How to Improve Your Video Quality

1. Welcome to the Course!: Welcome to the video course. I've essentially tried to mash together years of nerdy knowledge of cameras and equipment and try to put it into a cohesive step by step guide. So then hopefully if you're looking as a music teacher to have better quality videos or you just want to dive into this world of video, then these are the building blocks to get you to those bits. I take you through which camera to buy, which light to buy, how to light something, how to set your frame all the way through to video editing software that's free and paid for, and then my own personal workflow. So then you have a great idea of what to buy, how to light it. And then someone like me who makes a bunch of videos every year, what that actually looks like, from the whole practical standpoint with this course, there is no right or wrong. My goal with this is to give you those blocks so you know what to search for, you know what to look for in cameras, and to give you a better idea of how to get better video quality. So with that, we'll dive straight in and look at which camera to buy. So I'll give you two examples of cameras that you can buy right now if you want to, if you just can't be bothered to research because I know that sometimes I can't. Let's be honest. Sometimes the's a lot of effort'll give you two examples to buy, but I also tell you how to look for cameras. If you don't want these cameras, I'll show you want something different anyway. Let's get into it. Let's learn together how to get better video qualities for your online music lessons. 2. Chapter 1 - Picking and Choosing a Camera: So the first thing we need to do before we can film anything is actually have a camera who had a thought. So this is a really daunting world. It's similar to buying a drum kit, for example, or finding different symbols or a different instrument, something like that. It's the very same world. It's just a different piece of equipment. It's a, it's a world that I both love and hate because I love buying new equipment. But it's also very expensive and there's lots of it that I really, really want. So the first thing to start is just see what you have now. So you might already be filming online lessons and you want to improve the quality. Or you might be looking to start filming. The first thing to do is look actually at your phone and see what that has. So for example, this is what? It's my phone. It's a phone. 13 pro max, I think. So it's a few years old now, but it's still going strong. Apart from one of the lenses, the most zooming in one, which is a technical term in the camera world, obviously, I think I must have dropped it on a gig because it's got these weird lines on the lens now. And it's a bit annoying, but kind of make some pictures look cool. Anyway, I don't use that lens often, so that's fine. But straightaway, I've now got at least something to aim for. So the settings you kind of want to look for on the camera is the frame rate, the quality, and then what's called the F stop. Now straightway, we're sort of diving into some technical terminology, but I promise it's not too scary we can do it together. So the F stop or the aperture is essentially how blurry the background is going to be. So the lower the number, the blurrier the background, the more like cinematic it looks. So right now you're watching this video and this is an aperture of 1.8 which is super low. And therefore it means that the stuff behind me is the iphone can fake. That is why it's got three lenses. If you're on cinematic mode, if you've got the iphone 13 or above, you'll see a little cinematic mode thing. If you click on that, you'll see that the background goes blurry. Same on portrait mode for photos, same thing. It's not real aperture, but it's faking it to look like it. And that aperture on an iphone generally goes down to 1.8. It gives us this really nice, professional blurry look. So they're the three things we want to look for, Quality, aperture. And then frames per second. Now, frames per second as a super easy one, If you actually go into your camera app on your phone, go into video, and then we'll actually tell you this information at the top top right. So for me right now it says four K and 30, that means the quality is in four K, S, super HD. And then the frames per second is in 30. And I know that this phone goes up to 60. You can find out too by just tapping on that number. We want to make sure it has 30, and then if you're feeling fancy, you can get a camera that has 60. But generally, if you're just starting this, you probably won't touch that. If you have 60 frames per second, you can half the speed when you go to edit the video. And then it looks a bit more slow motionly because it's more flowy 'cause you're half 60 gets to 30. But again, that's a very, very specific technique which you might want, but you should be fine. So with that, we can now go ahead and look for these things in cameras. Now, the great thing about this, as I'm filming this course in 2024, pretty much every single camera has these options. Which is both great because it means we have loads of options. But it's really annoying because now it means we have loads of options. So there's two cameras that I would always recommend. So the first camera is probably the simplest and will last you a long time. And that's