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Video Transcript: Ben: Just quickly this is the set up we use. We use a black backdrop. There’s the light, this is our back light, and there’s Dave’s white board that he uses. That sits behind the camera.

David: There are the bullet points that I was talking about.

Ben: Yes, that’s what he uses and he refers to those. Once we get into the filming stage, I’ll talk to you about how to prepare and deliver that. Any final questions?

David: Just as the mike is going around, if you think about it, think about each slide. Think about what you have, what it is that you need. You need to address all of these areas. If you haven’t done video before, you might as well start. Anything that Ben has recommended, he only recommends if it’s ok to get started with. So you can’t go wrong by following what he’s got.

You’re going to spend about $200 on a camera, maybe about $500 on lights, $200 on audio, $200 on the tripod and then you could even do the backdrop with a lot less for your marketing videos. Get a sheet, make sure it’s clean, put it in the washing machine first, because the camera picks up things. Anyway, it doesn’t cost you very much to get started.

Question: Just a question on lighting. If you’re doing a lot of Flip filming, that seems to be the only one that is a bit more cost prohibitive. Is there a MacGyver half option with lighting?

Ben: Yes, use a lamp if you have to but maybe put some diffusion in front of it. A white sheet or there is material called scrim which is fire retardant. I’ve got some here actually. It’s more fibrous, that’s some. It’s more professional material that you can buy. You want even light. With these kinds of things, it doesn’t distribute light evenly, so you get shadows on the face and you can look tired and not your best. With the Flip you can set up some lamps but I’d recommend diffusing them.

Pete: Do it outside in the sun is a tip that I have. Also at lighting stores you can get just white light bulbs, which are better than yellow lights as well. It’s a small thing but makes a big difference.

David: I paid about $15 or $10 per globe in there because I went for white lights. Just go to a lighting store, the white lights do make a big difference as well as other video production tips, otherwise you get a yellowy type of thing. You can overcome it with some white balance material, but I’d still tend towards going the globe.

Question: Just a few comments on video. If you’re recording video in a room and you want a greater outcome but you haven’t got special lights, just make sure you have some natural light flooding in.

Ben: Yes, use the available light.

Question: Try and position yourself so the natural light is flooding onto the subject. If you’re shooting computer video, so you’re shooting to the screen, have the natural light shining onto you with the computer between you and the light. With all this equipment you’re talking about, you’re talking about a premeditated video experience, you’ve actually structured the environment.

The reality is a lot of the time, if you’re producing content, the best camera for viral video marketing is the camera you have on you at the time. That’s why Ed Dale, for those of you who know him, is always talking about having an iPhone on you, because it’s got a decent camera. The point is to shoot the video. If this is all you’ve got, that’s the best camera. Or if you’ve gone out and you’ve got a Kodak on location, that’s the best thing.

I hope these video filming tips will help improve the quality of your videos. Want to get expert help in doing this for your business? Contact our video production team today.

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Video Transcript: The last thing is backgrounds. When you’re shooting something, if you’re shooting something about you presenting something on a regular basis, having a good background is important, a backdrop. People notice those things, people look behind you. Right now I’m talking but you keep looking at the screen because there’s something behind you.

Generally a simple one is good when it comes to using videos for marketing purposes. I would recommend a black backdrop in internet video production just because it is simple. If you’re standing in front of it, try not to wear dark colours. You want to wear something contrasting against it. That’s what we use with our set up and it’s really effective because it just gives a simple background.

You can use a sheet. We talked about MacGyver at the start, you can use sheets, whatever you can. A thicker fabric is better because then it just hangs better, you don’t want creases because cameras can pick up that type of thing and you need a stand obviously to hold it.

Green screens, now green screens are amazing and they can help you do lots of things. They can be very tricky though. Green screens need to be lit separately to the subject. I don’t know if you remember but in the show reel I showed you, it was a PowerPoint slide and there was a little guy talking down in one corner. We shot him in front of a green screen and chroma keyed it out, which you’ve probably heard of. So we keyed out the green colour. What that means is, and this is why they use green screens, because it is a uniform colour that in editing programs you can remove that colour.

The reason they use green screens more than blue screens now is because not many people have lime green eyes but people have blue eyes and sometimes they found that they got rid of the blue screen and the people’s eyes, and it was scaring children. So they stopped using it.

