Filming Vlogs on a Smartphone: How to Look and Sound Awesome!

1. Looking Good on Camera Opener: Hello, I am Dom O Neill. Thank you for joining this course. I am a professional content creator, but over 15 years of professional experience in the industry. I started off my career working for major broadcasters and big live event. I've now turned my attention to helping on-premise small, medium-sized businesses, freelancers, digital savvy folk, make the most out of their digital communications and marketing. On this course, we will discover how to look good on camera, how to appear like a pro. The ways we get better audios, new wu wei, sound, good. We looked good lighting, so we're filming on the smart phone in public places. How do you make the lighting around us make us look better? Then we'll look at where to film and how that makes us look. By end of the course, you will have a good understanding of what makes you look and sound good on camera. If you enjoy this course, please feel free to follow me here on skill share. She can keep up to date with all the new courses I create, which could be extremely helpful for you. I'm excited to get going. Let's start learning. 2. How to look good on camera: You can drop thousands of dollars on to buying a camera. But you don't have to. And that smartphones are good enough for most people to start making videos with, which is fantastic. She stopped making videos regularly. You may want to grade, but for now I absolutely recommend that camera on your smartphone. Now I now phones, especially spout phones are not cheap, but it really is worth getting a newer version of a phone if your phone is older than two years old, as a very good chance that the graphics are the processes that the lenses will not be good enough. Focus is the sharpness of an image. A blurred image will make your videos look for quality. The beauty of stitching on a smartphone is that if you're filming in good light, the autofocus on your smart phone will automatically keep your image in focus. A tripod will help you get a steady shot when you're in the office or filming on location that tripod frees you from the camera and allows you to concentrate on other aspects of your content. Safe in the knowledge that the camera is both safe and secure, and also in the right place. And then about a 100 to a $150 is a reasonable price for a good quality tripod. And if you are using a smart phone on a regular tripod, you only the tripod adapter is a device which connects your tripod to your smartphone, and it allows you to use your smart phone on top, your tripod is $20, is nice and cheap, but it keeps your camera's safe. Connected to the tripod. You've got no wobbles. You've gotten their shapes, no chance of falling off. Okay, so what do you really need to get started with? A smart phone with some kind of high definition camera is really the basics. Most freelancers, entrepreneurs, coaches, digital amongst you all have some kind of smartphone, and that smartphone will undoubtedly have some kind of camera. So a smartphone with an HD camera is what you're looking for. If you don't have one, I'll be by surprise lady down, I can imagine maybe a partners, maybe some children might have a decent smartphone or a tablet device with an HD camera. If you don't have an iPhone, maybe your kids have an iPad. Probably had a very good camera. The beauty filming on a smart phone is smart phones also have a little bit of editing software. So things like iMovie, the quick app by GoPro, there's a very, very good editing Spitzer editing software, and they don't cost anything. You can download them straight the app, you can film it. You can do basically all edits using iMovie, using a quick app. And then you can distribute it to the social media platform straight from one device. It's a very simple system. And it means that from filming the content, doing it basically added a having your online can take as little as 510 minutes. It is also useful to have maybe a selfie stick or a tripod. With a tripod, a lot more expensive selfie sticks load unless people have self mistakes regarding holiday and and they live in a drawer for the rest of the year. I have either have one, you'll probably know someone who has a selfie stick in a drawer. So your camera, your smart phone goes on top of this RPC service that goes on top of the desk. That is literally the setup I have at the moment itself is dead on a desk camera on there. I use an external microphone, but if I'm filming in a very quiet room, I can maybe get away without having any microphone a torque if I'm in a very collaborative. Remember folks, beauty of filming in this way. The beauty of social media content as well. Non-life social media content is that you have control, practice until you are happy and you don't have to post until you're happy with the videos. Your videos will never ever be perfect. No video has ever been perfect. But once you get to a level where it is good and you are happy, then you should start posting, maybe just post privately to a couple of friends or colleagues to see gets a reaction back. But don't worry about perfection. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to put you in a good light. 