the Sony ZV one. And that's because it doesn't have an interchangeable lens, which means you can't take the lens off. It's a really small camera and it has a flip screen. As you can see, it looks like this. I'll just click on the Sony website for it. Super simple. It's aimed at creators, bloggers specifically. But we want that information because we want a flip screen. So when we're teaching a lesson, we can actually see that we're in frame and we look good and stuff like that. This is a great option if you're not too fuss about different lenses and actually the camera world itself. You just kind of want a camera that's more than a phone, but less than a really fancy phone. Now, straight away, this is a 600 pound camera, but unfortunately the camera world is just quite expensive. The good thing though with this is an investment and it will last you a long time. Now, why I chose this one? Firstly, because of all of the options above. So it doesn't have a lens, you don't have to worry about any of that. But because it's got four, it's got 30 frames per second. I believe it also has 60 as well. So we've got that option if we want it. But also, I don't think it says on the website, which is tonight, let's go to Curries. Curries is good here in the UK. It's, it's just a tech. There we go. The lens is 1.82 0.8 which is what I'm saying about aperture. The F stop, so this shoots in the same F stop that this camera right now shoots on. And it's a nice little camera. If you're on a holiday and you want to take some videos or photos, then it's great for that. So this camera pretty much matches what I'm filming on now, but actually in better quality in a smaller size. And still gives you all of the option that's if you want just a single camera, buy it, now you're done. It's a really good option. Now if you're interested in the camera world with interchangeable lenses, you kind of want the same price point, you want to start exploring that sort of thing. Then I would also recommend the cannon M 50. Now, cannons generally tend to be a little bit easier to use than Sony, just from the menus and how they work. But if you're coming into this video, into this course, having used neither, then you're absolutely fine. It's just purely because I've used Cannon and I've used Sony. I just find cannon easier, but that's because I've used both and I've got familiar with cannon. If you're not familiar with either, then whichever one you choose is going to be easier. So the Canon M 50, similar in price to the Sony camera, pretty much exactly the same settings. So the three that we're looking for, the quality, the frame per second, and the F stop with the lens that it comes with. The F stop is slightly higher at 3.5 But if you're shooting in a room like I am or you're away from your background, you're still going to have a blow background. It's all good. But the good thing about this is that you could then buy another lens that has a lower F stop, so you can actually take the lens off, buy a new one, it's great. The only downside to this camera is that for some reason, Canon built the M series with a specific lens mount. So it just means that the lenses for this camera are only for this camera rather than right now on this camera. For example, this is on the cannon EF mount, which means that I can look at any Canon camera with the EF mount. Now the reason why I'm recommending this rather than something with an EF mount is because from my knowledge as of making this course, this is still the cheapest price for the most bang for your buck. I know people that have gotten started with this camera and have some great results, and I've actually stuck with it the whole time. The whole ecosystem of this camera is still great and for about five pounds, 600 pounds, again, quite a big investment. But it's going to last you a long time. So that's what camera to buy. Now this is only scratching the surface. And please take this information and see if you can find a camera that suits you. It is a very subjective thing, as I said, like choosing an instrument. Choosing your drum kit. Someone's going to choose Yamaha like me over maybe a DW or a Gretch or something like that. It's purely subjective. There's no right answer. If whichever one suits you the best, these two cameras are probably a safe choice. If you're just like, no, I just want a camera, just tell me a camera to buy. These two are good bet. But like I said, take those three pieces of information, aperture frame per second, video quality, and then search for that on those big list, and you should be absolutely fine. So in the next video, we're actually then going to move on to lighting. Now the secret with lighting is that that is where all of the great quality comes from. So you can have an amazing quality camera. But if you don't have good lighting, then it's still not going to look great. So we're going to dive into all of that in the next chapter, all about lighting. 