With a green screen it’s about having consistent light. If you really want to use one, the way we do it is, you get two lights on the green screen, lighting it separately and then you light your subject separately to that so you get an even light. Otherwise you get these dark spots and things like that. When you go into your editing program and try to get rid of the green, there will be a strip of dark left there and that is endlessly problematic. So that’s why it’s really important to get it clean. It can be done in iMovie.

David: I was going to add to green screen as well. My gut feeling is, unless you’re going to do it well and do it right, don’t do it at all. It can look really tacky when you do it and you’re not doing it well and they’ve got a green glow outside and they’re not quite cut very well and a bit jagged if you haven’t done it right. So I think green screen, once you get comfortable and once you get someone who can help you set it up, then maybe look into it. Otherwise, in my personal opinion, I think it looks a little bit tacky. Some people think it looks more professional, but I tend to disagree.

Question: I tried out some green screen material, and if you’ve got something like, in our case it was yellow. Everything was going great until the guy held up the yellow book and there was nothing I could seem to do to get it to blend out. The yellow seemed to fade into the green or something.

Ben: Yes, yellow is close to green so if it’s in that spectrum then it’s going to get blended into it.

David: During the break we’ll give you some tips on things that you can do.

Ben: The reason it looks like you get little bits of green on people, what happens, light hits the green screen and then reflects onto the person, which is why you need to light them separately. That’s why I use a back light to separate the subject. It is a bit complicated, you need about five lights and it is something that you need to get some help with, look at a tutorial or talk to me.

Question: I’ve recently come up with a great concept using lycra, green lycra, because it stretches. You don’t get any creases or anything like that. Get it at Spotlight, it’s really cheap, I paid $40 and I think got ten meters.

I hope this will help improve the quality of your videos after using the best video background and video production equipment. Want to get help in doing this for your business? Contact us today.

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Video Transcript: Now in terms of takes, be prepared to make mistakes. Every single professional actor, every person who’s ever stood in front of a camera or on a stage has made millions of mistakes. That’s how you learn, that’s how you learn what your flow is, where your sticking points are, where your nervous twitches are, those kinds of things. That’s Charlie Chaplin in a different guise. He was known for doing countless takes, I’m talking eighty, ninety takes because he was so meticulous and wanted to get everything precise.

I do it, when I direct films and things like that, if I’m not happy, I do another take because this is an investment, this is something you’re putting out there to the world. Dave will often, he’s got lots of content and he gets right to the end and then he misses something, he’ll stop and do it again. He knows that he wants to get that flow and it’s worth doing that extra take when it comes to online marketing.

Finally I just want to talk about using the LCD. An LCD is a great thing for when you’re getting set up and framing and things like that. It can become a bit of hindrance when you’re filming because you’re going to be watching yourself. You’re not looking into the camera, you’re saying, yeah, I’m looking pretty good there and it can throw you off. So I’ll leave that to your discretion. I don’t advise it, I think it’s good for a set up but ultimately you want to be delivering to the camera.

Just some quick tricks when it comes to the editing, post production stage. Break down you content into sections. You don’t have to deliver your tome in one go. Dave does this really well, even without the help of video editing sites. Like he says, he has his bullet points, each bullet point is a section. He’ll deliver that section, take a break, read the next section, then deliver that part, stop and go back and forth. This is the big trick, the super pro. Start and end in the same position, as Katie pointed out, the power position, or something, something where you know you can come back to something.

The reason we do that, when I edit Dave’s work, he’s done all these different sections, so he’s got five or six sections but we make it look like it’s one. He’ll do his section, and he’ll stop and he’ll read his material and then he’ll start his next section and he’ll come to the end of that one and read his material and do the next one. That gives me a really clear, easy edit point to say, I need to start when he’s doing this.

Don’t keep everything. If you start and stop and you’re doing a few takes and you’re getting frustrated and it’s not working, just delete it, get rid of it.

David: Can I add a point to that one regards the deleting? We had a client who recorded a whole lot of things for us and they did about sixty takes, sent it through to Ben because we were going to do the editing for him and then we had to flip through to try and find it. It’ll be so much easier for you. You might do five or six goes. You don’t have to delete it after every one, but after you do a series of ten and you say, I didn’t get any of those, you might as well jump over there and delete it. It will save you whole lot of time.

