We’ve talked about knowing you camera and keeping your shots steady in the previous posts, now we’re going to talk about one of the most important ingredients in a successful video shoot – the lighting.
If you notice, the most pleasant and professional-looking videos are the ones made with good lighting. To understand how to do this, you can use the tips below to help you out.
Tip 1: LEDs or Fluorescents NOT Incandescent
LEDs might be more expensive but they don’t get hot and are thus safer to use for a longer period. Fluorescent lights are also great since they provide even lighting and are relatively inexpensive to use for short-term video shoots.
Tip 2: Know the Basics of Thee – Point Lighting
Three-point lighting is a basic tool every videographer or aspiring YouTube video host needs to know. Basically, you set up three lights. One, the key light, will shine directly on to the person or subject being shot. The second is a background light – this keeps the subject distinguished from the background. Then a fill light is used to “fill in” any shadows thrown by the first two lights. Its goal is to eliminate large shadows so your subject shows up on video better.
Tip 3: Buy Softboxes
Pointing a light directly onto your subject can look harsh. A softbox (those big black boxes with a white fabric at the front) are used to soften harsh lighting – resulting in a more diffused and pleasant look.
Tip 4: Check the White Balance
This may seem odd for beginners who aren’t even sure what white balance means. It’s just a way of calibrating your camera to recognize what true white looks like when using your lighting set up. Depending on the camera you’re using, you will find the white balance function in the menu option. What you do is turn on your light set up then place a piece of white paper or any white object within then hit the “white balance” feature. This helps you prevent having a blue or orange tinge to videos when you’re shooting.
Tip 5: Do a Test Shoot
A lot of beginners skip this thinking that once the setup is done, they can start recording right away. But test shooting should be done to ensure the final video looks as great as you want it to be. Play the video back in your camera LCD or on a computer or television so you can really see the final product.
There you go! That wasn’t hard, wasn’t it?
For next week, we’ll be highlighting audio and how it’s such an important element to your videos.
