If you’re doing Facebook Lives, IGTV videos, or want to have a quick chat with your audience, here are three tools and techniques you can use to achieve more professional-looking videos.
1. Use a Tripod
The first tool I recommend having is a tripod for your phone. Not only is it exhausting to hold your phone up in front of your face for a long period of time, but it can be distracting if it’s moving around too much.
If you have your phone stationary and hands-free you can be more expressive in your body language – because most of us naturally talk with our hands.
I like to have my camera height just above my eye line and slightly tilted down; this creates a more flattering jawline. Let’s face it, no one wants to look up our nose while watching our videos and we can do without the extra accentuation of that double chin.
I will sit on a stool or chair if the tripod I’m using isn’t tall enough. When choosing a chair to sit on for your recording, try to avoid a chair that can swing or rotate, especially if you find yourself fidgeting a lot (like I do) because that can be very distracting for your viewers.
I like to sit on a stool or a chair with a low back if possible because it helps to separate me further from my background.
Check out these phone tripod options:
2. RODE SmartLav
The RODE SmartLav is a lavalier microphone for your smartphone.
Using a SmartLav to record your audio will give you a much better audio quality because there’s less chance for ugly background noises to commandeer your audio. You can purchase a SmartLav setup for under $100, which isn’t an expensive investment to have your audience watch the rest of your video!
To make it look more professional, feed the SmartLav up under our shirt and clip it on your collar. In the video above I take you through a technique of looping the cable and clipping it back on itself to hold it in place on your shirt.
You can wear a jacket or a blazer and clip the microphone just under your collar for a neater look. Wear black if you want to conceal the lavalier even further – but most of the time your viewers won’t think twice about seeing a microphone clipped to your collar. They’ll just be happy they can hear what you’re saying!
You can clip it under your clothing if you do really want to conceal it, just be aware this may cause an unwanted scratchy sound if the microphone rubs on the cloth.
I always do an audio check before I start any recording to check for things like this because the last thing you want is to have to redo the recording!
One more point, keep in mind jewellery can be very noisy and distracting so try to avoid dingly bracelets or necklaces sitting too close to the microphone.
For smartphones that don’t have the audio jack anymore you’re going to need an audio jack to lightning or USB-C adapter to operate the SmartLav.
An accessory you can get to go with your SmartLav is a 6 metre length adapter so you can have your phone further away, giving you more room to demonstrate or more depth in your videos.
Check out the RODE SmartLav (Amazon) here.
And the SmartLav Extension Cable (Amazon).
3. Lighting
Lastly, lighting. I will cover this further in another post, but a quick tip to achieve a flattering look across your face is to use the natural light coming into your house.
I like to create subtle depth across my face by not standing directly in line with my light source.
Standing face on to any light source will create a uniform, flat look, but standing at an angle to a light source will create depth – think back to how we learned about shading in primary school art class; the more light and shade, or the more depth to an object, the more interesting the picture.
Does anyone else remember feeling like a professional artist after drawing that 3-dimensional looking apple, or just me?
Standing slightly diagonally a few meters back from a window to record your videos can easily give you a really flattering look.
I hope these tips help you with your videos. Leave me a comment below with your burning camera questions! Remember, the more that you practice the better you will become so it’s time to get out that camera and start making videos.
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