Ben: Generally, if you’re going off bullet points and things like that if you haven’t memorized a script, you will improve each time. You’ll be more concise, you’ll get more confident, you’ll get the point across in fewer words, so ultimately you end up keeping those later takes.

The BBS Formula, I don’t know if we have time to show that, that was the snippets.

David: Yes, all it was, was an example of me doing it and I’m happy to get you the video as well as the video editing so you can see it, an unedited, raw version of me doing that video of the BBS. You’ll see me and I’ll sit there and I’ll read my point, I’ll say what I need to say, and then hands come back here, then I go back to read whatever it is that I want. If I mess up, you’ll get better with this over time, the first video you do is going to be the worst video you ever do and you’ll just get better at this.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes if you forget to go back like that, you can get over that with post edit by snapping into their head shot and snapping out. Ben will show you zooming in and zooming out, so it doesn’t have to be exactly flawless because we’ll just change the camera angle and really that’s me taking a new shot.

Ben: It’s a way for you to take the pressure off yourself. You can just do this little bit by bit, you’ve heard this ‘we’ll fix it in post.’ You can really fix a lot of things in post production. If you’re well prepared and you know that’s you’re going to be fixing it in post, you can record the content better.

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Video Transcript: Now I’ve already covered this, talking about the different camera angles. Now here is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, when you’re actually presenting. As I said, this is about presenting to the camera. So first thing, how to remember your script. The five Ps. Be prepared, know your script, read it through.

The way Dave does it is with a white board as we talked about, making bullet points. If you don’t have a white board, write it on a piece of paper, just as long as you can see it. Put it behind the camera so you can actually have a read of it and know where you’re at. It’s just like public speaking when you make notes and things like that. Or these, if you’re writing bullet points.

This is a really important thing. For some reason, as soon as a camera gets turned on, people freak out. They suddenly feel like they’re being judged. It’s like when a little kid looks you in the face and you say, why are you looking at me? What’s wrong with me? It’s just looking at you, this is just an eye that’s recording information. I used to be quite afraid of cameras. Even though I went to drama school and became an actor, I was pretty scared, maybe that’s why I did it. Then one day, I said, ok buddy, you and me, so I just had a good look at it, I said, not much is going on, it’s ok.

So if you’re by yourself and in your own environment, just take some time. Maybe have a connection, get to know it. What I want you to know, whatever you’re presenting to a camera is just a conversation. It’s just a conversation with your audience. If you’ve got a picture of the audience behind you, then do that. It is about you just disseminating information and there happens to be something recording it.

The actual delivery techniques in small business videos, I’ll just run through this. You can learn a lot from actors. I used to work for a training company that hired actors to help corporate people with presentation skills. When you go to drama school, it’s like going to boot camp, they break you down and sometimes don’t put you back together. The things they teach you about your stance, your breath and your voice, these are your best friends.

Stance, most people, it goes in here, your nervous twitch. When people are talking, we generally do something with our bodies, because it is a bit uncomfortable to just stand there and be open. That reads really quickly with people. So if you’re presenting to a camera, and you say, hey, here’s my great product and say, oh, it’s awesome, you should get it, it comes across as, who is this person? I’m not going to believe them, they’re scared, whatever.

You need to find a stance, a nice neutral stance where your feet are hip worth apart, unlock your knees, just get a feel for it. Stand up straight, it changes how you feel. If I’m talking to you like this, a bit hunched, I’m a little bit scared of you now and I’m a little bit soft. If I literally just pull my shoulders back and stand up, I feel different. I feel stronger, I feel like I’ve got a certain level of authority and expertise and that’s just in your stance and your posture.

Where you want to look at either desktop video recorder or a professional video recorder, you want to look at the horizon. If you’re looking up or down it will give a different meaning, but if you’re looking straight ahead it will give you strength, it’s called the neutral stance. Then you want to be able to do something with your hands. Our hands represent the present moment. We’re always doing something, whatever you’re doing usually with your hands: you’re making lunch, you’re driving a car, you’re writing something, you’re typing, it’s usually with your hands.

