¡Hello! My name is Vavn Dorokhin, and I want to discuss with you, from where to begin to shoot videos.
Video is a wonderful tool to share anything you want to: your stories, thoughts, ideas. It helps us to give much more information, than a simple audio or text can, as a video contains all of it in itself — including image.
We live in the very interesting period of time: even fifty years ago, the possibility of making videos was unreachable for the most people — especially, if you were a teen. ¿Why?
You needed very expensive equipment, and even if you had money to buy it, you did not have the main thing — Internet.
Surprisingly, the main problem transformed into the new one:
- many people still think, that the process of making a quality video is still unreachable;
- that you need a lot of money for buying «the best of the best» brand new, hm, bulb?
- and that the only alternative they have is this:
- … or even this:
¿But you know, what? It is not true.
In fact, you can shoot a video even with the most basic stuff — and, in order to prove it, I did an experiment. This is how it was.
In order to make the experiment interesting for the most people, I chose the most standard environment possible — a part of the room with the old sofa and wardrobe. I divided the whole process into several steps.
1. Camera
For this video, I chose the only camera I had — it was a compact one. In general, it does not matter, which camera you have: at this stage, you just need to place it on some flat service to make an image stable.
2. Background
I could use three different backgrounds: a wall, the wardrobe, or the curtains — but I did not have wallpapers, so…
I liked the structure of the wardrobe, but it would reflect lights and other things, so I decided to use the curtains.
3. Lighting
I needed lighting — for this, I used the simple lamp with the bulb of four thousand kelvins color temperature and placed it above the camera. I used the microphone stand for this.
The image became too bright, so I additionally used the sheet of paper and sticked it to the lamp.
The main problem was solved, but the image did not look interesting, so… I took the same kind of lamp with the bulb and the blue colored transparent folder — and put it between me and the curtains. ¡The image became much more interesting and got an additional volume!
4. Microphone
¡Now, we are finally ready!..
Unfortunately, not: the internal microphone was bad, so I needed to use an external one.
If you have no money, you can use your headphones microphone, connect it to a smartphone, and open an audio recorder.
If you plan to make only videos, probably, you need a lavaliere microphone: the construction is pretty similar to the headphones microphone, but the sound is usually better and you can clip it onto your clothing.
If you want to not only to make videos but to record your music or podcasts, probably, you need a condenser microphone, which has the best quality and is very sensitive from one side… while blocking an unwanted sound from another.
It was my situation, so I chose the condenser microphone — currently, you are hearing the sound from it.
5. The Most Important Step
¿As I have chosen the camera, background, lighting, and sound, I am ready to tell you the truth — ready? ¡I have not told you about the most important step — it is more important, than a camera, background, lighting, or sound: in order to make quality videos, you need to want to begin!
¡Thank you for watching this video! I hope, that you found it interesting and helpful to watch. ¿Please, share it with everyone you know and leave a comment — what do you think are the most important steps in shooting a quality video?
¡Till the next time, bye!