3. Chapter 2 - Picking and Choosing Lights: We've chosen a camera, you've potentially bought a camera, or you may already have a camera. Either way, we've got the camera side of things hopefully sorted up. Next is lighting, and this is fortunately a little bit easier somehow than cameras. But again, a vital part of making videos because otherwise the camera is not going to be able to pick up where the quality is and all this sort of stuff. So what we want to aim for is a light that is what's called a soft light. So right now, this is a very soft light. It's just to the left of me here as you can see where it lights up my hands and it's casting a nice soft light on me. A harsh light would be something like your phone torch, where it just looks harsh and kind of, I don't want to say ugly, but you know what I mean? It's just, it's not great. It's great for certain situations. But for a nice video lesson, an online music lesson, like we're looking to film, we want something nice and soft, and friendly and nice. So the point of a light is to separate you from the background. So right now I'm lit. I do have some little highlights. I have this little candle here and that lamp over there, but generally the background there. Then only thing lighting it is just the normal lights in this room. I've not really got anything specific. The main point here is that I've sat further away from my background to give me that what's called depth of field, which is how blurry the background is. And I've got one light lighting to separate me from the background. And this is what you want to replicate as well. So what you can do right now is that if you already have a filming spot already, or you're looking for one, say if you're sat in front of a wall, absolutely fine. What I'd recommend doing is just moving yourself slightly more to the corner. So right now I'm shooting into a corner because that's going to give you more room between the wall and you. And then I'd take three to five steps forward and sit or stand right there. Now this can be limiting with a drum kit for example, or if you're in a very small space, which is why, like I said, when buying a camera, that's why we look for the lower aperture because that's going to help us be separated from. But anyway, lighting the point is soft to make you separate from the background. Now for this video, I'm using the newer, newer, newer, newer. That 1660 LD. I got it off Amazon a couple of years ago. It looks like this and it's great. It comes with the stand, comes with the light, comes with the power cable. It's literally everything you need to get started. And the best bit is last time I got this anyway. Oh, look, first, First of August 2020. That's when I purchased this very light that I'm using right now. It comes with a soft panel on it as you can see here. That's what this little gray patches. So it's already giving you a nice soft light. Now, what I then purchased, apparently a lot longer afterwards on 7 February 2022, was a soft box. And that's now what's giving me a really nice circular light is making it super soft and it's spreading it over a bigger distance. So what I'd recommend straightaway is getting these two lights, because that will set you up with some good lighting. So if you watch any of the course videos, the Youtube videos, patron, any of the content, all of it is filmed with this. Now, to note, when buying lights, you don't have to get these. Like I said, I'm kind of just trying to give you something that I used that has worked really well to start with. But again, take this information and find it what works for you. The key information that we want to look for in lights is this here, the 32,000 56,000 K. Now that is our white balance and that is essentially how warm or cold the camera is going to make us look or the lights going to make us look. So right now, this room is quite a warm room, so it's going to look like more orange. But if I were to increase that white balance number up, this would then turn more blue, a little coles. And you might find that when shooting your video. So what you want to look out for in the camera is usually K for Kelvin or white balance. They're all the same thing. I know it's one of those things where it's got 40 names even though it does one thing. So they go. So what I generally do as a rule of thumb is that I set the camera to the same number that the light is on right now. This light, which is the one that we're looking at here in Amazon, is set to 5,500 And so the white balance on my camera is also set to 5,500 They just need to match. And that's a really good starting point that I'd recommend for you as well. From there, you can see how warm or cold it is, so if you'd like a more warmer shot, then make that number lower. If you'd like a more colder shot, then make that number higher. As you can see, we're at 5,500 and this goes to 5,600 So I'm cold already, but generally a lot of lights shoot at 5,500 really quite cold because actually that's what the most natural look is. Now this is a subject that I could dive into for hours because it gets very nerdy. But essentially, when looking for lights, you want to look for a light that shoots at 5,500 or even better at a range like this. So you have control and most lights at this or price range have that. Now what a lot of people get and I do not recommend is a ring light because it's really cheap. I see like 2025 pounds. It's got all the different colors as we can see here. And you can put your phone in it. Super simple. Like I said, they're super popular. But the problem is, is that it's a really small area that the light is being produced by. So it's just a very specific circle compared to our giant soft box. It's also quite harsh circle, so it's not spreading the light out very well. And