The hands are dexterous things, they want to grip, they want to play. I’ve had this thing all day and so that’s one thing to remember if you’re presenting to the camera and you’ve got a remote control or something or a microphone, you’re going to play with it. Learn what that is, learn what your nervous twitch is and then just try to not do it. I’m going to try to not do it for the rest of this session.

Question: Because I’ve done a fair bit of body language studies, one of the tools they say, if you’re having a nervous twitch, put your two fingers together in the Mr Burns’ fashion, because that’s a power position.

David: In fact if you watch any of my online video marketing videos, that’s what I do, that’s how I stand in all my videos. It’s good for having a grounding centerpiece on where to come back for editing as well. I always stand like that.

Ben: I’ll do it for the rest of the time. So my minions, what are we going to talk about? So stance is the first thing and then breath. Your breath will get you through anything. Have you ever had a really hard massage and you think your ribs are going to break but if you breathe you’ll get through it?

Breathing is the first thing you lose when you start to get nervous. All the breath goes up into the top of your chest and it all gets stuck there because you’re not breathing. So anytime you start to feel that tension build up, take a breath and let it all go. You start again, and when it builds up again, you take another breath.

Finally your voice. Your voice comes from your breath. So if I’m really restricted in my breath, then my voice is going to change as opposed to when I’m talking from the depth of my voice which is coming from my breath. I literally just changed where I was breathing just then to change how it comes across. That’s going to position you in a certain way. If you’re trying to convince people of something, or market that you are an expert in some way, you need to come across in the best light and voice.

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Video Transcript: Now just quickly, we’ll talk about easy screen capture software. This is a fantastic development in technology where you can record off your screen. Most of you are probably using it these days. It’s great for videos, for business tutorials, for feedback for people. We work with a lot of people overseas. They do a thing, rather than write a long email about how you want the logo to change, just make a screenflow of it. It’s a really effective way. I use it for grabs when I am doing work for clients and I want their website to appear on there, I go and record it and you can animate it and do lots of work with it.

Two main programs, ScreenFlow which is for Mac, and Camtasia which is for PC, but has a Mac version. I prefer ScreenFlow for my business videos, I’m a Mac man. It records the whole screen, it’s more intuitive. Camtasia, though, has its merits. Now you can either use your computer’s built- in mike, it’s there, or you can use one of these things, like the Snowball that you see or a Bluetooth headset if you’re not going to be viewed. It’s a really effective thing because it will be a clear capturing of the audio.

David: To build on these things, Camtasia now has come out on Mac as well, they’ve got a Mac version. It’s not nearly as in depth, so Ben’s right, definitely go for ScreenFlow if you’re going to be on a Mac. It’s got some really cool material in there.

When it comes to actually recording the videos as well, just like when I’m recording a video, I’ll make notes on my whiteboard, I’ll do the same thing for when I’m recording a screen recording, I’ll make my bullets in a notepad. I’ll have it off the recorded area because when you’re doing screen capture software, you can select what area of your screen you’re looking to record, then you move that slightly out of shot and it’s like reading the text. Typically when I’m doing screen recording work though, I don’t have to do as much post edit. I just find it easier to get the flow when I’m doing on screen recording.

So I think it’s really important, just make sure that you document what it is, that process that you’re going to do. Scripting, this is the area that most people go wrong. Just one final point I would like to add in regards to scripting in small business video marketing, it may look like people are doing it really well, and I know Rob and I talked about this in the break.

Ed is a fantastic example where it feels like he just goes off the cuff, and he’s an internet marketer for those who are not familiar with Ed Dale. It feels like he’s going off the cuff, but behind the scenes you’ve got Rob who creates the scripts and sets everything up to make sure that Ed is hitting the right points. So scripting is an area that you need to start with first.

Question: You mentioned putting your notepad on the side of the screen and blocking it out. Something that I’ve discovered recently is Post-it makes clear Post-it notes that you can actually stick on your screen. So you can put them over your screen and actually a full screen screen cam and still have your notes appearing on your screen.

David: That’s pretty good.

Pete: I’ll be a little bit old school here, but if I’m doing a screen recording, I just have the notes on the desk on a piece of paper.

Ben: I do too, Pete.

Pete: It’s a bit old school I know.

Ben: That’s for people who can still write. With the ScreenFlow you record it and then you can animate it. There are lots of things you can do. You can zoom in, you can highlight things, you can change the angle, the sky’s the limit, it’s a really great resource.