3. How to record better sound: Sound is so, so vital. Getting your sound right will mean that people will watch for longer and are less likely to click next. Okay, so there's lots we can do for free to get, but I will sound and said we're going to look at this section of how we get better sound for free and what very, very reasonably priced technology we can buy, they'll get better sound in our videos. Audio is a massive part of this experience. Maybe your audience listening happened, but maybe not. You can't make assumptions to having good quasi sound will often forgive bad quality paging. Nobody should ever shoot by Qazi pitches, but sound really matters. So audio from your voice wasn't audio from music matters as well as to make sure you have the best quality audio you're going to be in a quiet room, did win a busy room with other people. All that noise will spill into microphone, interannual out. People want to hear you. Not the background noise. Having ie oh, microphone here. Sorry. The microphone is very close to my face, much closer to my mouth than anything else. And search on words that go into the microphone is already in the background noise. I see a lot people filming on their laptops. The problem with the laptop is that was a very poor quality microphone, usually sat right next to a fan. And so the fan is the closest thing to the microphone and all that fan Home comes into the microphone to what you do is you are recording on your laptop. I recommend you don't, but if you are, you get a laptop, you get a mike, right? This was plugged into the USB or plugs into your audio input. And that means that the microphone is much further away from your laptop, are much further away from the fan. Or you can also do is film on a Mac or some kind of matte product, or a product which uses a solid-state drive. Because often those products will not have a fan to removing anything that makes a wary noise, a washing noise, any kind of grinding noise, get them out the window. That's always perfect. I filming in a quiet room and also filling in a room that's filled with stuff. And so anti rooms, echo occurring, sounds strange and can be off putting to some audiences and manage your filming in a busy office. Sign on the door to the room you're filming in, same filming in progress. Quiet place. It's amazing how much that will help people outside remember what you're doing in here and keep quiet outside, closing doors great, and stops the noise filling in from the outside. So make sure you are in a quiet room, measure apron at site energy filament, and make sure that everything inside the room is quiet as well. 4. How to presenter more engaging videos: You don't have to be a getting idiot, gunny and less XYZ what your brand and your audience demand. Lots of people can get good enthusiasm while still speaking. Normally, you don't have to be a root path. The thing is often people will become into your videos called, Especially if you're on social media, people will do what you don't know, you don't know your products, don't know your friends. And so your refuse yardstick about what you're talking about. People can become enthusiastic themselves. You Ally, Hi there. She kinda making a video, it's gay. People are like, I'm already built by this guy. Next is so easy for people to go next. So enthusiasm makes you excited about what you're talking about. But it also helped make the audience excited to the Bible talks about if you want to excite you about what you're talking about, Why should they be? Confidence is key. So if you are not confident about what you're talking about, it will come across in the Vicky end on people will buy from people who are. Because if you're not confident in your own products, why should anyone else tree? So it's good to make sure that you understand your product, you understand the benefits of the product, and you understand what the audiences want inform your products. If you are talking in a confident way, people will get confidence from you. If you are nervous, people may not understand why you are nervous, right? So they'll watch the video. Like no, quite right there. Why is that kinda what is abolishing holiday and what is the problem here? Within a video, smiling achieves one of the major things that if you're doing a sad video or a video about something very, very heart wrench of the smiling like an idiot. Well work, but genuinely smiling is good within videos to use online. People like smiling. If you're smiling, mature, open means you are engaging and people will smile back to DOB in a positive way. Mind. Humans do kind of mimic each other. So if you're smart, you know, the person watching the video, it properly smile back at you. It's normal human reaction that people smile means that they're happy and they will enjoy your content ball. Now when we communicate feelings and attitudes, only 7% of the meaning is contained in the words reuse. 