then it also leaves you these weird like light to rings in your eyes. It's just, it's not for me, it's not for me. And you can also not really control the color temperature of it. You can change the color, so you can make it more orange, but that's literally the color orange. But we don't want that. We want the white balance. So if you can, I would highly avoid a ring light because that is considered a cheap light and it won't give you as much control and won't look as nice as a bigger light like these panels. Especially if you're a drummer like me. You're filming a drum kit. You want to light up the whole drum kit, which we'll get to in a few chapter of time. You will not be able to do that with the ring lights a very easily. So although I highly recommend if you can investing in a slightly nicer LED panel, it'll help you again in the long run. What I'm aiming for here is to give you a purchase that you can make once and then you're done. And then if you're interested in this world, you've got that scope to go ahead. But actually we want a nice camera, nice lights, and then we have nice video lessons. Hopefully that should give you some insight into lights. The main point is that you want to find a, a nice light that suits your room, but one that comes with a soft box to get a nice spread, as you can see from this video. So I'd always recommend the newer LED panels. In the next chapter, we're actually going to start looking at the camera itself, to how to adjust it for the best quality. I'll be using the first camera that I ever bought, which is the Canon seven 50 D, to show you the different settings and what can be achieved with just the stock lens. But I'll generally give you a couple of rules of thumb to get it to work. And this can be applied to any camera because all of the settings are the same across every camera. Which is great. So I'll see you there. 4. Chapter 3 - How to Adjust the Camera for Best Video Quality: Like I mentioned, let's actually talk about getting good quality out of the camera. I am using the Canon 70 D, which is the first camera that I ever had. And then I upgraded to the AT D, and this is all before four K cameras were actually accessible and before I started filming videos, long term apply these settings to whichever camera you have because they are all the same. They just might look slightly different in the menus and things like that. But the goal is what we're looking for. Now this is an interchangeable lens one, so as you can see, I can take the lens off and put it back on. This is the kit lens that comes with these cameras. This is a 18 to 55, which means I can zoom in and I think it's 3.3 0.5 to 5.6 And that basically means why it changes is that when you're zoomed to the furthest out, it's going to be 3.5 And when you're zoomed the furthest in, it's going to be 5.6 Just something to note there, if you ever see like the F stop or the aperture, like 1.8 to 2.8 that means it's furthest to zoom out point, it's going to be 1.8 It's furthest to zoom did point, It's going to be 2.8 So just a little detail there to watch out for. Now, I am going to try and use my lovely green bottle for this example. I'm just gonna put it on the desk because it should be able to capture this light. As we can see, there is also no card in this camera and you're gonna see a little bit behind the scenes. So I'm recording the screen of this camera. So let's see what happens straight away as you can see, if I just point it at the bottle, I'll try and focus on it. It's dark, it's quite blue because the white balance isn't set. And it's clearly trying to find focus on the bottle. But that's fine. I'll see there's no card in camera, so just ignore that. I'll, you'll need a memory card for a camera, but down at the bottom, we've got the three settings. So right now it's on 50. Oh, actually, can I just ha, ha, yeah, so 50 is our shutter speed. The rule of thumb for that is double the frames per second. So right now, I'm filming at 30 frames per second. If you remember from the first video, I'm buying a camera. We've got three things, which is frames per second, quality and aperture stop. So this is that frames per second. So 30, we just double it and get to 50. The closest thing here to 60 is actually 60. But as you can see, if you look at the airports on the desk, and just at the bottom of the white mouse, it's flickering. And that's because I've got LED lights in here, so I'm just going to scoot it down one to 50, all of that disappears. It's a little bit lighter, becaus there's more light coming into the camera, and we've got a bit more control over it. So up next 3.5 we can see highlights. That's our aperture. So if I zoom all the way in, you can see that change to 5.6 and the general shot gets darker. That's because the amount of light that can be let into the camera is limited when it's zoomed in is a great branding for this bottle. You're welcome hydro flow, but essentially we want to keep that as low as possible to let the most light in. Now, the last thing, ISO, this is the fake light on the camera. So if I turn this up, as you can see, the image gets brighter. Now, in general, as a rule of thumb, you want to keep this as low as possible. So for me on this camera 400 is a comfortable place with this lens. It's great. And that's what works right now on this camera. I'm down on ISO 100 