The last one is slides. You can use PowerPoint or Keynote and make videos out of that. Dave, you can talk about this.

David: Yes, the way that we do this is, let’s say I’m doing a video interview with someone regarding best video screen capture, I might record the audio first. We’re doing it with the BBS Formula as well at the moment. We’re recording the audio first and then we’re matching up the slides afterwards. It can work really well because you map out what your script is going to be and make sure that the audio is really smooth. Then you can use some software like Audacity to clean it up. You might speed up the tempo slightly so it moves at a slightly better pace. You might snip it at a couple of points where there is a bit of dead time, dead air, get a really perfect audio.

Once you’ve got that perfect audio, then you go ahead and use Keynote and you map out your presentation, the entire presentation. Then what you do is Keynote has an option, otherwise you can just use your screen recording software Camtasia or ScreenFlow to bring up your presentation, hit play on your audio, that perfect audio that you’ve got. Have it playing on the external speaker, maybe you get a headset or something like that, put it just underneath the mike on your Mac so it picks up the audio. As that plays, then you click through the slides. So you make sure that you get the right time code of that slide series.

Then you take that video, you drag it into iMovie, you detach the audio, you take the audio off the video. Then you take your good audio and replace that bad audio that you recorded off the screen. That’s one of the quickest, easiest ways. I know that was a lot there for someone, but you’ll just sit and listen to the recording or re watch that. I just gave you the process for making really good presentations.

For interviews we don’t worry about doing that so much, we don’t go to that level of in depth. We’re just happy to match it up because it’s all about getting that quantity versus quality out. If I’m creating a really scripted sales presentation, that’s when I tend toward that method I just gave you.

So it’s great for Skype interview and phone interviews. I record the audio first, I just talked about that. Then when you create your slides, do one or two colours, one or two fonts and this is a design thing, and this is for sales letters, anything online, one or two colours, one or two fonts, one or two sizes. Stick with that and you’ll be so much happier.

Often you might think it looks really cool at the time if you use all these fonts and fancy things. I guarantee you’ll come back and look at it six months down the track and you’ll say, that looks really average when it comes to marketing. The simpler you go, the happier you’ll be with it over the long term and I think it’s more professional.

Ben: Yes, don’t gild the lily as they say. This is just an example.( video) That’s just an intro we had made. That’s it, a slide and audio. Any questions?

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Foodie Pooch Case Study

Foodie Pooch came to Melbourne Video Production with the need to introduce their innovative and healthy pet food to the market. There were two catches: the fact the public are fairly unaware of pet nutrition and that our client and Foodie Pooch owner Alla had a pretty tight deadline.

But as usual, we hit both out of the park!

The Concept

The goal for Foodie Pooch’s videos was to first enlighten pet owner’s about the importance of giving their four-legged family members the right nutrition. The next step was to teach potential and new Foodie Pooch customers on how to integrate that healthier diet into their pet’s daily routine.

Having to work with a quickly approaching due date, our amazing production team created five separate videos, specifically designed to lead the viewer down the purchasing path: “Does Your Pet Food Tick All The Boxes?”, “What Are The Benefits To Feeing A Natural Diet To Your Pet?”, “So What Makes Foodie Pooch Different?”, “How Do I Serve Foodie Pooch Meals?” and lastly “How Do I Make Changes To My Pets Diet?”

The Shoot

The entire series was filmed here at Melbourne Video Production’s studio. Although the shoot took up the majority of the day, Alla was committed – and more than happy – to take her time getting it right. Alla was also able to bring in her dog to appear in the last video of the series; we enjoyed having a furry client to work with – and although he was well behaved, he took up a large portion of the studio due to his sheer size!

The Result

Meeting our clients’ needs is what we’re all about, and Alla was amazed at how quickly we were able to film, edit and deliver the final product to her. Her patience and perseverance during filming definitely helped us deliver on time!

Each video was produced in the same manner, using intros and outtros to keep the continuity and flow. Generous shots of the products, well articulated speech, as well as various shots of Alla, keep the viewer engaged the entire length of each video.

The final result has created a series of videos that help lead potential and new Foodie Pooch clients down the path to a healthy & delicious diet for their pets.

Click here to watch the case study videos now.

