Lessons

Lesson Info

Lighting Your Home Studio

Let's move into lighting very quickly and we're going to do a very simple lighting set up this is what I do at my house, ok? Er and yeah, we can we can bring these in we're gonna have uh, some of the some of the awesome people here bring them in. Awesome, kate so what I'll do is I'll set up two sets of lighting kind of in a forty five degree angle. Perfect eso this is what I'll generally do now I don't have a lot of space in my in my office, these air, these obviously have major stands on them, but but what I'll do is I'll have, um, my my soft box I use I think it's a cowboy studio soft box, which you can see kind of right here on on there too. I have too soft boxes that are set up forty five degrees, and I tend to raise them up a bit and tilt them so that they're they're not directly they're not under worry, they're not necessarily right on me, but it's kind of right at this forty five degree angle just above me coming down, so I'll set these up to do the exact same thing, these air a...

bit bigger than what I tend to use um and you know, you could you can obviously tell these and that's probably where I put that one all right, do the other one bring it closer and we're not we're not turning these on right? So you won't you won't necessarily see thie effect of it, but I'd have my key light. I'd have my my secondary light and sometimes if you can see me sometimes I'll have if I have a backdrop, I'll have ah, backdrop, light that's facing the backdrop like that, but there tends to be, um it depends on your scenario or lighting scenario how many lights they're going to use for your back? Trump sometimes you need a lot of lights. Jeanne was talking about his backdrop and how he I just can't see he has used you said you have a lot of lights, but you can't get that backdrop. Let the just the perfect way that you want so this is how I generally do my set up for my life stream and it looks relatively decent you guys have been on my lifestream says it look okay, yeah, so this is what I'll tend to use right here just again. As I said, we have the two lights set up, this is the key light, this is the feel light, and it just tends to, um, tio two actually, this is the main light that I'll use because oh I'll face this direction a bit more when I'm doing my lifestream actually so my my camera would be set up here this is the light that would come down right to my write to me which would be right here and then the feel light and then the backdrop light which I actually don't have a backdrop like because I just used the actual aesthetics of my own office as my backdrop so I never actually had the lighting going to move these over perfect thank you and what were you gonna say jean a couple of questions here because lighting is a is a pretty big problem for for me and my head up they're using like a fluorescent light overhead or I turn off all the lights okay no I just used my my white lights I tend to like the white lights instead of the thie yellow lights tend to just drowned me out a bit more so I'll use the white lights um here here and sometimes if you wanted to you could always do ah overhead light as well I think I have that in the yeah the previous the previous scene here you could always do an overhead light which which sort of uh lights the top of your head and it it tends to fill it up a bit more um but if you wanted to just work with just two lights simply you could you could easily do that however, if you're going to do a backdrop, you don't want to have it back lit on and we're going to we're going to talk about the backdrop I don't know if we have it right here but the backdrops khun b you know you can have the white backdrop you could do the muslim, which is the material for your backdrops what all views is I'll use photography paper and I think that that has a more reflective um uh it's just more reflective for me to use and so so when I'm when I'm lighting it, it seems to reflect a bit better than, say, just the material that the muslim does for some reason muslim is great, I think when muslim that's what is called muslim right? So I think it's great when you're using the green screen so you can have the green screen in the back, you could have maybe a black backdrop or the white backdrop all those air effective and actually you can actually do green screen live streaming if you wanted to, so change the background you're in paris you're in london, you know you're anywhere anywhere that's the nice thing about using some of the some of the more advanced streaming mechanisms that something like the tri castor that these guys have next door there are some things you can do with google hangouts but it just changes a little bit so an any questions about the lighting right now? Any online questions? I was curious about the set up that you showed us their case because that seemed quite a quite elaborate all their perhaps I mean, I'm assuming that's quite an expensive solution as well having those three particular lights not at all. Ok, well, that's good to know. So let me tell you what the prices for some of this I think all this lighting is about one hundred twenty dollars. Yeah, I hear uh actually let's go back. Yes. So this this kid right here which gets you to light stands too soft boxes one boom kit um all this together, I believe and maybe we can look it up later it's it's going to be less than two hundred dollars? Wow, yeah, so your studio can effectively two hundred dollars for lighting seventy nine dollars for a camera. Another say ninety dollars for your audio does that put us at less than four hundred bucks on the accurate? Definitely. So you could