though, because I can go down to 1.8 aperture. Basically, it means that the camera can let in the most light as possible. This one doesn't let in as much light because of the lens. This lens on this camera that I'm looking to right now, it's much more expensive. The glass on it is bigger. It can let in much more light, and therefore my fake light in the camera, the ISO can be lower. Now, that was a lot of information for someone that may or may not know anything about cameras. Don't worry about it at all, just know that the ISO is fake light. If you turn it up, as you can see, it starts to obviously get really bright, makes my desk look really dirty. But also you can kind of see some noise, and that's the problem with ISO. So, you want to lower that, the noise disappears, The light evens out, and it looks a little bit nicer. The last thing we want to look at, I hit the button. We get all of these, but we've got white balance now with this camera. I don't have the exact adjustment I do on this one. So worse than the previous chapter about lighting and it being 5,500 I essentially therefore, in this, because it's got a bunch of presets, try and match it, essentially to make it look good. So you can go to auto white balance, but it does change a little bit. Daylight, as we can see is a little bit orange, shade a bit more orange than that. Cloudy is pretty good. Tungsten light is very blue, white. Fluorescent light is pretty much where we want it. Flash is very orange. And then custom, I've never really understood custom on this because it doesn't, it doesn't like me but it doesn't really make sense because, yeah, it just doesn't. So for this I'm going to use white fluorescent light. What happens if I turn it back to the drum kits? Yamaha recording custom? As we can see, the colors of the back of the room are actually pretty accurate to what it is. It's a little bit blue, but there is no light back there at the moment from this. So if I then turn this to face me and look at this camera, as you can see my light is very even. I'm very zoomed in because, well, that's just where this lends in. It's a little bit blue. So what I would do, because I can't fine tune the adjustment on this, is I would then take it into premiere pro and bring in the warmth a little bit. But as an even look, I'm very even, I'm nicely lit, there's not too much noise. It's not too bad. So just to recap, the general rule of thumb, just to give you something to go away with right now and try, is that make sure you're shooting at 30 frames per second, and then set your shutter speed to 50 for your aperture. Set that as low as possible. In this case, for this camera, it was 3.5 For you, it might be different. If you've got the Sony it'll be 1.8 And then if you've got the Canon M 50, I think it's the same, I think it's 3.5 and then the ISO, bring that all the way down until it looks good on that viewfinder, on the screen, and try and get that as low as possible. What you might be able to do is lower that, so your background is darker and then turn up the light that's on you and that will bring you out of the background even more. Just be careful with this though, because sometimes it can be too much between the light and the dark and it doesn't quite look good. But it's all about finding the happy medium. Go to that extreme, because I absolutely did, when I started filming stuff, I put this light on full ISO all the way down just just to see what it looks like. And then I gradually brought it together and you'll find the combination for your room that works. So like I said, copy these settings, go to the extremes, see what happens, and just experiment up. Next we've got lighting tips for actually behind a drum kit because they are notoriously difficult to light. We're going to take the same concepts that we looked at for lighting. We yourself, but apply it to a musical instrument because that's the end goal, is to hopefully start teaching some online lessons. 5. Chapter 4 - Lighting Tips Behind a Drum Kit: So when it comes to lighting stuff, as I mentioned in two chapters ago about lighting, it's important to get a nice even field. So I'm going to use a drumket as an example for this video, because I'm a drummer and I'm teaching drum lessons. If you are a guitarist, a singer, a bass player, something with an instrument that fits in your lap, then you can copy the same sort of setting of the layout that I use for forming this right now and what I used in that lighting video where you're using essentially one light next to you to make that nice dynamic depth. Drums are a slightly different beast because they're a significantly bigger instrument, but they're definitely the most fun. So I'm going to use two examples to show you what we want to aim for and then do it myself on the drum kit that's just behind me right here, just out of frame. So if you're just playing, if you're using a demo, what we want to have is a really nice even spread over the whole kit. And to do that, we're literally gonna put the light above the kit. I know it sounds really obvious, but it's a specific technique that gives us a really dynamic look. So if we take this guy called Brandon Scott for example, he's got a beautiful layout. And this look is easier than you think. So he's got the camera obviously directly in front of the drum kit. He's got a really nice empty room to do this