Guest Prep Guide
Thanks for joining us on camera.
A short, no-fuss walkthrough so the recording goes smoothly. The bar is low — show up, look like yourself, sound like yourself, and we'll handle the rest.
1Sign the appearance & release agreement
Before our scheduled recording session, please take a couple of minutes to complete a quick video appearance and release agreement. This is required for every guest and only needs to be done once.
Opens in a new tab. About 2 minutes to complete.
2The setup, before we hit record
Sorry, virtual backgrounds are NOT currently available in our recording software — please plan accordingly.
Background
Pick a spot where the color of your hair, face, and shirt contrast against what's behind you. Avoid overly busy backgrounds as much as possible, and try to have at least a few feet of open space behind you for visual depth.
Lighting
Face a window or a soft lamp. Avoid having a bright window or light source behind you — it turns you into a silhouette.
Sound
A quiet room is the whole game. Close the door, mute notifications, kill the fan if you can. Wired earbuds or a headset beat laptop speakers, but built-in mics are fine if the room is quiet.
Camera-to-eyes
Get the camera as close as possible to where your eyes naturally land during the conversation. The trick is below — it makes a real difference.
The dual-monitor trick: If you usually work with your laptop plus an external monitor, keep the recording window on the laptop screen, not full-size, framed close to the laptop's built-in camera. That way, when you're looking at our faces on screen, your eyes are pointed near the lens — not off to the side at a second monitor.
3How to join the room
You'll get an email from MarketScale. Skip it
Do NOT click the pink "Join the Conversation" button in this email. It only exists to set up a full MarketScale account, which you do not need as a one-time guest in our recording studio. Clicking through is a waste of your time.
The email itself is safe to ignore or delete. The calendar invite I send (Step 2) is the only thing you need to join.
A few days before our session, you'll receive an invitation from MarketScale <noreply@marketscale.com> with the subject line "Mark Wald invited you to a conversation on SPRCHRGR Studio."
The email's fine to delete — the calendar invite I send is what matters.
Use the link in your calendar invite. Do this
I'll send a standard calendar invite for our scheduled time with a direct link to the recording room — it'll look like https://studio.marketscale.com/podcasting/room/...
Click that link a few minutes before our session. You'll land here:
Type in the same email address that received the original invitation, then click Enter Room. No password, no account — that's it.
Pick your camera and mic, run a quick test.
Next, you'll see a device check screen. Choose your camera and microphone from the dropdowns, then click Test now.
If everything checks out, you'll see green confirmations across the board and an Enter room button. Click it, and you're in the recording room with me.
4One ask: do a dry run beforehand
The link works any time — try clicking through it the day or even an hour before our session. If your camera or mic has any trouble, a quick reboot usually clears it (other apps like Zoom, Teams, or Slack can hold onto the camera). Better to find that out early than at recording time.
If you hit anything weird, email me and we'll sort it out.
5Phone or laptop?
Laptop or desktop in Chrome on a stable connection is the smoothest path. Mobile works, but some phones don't reliably grant the browser access to both the camera and microphone — and once we're rolling, we don't want to be troubleshooting permissions.
If laptop isn't an option, no problem — let me know in advance and we'll test together.