have a studio in your home for less than four hundred dollars going going right away. But you know, if you get a backdrop which we don't, we don't have up yet the backdrop and could potentially cost probably another one hundred fifty dollars if you wanted to get a backdrop of a white backdrop of green a green screen backdrop a black backdrop so so those air just a little additional things but this is a studio effectively for under one thousand dollars depend and you have some growth there you can you can buy additional stuff maybe if you know if you have a budget for one thousand dollars to to do a home studio you can buy additional audio you can buy additional video you can you know you could get a little clips that you can rest your iphone on and and and start filming filming with that so there's a lot of cool little options I would say you know, you know if if you do get a budget at some point you want to kind of go you know crazy you could go with this which is eight hundred dollars but you don't have to that's the brilliant thing is that you're not require you don't have to do that all this stuff you can do all of this under essentially under five hundred dollars you could have absolutely fine professional looking studio in your in your own home. So the question from gemma gemma what do you think about using reflectors and natural life especially if you have a limited budget? Well that means that unlimited budget is actually not going to stop you from having debts it up but say for whatever reason you have no budget yeah well, I mean like I don't know the price of reflectors I don't have reflectors, so I don't know what the prices are, but if you have additional, you know if we're only spending five hundred bucks on a reflector might cost one hundred dollars or so, you could easily set up a reflector right underneath and instead of sort of substitute the need for um let's say let's say one of the lights if you only get two lights and you get a reflector that's probably, you know it kind of helps and fills in the rest of that need for that for that lighting scenario, there are other solutions out there that have reflectors on one side and then a white backdrop on another it's ah, I don't know really what what it's called but it folds out and it becomes this backdrop that also can be there can also be used as a reflector because it can pull back down and use as a reflector, but you could have that up as your backdrop and it's like probably, I think it's anywhere from six by six feet, something like that. So those are options it's a it's a moveable backdrop it's something that it's a portable you can portable take it with you what we're talking about obviously here are backdrops that are literally almost like like you know just in your studio there with you in sort of a permanent situation so let's talk very quickly about some hardware and this is this is this gets a little more aggressive I don't tend I don't I'm not using any of this hardware just want to let you know I'm only talking about this hardware for those who want to go deeper down that rabbit hole and start to do live streaming with maybe even higher quality. So how many of you ever heard of a chrome box? Yeah, I don't know what it is well it's right exactly it's so it z for live streaming it's almost like a mini computer let's say right ten that you don't tend to need these if you're say using your own computer, but they're like little mini computers that have really nice I seven processors they haven't ethernet built in um and obviously you could do the wifi from them and it gives you a lot of streaming options from from this little guy itself. So, uh, what people will do is if they know if they're not say using their computer that just use something like a chrome box which is which is actually built for for ah google chrome and also it works nicely with google hangouts because it was sort of built for it, right? But again, this is something that you can get if you want a cz an additional tool you don't have to again. I don't use this. I just know about it. And other people have told me about it. So that's why I'm sharing it with you also. Mohr advance streaming options. This thing right up here is called the black magic intensity. Uh, these you can. These are you can use with external cameras and it gives you more streaming capability like doing maybe two or three camera set up so you can fade back and forth from camera to camera on dh it it's again. As I said, it's ah it's it goes a little deeper into into mohr advanced livestreaming. I've never used it, but I have heard people that have used it. I have, ah, guy, that that I know that uses it. This is ten tens of use for your for a mac product, the black magic intensity there's another one. I think it's called black magic pro that's used for pcs and essentially it just allows you to do all sorts of cool stuff with different cameras and things like that. If you have a mac, use the black magic intensity shuttle with thunderbolt and do not use the one that has u s b three. Okay, something to let you know about use them black magic shuttle with thunderbolt if you are going to pick this up the reason I'm sharing this is because you can also set this up with ah cannon vixie a five, five hundred which is another quality camera and the what what a lot of people do is if they were going to use say something like the u stream or live stream they'll use this kind of kind of set up because it's sze just higher quality more professional but again it's much more expensive and if you're looking to do you know uh, expensive livestreaming or or rather if you're going to do it extensive live streaming this