Challenge

The largest YouTube creators all share a common problem: scale. Linus Media Group started in a garage studio in 2013 and now boasts seven active channels and over 26 million subscribers. The group, which includes flagship channel Linus Tech Tips, TechQuickie, and unboxing channel ShortCircuit, operates out of an industrial park in Surrey, British Columbia. At any given time, 40-50 people work onsite, and the team is responsible for dozens of videos a week.

The rapid growth of the enterprise created numerous problems. Production manager Alfred Liu joined LMG from traditional film and TV production to bring experience from the industry. He found plenty to work on. In the case of ShortCircuit’s temporary studio, the crew had spent over two years in a cramped space with tripods, C-stands, and combo stands. The haphazard lighting combined with the products featured in videos also created power draw problems, and moving in the space was so difficult that the production introduced a “no changes to the lighting” rule, with lights switched on and off with smart plugs. Most urgently, shoots were constantly disrupted by foot traffic and noise. “Bikes were stored in there, and the HVAC system and the power generator were in that same area, so it would constantly hum,” Liu says, “And every three or four hours a train would go by.”

Liu adds, “They scaled so fast that they never looked at across-the-board production company efficiencies, how to leverage channels, and how to integrate them into one space and use the same resources across all of them. That's the reason why I was brought in.”

Solution

To solve the disruption issues, the ShortCircuit team agreed they would need to move the studio to a new space further into the building. This helped with foot traffic and noise, but the only other spaces available had 9-foot drop ceilings and were still small for the three sets the team would build.

Liu looked for ways to get stands and tripods off the ground to reduce clutter. As the new kitchen, den/office, and living room sets were built, he installed a Manfrotto Sky Track system. This 25-foot rail allowed the top-down camera to sit out of the way until needed, and also let the team easily slide a single camera from set to set. “This cut down on extra camera cost, which I'm pretty proud of,” Liu says.

Each set was keyed and filled from the front with a ceiling-mounted Nova P600c and Nova P300c through silks, and INFINIBARs proved to be a perfect top light. The low-profile and high-powered magnets meant Liu could place them directly on the drop ceiling grid. Aputure STORM 80cs on scissor clamps provided a compact edge and hair light, and B7Cs were used for practical lamps. The wall behind the den/office set was lit with INFINIBARs with subtly changing colors.

For lighting control, Liu unified all the lighting to Sidus Link Pro with a Sidus Four. In addition to vastly improved control, the new control system made monitoring network health much easier, both on Sidus Link Pro and on the Sidus Four. “We can also check the hardware to see if they're all connected,” Liu says. “We love that we have two points.”

When testing the lighting, Liu and the team were happy to find their overall power draw had also dropped dramatically. “We cranked everything to 100, and our facility guy goes, ‘We're only drawing 20 or 30% of what I thought we would.’”

Results

ShortCircuit’s new studio space debuted on the channel on December 31, 2025. Liu says, “Our channel loved the big refresh. I think our main challenge is trying to get staff not to use the set as a lunch area because they want to hang out. It's nice and cozy.”

The new lighting and controls also created opportunities for on-the-fly collaboration. For example, the team found that since INFINIBARs have built-in batteries, it’s easy for a production assistant to grab one and hold it off-camera for pickup shots.

Unified control with Sidus Link Pro and Sidus Four has also greatly freed up the team. “We can turn off one set, we turn off the office, we can turn off the kitchen, and just have it isolated instead of turning everything on and manually moving around.” Where lighting changes used to be forbidden and keeping things on and connected were a constant problem, now changes are fast and reliable. Liu says, “Even our channel manager is like, ‘Oh, I got this. I want to tweak this a little bit and tweak that a little bit.’”

Liu continues to work on the group’s production practices. He says, “I haven't been able to take all the tools that I know and bring them here. We’ve got to meet somewhere in the middle, with how they've been doing things. But when they see the end product like this, they're more convinced. Like, ‘Oh, okay, he gets it.’”