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Video Transcript: With video framing, when you’re doing this kind of work, you want to take up the most space in the frame, but you don’t want to take up the whole thing. So the way we shoot Dave’s is, you aim the camera so the top of the frame is the top of the head. Then generally you want to go around, this is called a mid shot, a mid shot like this. Because we don’t have much time to go into great detail about filming and shots and framing and things like that, generally there are three types of shots that you can do.

There’s the wide shot where that basically gives your environment, your context: we’re in a room, we’re in a pool, we’re in a forest, so we get an understanding of where it is. So that tells your audience where we are. The you go into a mid shot which is where most of the action happens, dialogue, people talking, things like that. You would have heard of the two shot, that’s where you have two actors or two participants in the shot. Just like when Dave was doing the interview with Daryl Guppy, that’s a two shot. It’s a mid size two shot. So you just have two people in there and generally it’s from here up, maybe some shoulder, but generally from mid chest up.

Then you go to your close ups. Now close ups are really to display emotion, you want to see the frown on someone’s face, you want to see the tear, you want to see the teeth grit and things like that. It’s a great way to get emotion across if you’re trying to highlight a point. Or throw to someone, you see a close up of someone’s hands gripping or something like that. That will convey meaning very quickly.

But this kind of thing, what we do, we shoot digital video frame in one way, we shoot it a mid shot like this, maybe a little bit lower. Then when we get into the editing, we can digitally zoom in, so we can move back and forth so you get a bit of a close up when you’re illustrating a point or just to provide a bit of variety.

That’s the basics of it. If you’re shooting an internet marketing video, there are many other different types of shots you can do and angles and things like that. It’s the kind of thing you could go and study for three years, you can look up tutorials, things like that. For your purposes, if you’re shooting a video of people or a situation other than you, start with some kind of wide shot and then try to get a mid shot really.

David: To build on what Ben was saying, the way that we do it in the office, Ben will set it up so we’ll go for the widest shot possible and he’ll snap in. So he’ll show you the benefit of that also in the editing process. That’s how it can make it feel like there are multiple cameras when really there is only one camera. It helps making sure in the post phase when we’re doing the editing, making it feel like it’s just one shot.

Ben: Yes, and it is trial and error in online video marketing. If you’re by yourself, you’re going to set it up. If you’ve got an LCD, if you’ve got a screen, flip it around and go, yes, that feels about right. If you’ve got a Flip, set it up, eyeball it, have a guess, press record and then just find out. It’s a feeling, you’ll get a feeling for it, you’ll say, yes, that feels right. You can do it centered if you just want to be stand and deliver. But I find that style, using one third is much more effective.

I hope this video framing tutorial will help improve the quality of your videos. Want to get help in doing this for your business? Contact us today.

Westminster Law Case Study

At the time we began working with Melbourne based Westminster Law, they already had ideas about what their web videos would be like; they simply needed a professional team to bring those ideas to life. And that’s where we came in.

The Concept

The main objective for their videos was to gain instant rapport with potential clients by conveying the firm as experienced, reputable and trustworthy. Our production team crafted three separate videos to build this virtual bond via: a “Landing Page” video, “FAQ series” video, and an “About Us” video.

To connect directly with the viewer and introduce the law firm, a sole lawyer describes a sensitive topic in clear, easy-to-understand terms for the “Landing Page” video.

Then the “FAQ” video was shot mock ‘consultation’ style, making it very easy to comprehend answers to questions frequently asked by clients. Lastly, the “About Us” video, set in a legal library, presents the Director of Westminster Lawyers in a way that brings a real sense of expertise and professionalism to the trio of videos.

The Shoot

Melbourne Video Production spent about 5 hours in total at the Westminster Law offices – a pretty big day for anyone not used to the process of filming. During the course of the day, we snagged all the footage required for each video.

Although the firm already had their own scripting, as part of our service, we helped tweak the wording to best fit their concept as well as the flow of the videos.

The Result

Editing the footage together in a clean-cut manner, the final product shows various angles and supporting scenes (in black & white) to help emphasize the firm’s message. The final result is that the viewer sees Westminster Law as having an exceptional amount of experience along with a highly regarded & professional team.

Click here to watch the About Us video now.