might be an option for you I might go down this option at some point I have to learn more about it I've only been talking teo and consulting my friends who sort of use this stuff this is what they've suggested and I really strongly I feel he's really really knows this stuff when it comes to doing these live streaming professionally with dual cameras and being able to live stream in a multicast so sending sending a live stream over too teo ustream at the same time sending it over to google hangouts at the same time sending over tio ustream as well or or live stream so you can you can multicast with these devices as well, which is kind of cool okay, I'm gonna move on so here the backdrops that we that we talked about the muslim backdrops and this kid right here, this particular kid, I think it is, I think it's less than one hundred fifty dollars to get all three of those of those backdrops. These are that muslim is pretty much what I think. What jean has here and what what jean and I were talking about earlier is that we tend to get these shorter backdrops, right? Uh, jean, you were saying you had, like, a four foot backdrop, right? A wide it's about six foot. But I always have to crop out one of the edges. Yeah, yeah. So what I tend to do is I'll get a stand that you know, this this particular stand here, I'll make sure it's probably like maybe eight to ten feet, and then I'll get a backdrop. Excuse me, that is eight to ten feet, so I can set the camera back. Ahh a bit deeper. Right on dh then and then it really works well for, for taking wide shots and obviously doing, say, the jump cuts where you're zooming in and getting getting back that closer, you know, three quarter crop. So for doing a live stream. You can set these up is well, you can have these in the back if you have a lot of clutter in your house, you could easily just pop these things right in the back, remove the clutter and do a little backdrop backlighting again for for doing some of these for the backlighting you have to kind of just feel out what works for you with these muslim backdrops a lot of times because their material they could get creases, so you're gonna have to get the creases out on. Jean and I were talking about this, you have to kind of stretch him to get the creases out, and sometimes you have to get a lot of lights pinned up all around the side to really get that that say that the apple effect, right? The end of the apple video effect, you know? So what I'll tend to use is all used photography paper because it's more reflective and I'll use less lighting to get that get that same effect when I'm doing like a white backdrop, the black backdrop is a little different. You don't tend to see the creases in a black backdrop also green screen you can, it looks really great for it I've never done the green screen with it, but jean now you so you have that? Have you used the green screen at all? It scares me scares you yeah, I am does need I think, completely smooth background with a very I know the right word that this saturation has to be perfect on it has to be extremely well that it's really not something you can do as an amateur I tend not to use it because I don't want to I don't want to fall in that trap of having a a non professional looking green screen behind me I'd rather have the depth of my own a studio, my own office as as a back backdrop if I'm not using it to the maximum of its of its capability, I'm not I'm not going to use it I don't want to look relatively foolish by trying to be you know how this green screen that back and I'm streaming from parents and paris is ill fated around my head it's just I tend not to do that. I just like to have sort of just you know, the natural the natural depth of my own office clear out the clutter and that's that's what I tend to do this camera works really great for doing that it has that depth because it has that wide angle so that's what I that's what I tend to do so question from suze that you want to toss it was going to say that the light of it I could I thought about traveling to say you are on the run and you're doing interviews out of your studio. Yes, um, and perhaps, you know, perhaps the answer is that they're not live, but said they were to be alive. What would your essential kit? I mean, you've sort of covered audio your essential kit for covering the visual side of that? Yeah. So visually, if you're say on the go, right, well, I tend to again. I'll have my iphone. I'll have my olo clip. Remember I mentioned the old clip. I'll put the olo clip over the iphone and use the wide angle lens for the olo clip. Um, I might even use, uh, something like this, which is a sidekick and take it on a go with me like this, I think question what is its nose? Yes, they have ten people to interview one a week, but the interviewees are located in different locations, so these ten people will not have any equipment necessarily. I think suze is asking, what do they recommend to take with you know that they all have convention because these people going, she says, sixty to seventy years old, they wouldn't have a clue what to do as the interviewer she needs to tell the interviewees. What equipment they should really have so she can make this focus professionals possible is she going to their house and I sound like and I'm doing it okay? So sound like it so it sounds like you're going to maybe do a google hangout with them right? And what what do they need what's the bare minimum that they had their end? Yeah, but their end tell them that they simply need, uh, earbuds and a microphone I mean really honestly that's the easiest thing you could possibly do have a simple headset logitech had said