda what we're known for with our spaces. But originally it was, it was more just the concept of can we create a space that's easy to use for this new type of content creator that didn't exist before? But what's changed? What's changed since you sort of had this idea? 'Cause the technology- ... has just shifted. Yeah, since- It's almost 20 years ... well, yeah, I mean, podcasting has obviously blown up. These studios can be used for much more than podcasting. They're, they're just general communication [00:03:00] studios. But a, a lot of the use cases are for podcasts or interviews. And , that medium's, just taken off and, everybody's on their phones now. And I, I just, the media world has gone from,, producing like one high-quality video a year to now you just need content all the time. You can't produce something now and launch it in several months. It's gotta, it's gotta be high speed- Yeah ... to market, and that's what our studios are good at, is producing- And that's- ... content immediately. So, do you help companies think through that as well? Yeah. Because, I'm sure people still, there are still people who say, "Oh, I just do this kinda contrived, structured content- Yeah and I'll come here once a month." And there is- Once a quarter ... there is still space for both. There is? Yeah. So I, I don't wanna say ... I mean, we, we work on the 20-person, , larger productions as well. But that used to be the only thing, and now there's, there's much more. The pie's grown, and it's also been divided, to, to a lot more different variety. ~And so yeah, we help companies think through that, 'cause a lot of companies, ~I think COVID changed