38% of the meaning comes from the way the word they used, that the tone is the volume is speed at so on. And facial expressions, including smiling, convey 50% of the meaning. People want to know your emotions. If you're monotone, if you are not engaging, you're not smiling, people will find less engaging. And we'll also get less from the words that you're saying because the words themselves are only a tiny amount of the story, how it's being said, and the emotions from you. That is what really gets a good story across. Research by UCLA has found that 55 to 93% of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Nonverbal cues can be something like sitting with Iran. Story of standing rearm for that is quite confrontational. Ivr and fall, but it needs your clothes that you're closing yourself off Jordan's. While if you have your hands open, you are opened curator engaging with your audience. You're open to your audience, talk natural audience. And that's really sort of buy us all but making sure that your party language doesn't put your audience are again, making eye contact integrate so that if you're kind of off screen or disengage or not looking at the camera properly is less engaging for your audience who are watching you having a worse relationship with the audience. And they will turn off quicker. 5. How to look good filming in natural lighting: So we all have different budgets, even within companies, different departments will have different budgets which they can spend on marketing. Sir, if you don't have any budget, a TOEFL technology, or you spent all your money on a tripod and a camera and a microphone. Your optional lighting wise is outside natural light. So OBS the natural light is great because it's free, but it is very different. Sort of see in the summer on a bright blue day is roundabout lunchtime. Now, I will be bombarded by light and actually might be listed by repairing our text to be too much like my face, not be squinting. And what you don't want to do is you sunglasses. Sunglasses cover your eyes. The eyes is the entrance to the soul, the subconscious. Trust people less when the eyes are concealed. To a lot of trip comes from the ice. So it's always best to avoid wearing sunglasses, therefore, is always best to avoid the glaring noonday sun in the summertime. And now I'm filming in the winter. Therefore, the noonday studies Perfect is a cloudy day which sunbathing is not particularly great for sizing is maybe not particularly great, but actually for filming, this kind of light is brilliant because it is extra consistent. It is light. There is good quality light here, and it is extremely consistent light, and it's not too much my face. I'm not been bleached up. I'm not having to squint the cause of the Sun. Okay, so we're talking about lighting now. Lighting is one of their subjects like can cost you an absolute fortune and absolute tear jacking fortune. But it doesn't have to. Okay, so natural lighting is brilliant, so the midday sun is not perfect on a sunny day. Mornings are very good to get very nice natural light just, I liked to film just after sunrise cooked golden hour. And everything looks nice and golden and soft and wool. Obviously, that's quite a hard core in the summer when it's big old nouns like four in the morning and the easier in the winter. That morning light is also is very, very nice. You wanna make sure that you lead from the front and above. So obviously natural light, sunlight is naturally above it, which is good. And you can have it say the light is in front of you. It just means that your whole face, number one on the list here, and illuminate your self and your subjects effectively. So you need to be well lit. You say, have I consistent wash of light on my face. So I've created that with lights here in my studio. Because you're outside, you wanna make sure that you're positioned in a position in the sunshine or in the cloudy day sunshine, where you have a consistent wash of light across the faith. You don't have shadows. If people lie, they say the camera on 50 pounds, that is an absolute lie. It is actually about lighting that will add 50 pounds. It'll add wrinkles on the eyes. It will make you look much older, much tied to the more shadows you have, the older and more tied you look. And that's why we're looking for a consistent Washington light across her face to be candy. We have to make sure though. Okay. So we've got, we lighting ourselves efficiently, have consistent wash of light across a face, but we also need to make sure that we are not overdoing it. So not overly lit because otherwise you can have the shiny forehead, shiny noses. And again, known Oscars did a shiny forehead. No one looks good or the shiny knows. And so that's why again, cloudy days are great. Being the direct sunlight is great, but you are less shiny. Your cost of also less sweaty and sweaty is never a good thing. And so cloudy days when today's mornings happenings always get time. If you get natural light, make sure though we filmed the light in front of us and above us, not behind this. If you feel that the light behind you, you know, start to bleach you out, you will then become a silhouette because you are considered to be darker than the sun behind. And it's the same for wind or thoughts that people fill them with a window behind them. You need the window in front of you to let the light in. The light lights your face. You look good if you stand in front of a window at the light outside is considerably lighter than you are inside. The camera will see outside, you will turn into a blackened silhouette, which is never a good option. So we wanted to not film in front of windows. The final option is if you can do film with white light. So white photography light is the best option if you don't actually have to Tokyo, you don't know anyone you can borrow photography lights from. White lighting is much better than orange lichens and most know old-fashioned boats. You know your tungsten style bulbs. I give you a bit of an orange hue and orange glow, which