or earbuds in a microphone and go right into your audio and that's and that's all they need they'll use the built in camera if they can use it if not if they can if they can find us this all this stuff is on amazon it's very simple to get all of its on amazon go with the largest sixty nine twenty it works with both pc and mac and, you know, assuming it's only it's a usb inputs so you just pop it into the usb right into it and then once you're once you once you're in you're google hangout google hangout recognizes what cameras you have plugged in so you can then say ok, we're going to switch to through this this a lot of sixty nine twenty s so I guess that's what I would recommend robert we were talking to several things I'm sorry I was I was asking sues this question I thought sally wants to sell you had a separate question no, I wasn't I want my interest was I think it that it was pretty obvious that there would be in front of a screen and something would would pertain to the camera here that I thought was the live the live aspect of being in the field and you know, so we've covered so the mikes on the run, but a lot of people are trying to capture on the line I am you know you're interviewing someone, you might get a cash show, you might be somewhere and you wanna have the video aspect of it you kind of a screener is set up and I think you were doing that we get what angle in the hallway? Yeah, well, the cool thing is like the reason and iphone is is important is because the iphone has a google hangout app built into it, so this is how you can use it to to stream out live. I can't do that just into a camera alone. The only reason I could do it with an iphone is because the iphone has a camera built into it, right? So to be able to say, uh, from my experience, I'm just saying from my experience I could take my iphone and I mean, there might be a way that I could use my iphone and use an external camera from my iphone, and then this becomes almost like my computer essentially live live streaming directly to google hangouts, but I tend to just use this as the camera when I'm on the go doing like, say, a live stream, but with memories, I said google hangouts you can't start a google hangout from your iphone, you can't start it live broadcast to the world with your iphone can't go on air with your iphone, you have to start it on your computer, and then from there you can invite people through the google hangout app in your iphone. Some make sense you were in the field, you would have set your computer upside of media ramel size somewhere that you could find a connection you're talking about in the field and just sit and still having your computer available to you. Yeah, just thinking about that line because a lot of people, when they're doing cya blow or live from leeds studio police so what's so yeah, you don't need all this stuff about the backdrop things like that ah, lean studio I brought my studio with me it's all right here, right here camera, camera, computer, usb mike that's it that's really it sometimes when I do a live stream and I'll come onto this quick tips for doing some live stream it's good to kind of hardwire yourself directly into into like a cable modem or into your your internet source itself because this is a live stream thank you so much and and so I would suggest not doing wireless if you can, you know, get just going off of wifi doesn't really work so so well with with doing live stream I mean it works but often times like if you're trying to do say ah livestream from a coffee shop, you know you could be at risk of losing that live stream of losing the connection. So what I like is I like if I can plug it into a hardline directly into my internet source, so I'm not I'm not too panicked about that, but if you did want to be on the go and you are at a coffee shop a zay said earlier the best things that you could possibly do for doing these live streams just tell your audience that I'm in a coffee shop I'm using a pulling coffee shop wifi so my this could go out at any time that goes out, then I'll come back in because you can you can also hedge against these issues by creating maybe a third having someone started, they hang out from a from a hard line that you know, maybe a moderator maybe you have someone who's a moderator that can do it from their own home and if you drop out you could always come back into that into that hang out that that moderator created the person that creates the hangout that's how they hang out stays live that makes sense yeah so when you're doing these live streams if you do go on the go just make sure you have somebody else who might have ah hard line going in so that they can so that hang out is always continuously going right? So the last time is continuously going um so what I tend to do before I'm gonna live stream is I turn off and my computer and restarted right? I tried tio otherwise what what's going to happen is you know, if if the computer has a lot of say aps up, it tends to weigh down on the actual live stream itself that's what I've noticed I've noticed if I have a lot of aps up if my computer is overheating if it's been on all day all day maybe all night I tend to turn it off before I live stream so it kind of resets itself on then I then I turn it back on before I'm actually going to do in my stream especially if I'm going to say an hour longer hour and a half long of a live webinar you know, I'm doing a live webinar, I tend to try to turn it off, turn it back on, reboot it, just get it ready to go before I started up again and we don't have it here. But as I said, I like to use a second monitor when I'm doing my my life stream, and the reason