Does your business have products or services that are better described in person than in print or text? If so, then web video will be the best thing you’ve ever done for your website! Get in touch with Melbourne Video Production today to find out how we can create a series of web videos to help your business – quickly & affordably. Click here to contact us.

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Video Transcript: Lights. Now this is your basic three point lighting system. What it is, I’ll talk you through this. I’ve got it set up here. You’ve got what is called your key light, which is your main light. This will be your strongest light which will give the most light onto the subject. What happens though is, you get this strong light coming on and it starts to cast shadows and it can be distracting. So you get this strong video lighting and then someone’s nose creates a shadow on their face or you get dark circles and things like that. You definitely have to have a key light. Usually it sits up high, it’s your surrogate sun. If you’re indoors in a controlled environment, that’s your key light.

Then you have what’s called a fill light as you can see here. The fill light sits usually at the same level as the camera, a bit lower, and it’s a softer light. When we have these kinds of light, which have multiple bulbs in them, you can turn on different ones. With your key light, you might turn them all on and then with this one, you might turn two on or three on. So that will just help balance out that thing.

What you don’t want is it to be the exact same intensity because then it will just flatten you out. It will flatten out the subject. These are all things that are quite subconscious but when you’re watching a film or something, you read emotion out of light as well. You read about the situation that the person is in.

What we want is a level of contrast to give a bit of depth and character to someone’s face and generally that’s what we’re filming. If you’re using these lights, softer light will get rid of those strong shadows that are created by the key light but also leave a little bit of detail in the face.

Finally, if you’ve got the means, the space whatever, you would use a back light and video lighting kit. The back light provides a bit of a halo, a bit of a glow over the back of someone and it also separates them from the background which is a really effective thing. In a minute I’ll show you the difference from step to step of what it looks like to use these different lights.

It’s a really good thing, it adds a little bit of light on the shoulder, maybe to highlight bone structure and cheeks and things like that and it just does something. It makes you say, that’s what I’m meant to concentrate on, this person, not the background that is lit as well, so you move away from it.

That’s your basic lighting set up. Here’s the studio.

Question: This is probably a really stupid question. Could you just flick back to that other slide? Where you’ve got the back light there, that bottom bit there, that would be effectively where you would put your back drop sheet? Is that right?

Ben: Yes, here. Now in the studio set up we have at the office, it’s a small room so, ultimately the back light should be behind you and above and you don’t want it to be in front of the backdrop or anything like that. It’s better if you can get it behind the backdrop and just lighting you. In our situation, we have to put it to the side because there’s not much room. So you just put it to the side but it still adds a little bit of texture and glow and separates from the video background.

Question: Would you use two back lights?

Ben: No, you wouldn’t actually because it flattens it. It flattens it out too much, you want a bit of contrast and depth. That’s how our eyes work. I’m focusing on you, but my peripheral vision is also focusing elsewhere but that’s blurred out right now. That’s how our eyes work and that’s what we as humans will want to mimic, what we want to see when we look at things as well. That’s what the lighting does.

Question: Just very quickly, the back light, just the strength of that in comparison to the key light and the fill lights?

Ben: It’s a softer light as well. It’s just a highlight. You can get little lights that will offer just a very limited thing. Those little LED lights that I was talking about, you could use something like that. It’s about playing around, because your environment, the space you’re in, will dictate how much strength you need. With the redheads, you try to put them back as far as you can because they’re so strong. Then if you put some diffusion on it, it softens it and it’s a bit of trial and error. You’ll get a feel for when it’s right.

(slide) This is the studio, this is with all the video lighting equipment, lights off and can you see Dave? He’s there. So he took a photo of that like that. (slide) This is just with the overhead light on right, and the projector makes it a little bit dark. You’re getting a lot of down light, shadow, it’s not strong. (slide) This is with a key light, just this key light coming on. So as you can see, you’re getting a nice bit of light here but it just disappears. You’re getting no texture over that side of his face. I love the face he’s making by the way.

(slide) This is with the fill light on. See how much light is on this side? We’ll go back. We’ve got heaps of light on this side, not much here, we’re just adding a bit more. So you’re getting that texture but it’s not as powerful as it is on that side.(slide) Then finally you add it with a back light. With the back light you see the difference. See he’s part of the background there, you can’t see anything? But here, now you start to get a shape. He separates it. You’ll end up looking like that if the wind changes. That’s basically how it will look. Play around with it, get a feel for it. That’s lighting.