can be a bit unflattering. White light. What photography light is very nice. White light is a little bit nicer, but you can look a little bit Clinical if you're just using cheap fluorescent bulbs, but definitely the wife, the light, often, the data, the image, the last kind of fake tan you look. 6. How where to film your videos can make you looks good: So this is a question I get asked a lot. Location, the backer shot, where should I be filming? It's not necessarily something we all think about on a daily basis, where we are at, what we're surrounded by, what the stories of the location around tells us to. There is a saying in film production code meas onset, which is French for story of the scene. So the scene itself can also tell a story. Yes, if you're based in a white world office and your film against that wall, basically, the scene is not healthy and you tell the story, is seen, is not telling you anything. Now, it can be waste if you're at a GST, if you're in a dark village del office and there's mess everywhere that can actually harm your stories, even though you're saying good things. Actually, the scene that Nissan said is telling people about your dirty or gravity or disorganized. Alright, so what we want you to do is make sure that the scene is telling a story, is telling a positive storage with aging in the storytelling, I'm filming a well-known location. This is the royal mile and Edinburgh. Swear more on location. We are looking to find mutations which help aid our story, help aid the storytelling. If all you have is a white wall that is find oil relies on your words. If you can find allocation has helped you tell your story, implies perfect. Look at the mesons and look at the positivity, even if it's just including your brand colors or logos into your video, that can help, even if it's just being a bright, airy, nice, interesting occasion vac and help tell the story. So I'm also wanted to talk about a couple of the things which are happening here in this scene regime need to be aware of as within, in a busy public location. And as a business, we have responsibility not only to our staff for filming on location, but also to others around us. Filming in a real life location. What you really need to do is make sure that we are as safe as possible, which region is bringing as less than kit to locations as possible. Now you also share the space with other, So I'm sharing the space with a performer as reported is that the streets are mostly Shen space with tour guides and tourists and lots of interesting people who may not be looking out for me. So I have to make sure that I am not an authority. I'm not a trip hazards are not going to cause any issues, but also from a Tillman cognitive, I'm going to be whether people might study behind me making faces are, might be where the people are standing behind me. Luck in relatively governance layer, which is always quite funny but never great. This is a pedestrian eyes wrote, which means I don't have to watch out for traffic, but a normal robes, you also have to watch out with traffic. And you have to watch out that you are a distraction to traffic. If you distract the traffic that could cause a crash on the roads, you really need to be careful of those things. Final thing again is that it's a better health and safety, but it's something which you need to consider when you're filming on location? Yes. Is that different times a day you will have different frequency people, lunchtime hair that in-breath is actually relatively quiet. If this was the festival, there would be impossible to film me. There be too many people to meditate with a triple of microwave button. Get in the way. Rush hour, again, I wouldn't want to be heard Russia, that literally be to many people. Stay away from dirty wall, stay away from dark location, stay away from drab locations. They will actually not help your story. They will deflect from your story and an intention may you and your brand look worse? Okay, hopefully that made sense. And then there's the logistic side of thing list. What you bring on to set as few items as possible. You take up as less phases possible on vacation and you make sure you are not in the way and I'm not a trip hazard because any point, just like now, in those notes, people can turn up and you feel the street with your equipment, you're causing an issue. Watch out for health and safety as well. When you filming on location. Hopefully that is helpful is all about making our videos stand out above the clutter. So many videos at as so many people posting videos, assertion media, you really need to stand out from the crowd. And we can do that using good locations, just like this one. 7. How to look and sound awesome closer: Thank you very much for taking part in this course. I really enjoy teaching it, or even learning how to look awesome in smartphone marketing videos. The more you make, the more people who will potentially see them, the bet you look, the more impressed Day will be with you and your skills waking, build trust and can make them want to buy from you. If you could do me a major favor will help as many people as possible with my courses. If could give this course a rating, really helps people understand what this course is about. If you could give a review, then help people even further understand the cause and how good it is. That would be much appreciated. Thank you.