I like using it is just because it gives me more options of of being able to take comments where they're at. So so if I have say, over here, I have my my presentation on this monitor and over here I have google hangouts going on this monitor, so I can I can work on my presentation, I can also handle the chat over here, and I can I can kind of see both now, you might be wondering, casey, how do you do both of those at the same time? It's like juggling and patting your head or, you know, how do you do both of those and again, it's all about setting up expectation with your audience if you tell them, hey, you know what? I'm going to go through the presentation, and then by the end, I'm going to take your comments. As they come through that way they'll know to front load as I call it front loading their questions where they put in their questions right ahead of time and then later on in that presentation that's when you start fielding those questions that are coming through so let them know ahead of time that that's that's what's going to be happening so you don't feel overwhelmed that you have to go back and forth back and forth every single time and a lot of people to make that mistake they tend to start out hang out or a webinar and they'll go back and do the questions and there's a lot of dead time you know and they won't go back to their presentation so what I tend to do is I like to have a pretty fluid process where I do my presentation and then I say ok, I gave you some gold nuggets I leave them on a thought I leave them to a place in my presentation where they can think now write about something that I just shared with him and so they're dead time is actually it has taken is them actually thinking you know, I'm processing so now we can go back to my comments and answer any questions as they come that's what I tend to do so I like that second monitor also it aiken aiken place as I said my camera right on that second monitor and just haven't pointed down right at me and that's that's what I like teo use now I will say this sometimes if you do have a second monitor sometimes it will pull some of the band with from google hangouts and if that is the case just let your audience know that tell them you know it is pulling a little bit more bandwith unusual because my second monitor is plugged in it's just weighing a bit more on my computer it isn't really it's going to be dependent upon your computer the ah what you know what your mother model of your computer I mean gigs it has the band with that it that it has things like that so I would do some research if you're going to want to do that into what your computer can handle tested out see what it can do with live google hangout your computer might work way better than mine you never know until you try it so so also another twit tip and I already talked about this I tend to not like to film going up my nose like to film coming down on an angle so that's what it looks like when you're kind of going up your nose and it just really unattractive so yeah I definitely like a little bit of depth I would always suggests also you know, sort of removing removing the clutter as well you know I don't have you know, for coffee mugs in the background like like I tend to do and ah, you know, just a bunch of just a bunch of stuff sort of create your space if you can if you can if you if you want to create your space, create your space if you want to have that visual look the brand look here's sort of sort of do that, ok? Of course the biggest thing is to have fun with this stuff, okay, just think about the equipment that you need thie the minimal equipment, the minimal viable equipment to get a studio up and running, but at the end of the day, it's you streaming out to the world is broadcasting your message, so you're gonna want to have fun with it, which is the most important thing just to be free and excited and happy to be there when you when you're on the camera on screen, talking to the audience so and the next sessions were actually going to dive in and it's going to be cool. We're going actually dive in and actually start showing showing for my desktop, how did how to use some of the google hangout features and the power of them and how they're going to benefit you? So we're going toe probably going to start right from the beginning with how that all works, so if there's anybody online, it was questions about how google hangouts work don't worry, we're actually going to dive in and start talking about that in the next session, but before we do, I wanted to check if there any other questions from the live studio audience and then also, if there's any questions from the online audience questions about google haps, etcetera, but we are going to come to them in our next session. Anything from the studio audience? Any thoughts? Yes, jane, you have a question. Is there a special set up when you're gonna use a white board? Because an innocent one? Your pictures, you had a white board from a lighting standpoint or yeah, um well, so this right here, this one s o for this one, um, this is me just using my simple to two lights set up actually, one light a tw this point, I only had two lights, so I'd have one light on me, and then the other light was was filling in the background, and then in my in my when I when I went to edit this particular video, I just changed the white balance a bit and just changed and increase the how light the white backdrop actually looked, andi that's all I really did for that type of video, yeah, so you've mentioned anything your video but those of us that have no idea how to do that, yeah, how do you do that? We're going to talk about that in a