I hope this video lighting tutorial will help improve the quality of your small business videos. Want to get help in producing and marketing your own business videos? Contact us today.

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Video Transcript: There are three types of video basically that we’re going to go through. There’s live video, which we’re recording today and generally you’ll be doing most of that. There’s screen capture which is becoming more and more prevalent, it’s fantastic, I love screen capture and I’ll talk about that. Also then there are slides, turning an audio podcast into a video through PowerPoint presentations.

This is my golden rule for when you’re presenting or doing a film shoot or a video shoot of any kind. There is a lot to remember, there is a lot to do, so the five Ps, you might have heard of this, it’s Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Say it with me. It’s true, it’s like with the scripts. You write a clear script, you have a clear structure, then that’s going to help you out.

For some reason, as soon as you involve a camera, things start to go wrong. Especially when you’re shooting outside and you’re shooting in daylight and a cloud goes over. Or it’s cloudy and the sun comes out or a light goes out or you run out of batteries, there are so many things that can go wrong. So it’s good to be prepared.

This is just a bit of an aside, but if you’re filming people for your online video marketing business, if you’re asking them to be on camera, much like we’ve done with you today, ask them to sign a release form. We’ve included it at the back of the manual, just a basic one that we use. It’s a legal thing to do so that people can agree to be on camera in some way.

So here’s the check list I’m going to go through: the camera, audio and the lighting and just so you know what to follow each time. The first thing is with your camera, so we’re doing this as if we’re presenting to the camera. I’ve set it up here so you guys can see me, I’ll bring this forward for now.

Just really quickly, the angle on which you have your camera gives a certain meaning. If the camera is pointed up like this and you’re looking down into it, that’s going to convey a different meaning to if you’re looking up into a camera. We as humans read things differently in that respect. So if you’re looking down into the camera, you’re the authority, you’re standing over it, you’re like, this is what you need to do, basically that’s the kind of feeling you get from it.

If you’re looking up at the camera as opposed to looking down the camera, you’re looking up at the camera, cinematographers use this kind of technique of making someone look a bit smaller or belittled or lower than something.

Generally you won’t want to use either of those. You want the camera to just be even with you, with your eye. It comes back to whether you’re sitting or standing. If you’re sitting, you just need to set it up at eye level. If you’re standing, you need your tripod, video production equipment or a box or whatever you can, get McGyver on this type of thing to set the camera at a decent height. It really does make a big difference.

David: The way I like to set the level as well, depending on what it is that you’re trying to do, if you’re trying to feel like you’re talking from a stage, so it’s like you’re presenting, then you might have the angle slightly up, so it’s like you’re talking down. Sometimes if I’m trying to do a one on one type, meet Dave, I’ll do it at the same level, they’re on the same level as me. If I want to go up here, then it’s one of those dodgy Myspace photos. It really depends on what it is you’re trying to get across.

Ben: Yes and if you’re doing it from your computer, often because the camera will be at the top, you will be looking up a little bit more. So the way to counteract that, if you’ve got a Mac you can tilt it down and maybe if you can, sit a bit further back, it will start to balance it out a bit. So that’s in terms of height, what you want to get across.

Distance as well. Cameras have zooms, the Flips and things have limited zooms, so you just want to be at a good distance from the camera where, we’ll talk about this in a sec, the frame, where you appear in the camera has a certain amount of meaning as well.

So if you’re doing this style, Dave’s style of presenting to the camera, we put the camera as far back as we can because we’re in a small room and then you just find the right distance so you appear in a certain level.

Now what you want, I’ll talk about framing now and other home recording tips, framing is obviously what appears in the frame of the camera. There are many different techniques. I find the best one to use for this technique is similar to what I showed you, maybe the second and third videos I showed you in the evolution of Dave’s section, is you want to stand left or right of the camera in one third of it.

Standing in the center is a bit flat. It feels like it should be the natural thing to do but if you watch most films and TV shows and things like that, it very rarely happens. It might if they’re going for a very symmetrical shot or something like that, that’s when they’ll use it, but generally, if you’re off center a bit, it’s just more pleasing. There’s just something more pleasing about it to the eye.

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