future and a future segment we're actually going to go in, and I'm going to show you how to edit a video with using screen flow it's the software that I personally like to use just because it's simply use you don't have to be an editor to use it, it's higher quality than as I said, I movie andi it's, just not as difficult maybe to manage as, say, final cut pro and it's it also allows me to do screen capturing, which, you know, as someone who has an info product or an online product, a lot of things I'm doing are showing what's happening on my computer, and so I want to be able to record that, so it has a built in screen capture as well. A lot of what I could do is I can do, um, I could do the screen capture and have a little video of myself in the corner, right and it's just a kind of nice way to have even a little bit more interaction, engagement, so I'm speaking, and I'm sharing my screen at the same time. And they can kind of follow follow with me, so that is something we're going toe we're going to go into, I have to remember which one we're going to do that, but I think we're going to do that. I think you're going to come on and we're going to kind of film you, and then we're going to show how that how the screen flow works with that. Oh, ready way definitely looking forward to that tape, watertown has beena joining us, they've actually got some questions about google hangouts to take hold on because they are coming back to those next. They're just curious, so to use any specific software when you're using the audio or does it all just come through the mikes and it just goes in and out? Or do you have a separate or software for the audio? So I don't I tend to use if I'm goingto put my audio and video together, I'll put it into screenplay. There are other options for for splicing out audio, I don't I don't use those other options a lot of podcasters use which and gene might know this a bit more than me, jean, what is the you know, the software that podcasters used to for just the audio for the editing? Yeah, most everybody's using the audacity, garage band or audition so yes, so I know people that have used audacity all the time that's, that's the one that I know them t use can't you? You can also with audacity. Can't you sync up the video and audio together with audacity? Or is it mostly just video audio? You're beyond me on that I use audition, which is on ly audio just now you screen flow for for your audio, but you can use screen flood just just for audio that's what exactly? S o I tend to just use screen float for both my video and my audio, displacing out my audio if I needed to. We're going to talk about repurpose ing one of the future sessions, which which in the screen flow is great for taking that, taking that audio and the video in a repurpose ing the content all over the place. So that's, what I use, and we'll dive in a little bit into how do you screen flow and how to do that. So the question back to that question so I use screen flow, that's, the that's, the software that I use for all that, based on the question we had way have a question that does tend to come up a little jaleo asked, how do you do with different people talking like a conversation like, wait one of things we were trying to demo earlier thisyou do get into don't you when you have long distance because you often get that lag if sometimes it's only a second but you'll and get two people talking sally and I were trying to demonstrate that earlier to live deliberately toe how do you conduct that so that it doesn't happen? I think as a moderator again if that expectation it's it's allowing its telling people at a time even before you get into the google hangout with them saying listen let this person finish their thought and then you come in in t into your thoughts so there is not that so you don't have that that overlay of two people talking but the nice thing about a google hangout is its intended for ah conversation and when you're in the hangout itself there is not a lot of lag time between the between the the guests in the hangout directly and I'll show you this in a second when we go into google hangouts but go hang out actually well here the person that's talking and it will share it it will take that person's video feed in and make them as the main screen so it recognizes the person who's talking and the next person is talking a little pull them up now the problem behind that is if you cough it also take you up there too so so there are controls where a moderator can control, who has shown when they're shown how, how their audio sounds and things like that. So we'll be talking about how to moderate a google hangout, the different things that you could do tio to make it a cz professional as you want. And again, it's just gonna be about practicing, you know, it's going to be about educating, educating the guests who come on and practicing yourself to know exactly what you should be doing in the hang out, and the more you do it, the more it becomes familiar, the more your structure becomes solid and and it just gets better and better, better at that point, when we get to one of our later segments in this particular course, we're going to be having a google hangout with four different people on. Perhaps I'll be a really great time to demonstrate exactly how it works, we look forward to that exactly, so google hangouts is coming up in our next seven. We've got lots to learn about that. So thank you for your question is going to save them for the next segment tape. Watertown is saying, though, that yesterday was great, they watched the rebroadcast twice, it was that interesting? Well, we appreciate that we have more than once.