in. And he's got that light, that's a really big aperture light with a really big soft box that then spreads down at the whole kit. And you can see this with his hat here at the top. And actually this angle that it's just changed to it is really handy where you can see the top of the symbols are all lit up. The whole kit and the space there is lit up, but the rest of the room is really dark. And that gives us that really fancy look. And it also, like I said, in the lighting chapter, separates the subject from the background and makes it look a lot more depth. And that's with one light. Now if you're talking, you can also put another light to your left or to your right just to light up, especially the dark patches in your face. Because what can sometimes happen with that above light is that you get really dark shadows in your eyes. And it makes it a little bit more difficult for the viewer to connect with you as you're teaching something. So what I'd recommend with that, if you have one light, if you want that dynamic to look, is bring it forward above you, so it's more of a diagonal. And that will help remove those shadows under your eyes. Or try it to the left of you like I have right here, but behind. Now the next example is Good Old Drummio, and this is an extreme example with many, many lights. And I'm not expecting you to copy this, but it's a good example of a really even look so good old Jonathan Moffatt. So they've got obviously loads of cameras, loads of lights. They have if we break down this shot here, they've got one panel here, I know they've got another two in front and then another one to the left, so straightway that's four above, just to get an even spread. They then have, as you can see here with this really bright one, harsh lighting to bring out some element of, in this case, Jonathan. They'll then have one for the foot cam underneath, usually behind as you can see. And the reflections, a really tiny detail here from the stands, you can see that there is a square panel behind. They then also have obviously dynamic lighting in the studio itself because this is a studio set. So in this case, they have blue panels with blue lighting to highlight the blue. And when you've got warmth, orange of symbols and blue, that's a really nice combination. As we can see, there's just something really satisfying about it. And then from there I think what I've seen in previous behind the scenes videos of drumio, they also have a few directly above the drummer or the performer just to give what's called essentially like a halo light. So it just brings out the highlight of the person on the subject. And yeah, so already we're talking 1267, 899, potentially nine lights. And that's in Yeah. Studio setting. Where is what we want is one. But it's, it's fun to look at these things and whenever you watch a video like Romo or any of your other favorite drumas, just see how they've got the lighting. And see if you can see where they put their light. And then just copy it. So for the kit behind me, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna move this light above the drum kit as much as I can. I'm going to keep all of these lights on. And then now as you'll see when I turn that light on behind the drum kit, it immediately brings the drum kit out. And the difference between having this light and not having this light is huge and shows us why it's important to have lights, especially with a drum kit. So it's a very simple method. For now, the best thing I can advise is just to copy what other people are doing and experiment with it. You might find that putting the light above you doesn't look good in your setting, and that's fine. Try there next to you, try the other side. Try directly in front of you. What you want to aim for is a difference where the light is on you and the drum kit and not the background. And then you get that sort of depth, that difference in subject and the room. In the next chapter, we're going to look at audio and the things I used to record myself when talking to a camera and the whole workflow behind that. 6. Chapter 5 - Audio and What to Buy: So when it comes to audio, again, there's a lot of things you can do. I will say straightway. If you are a drummer watching this or a musician that already has like an audio interface and mics and things like that, for miking a drum kit or your instrument, then that's probably the best go to that you have right now. Because you can just take one of those mics, put it slightly above you, just just out frame, and then record as you would any other instrument. Now if you want to have audio slightly separate, so you have dedicated camera audio, kind of like I do, then that's absolutely fine too. It's a whole thing. So there's three different things you can look at or at least three different things that I've used over my time as filming lessons. The first one is something like this, which is the zoom six recorder. Now this is the top end one with the most inputs and you absolutely do not need this one if you don't need all of the inputs. So this not only has the two mics on top that are interchangeable, which is pretty cool, it also works as an audio interface and has four X Lar inputs. So I use this a lot to, say, record the drums at a gig. And my inner feed works to treat, but you can use the zoom four N, which is significantly cheaper and has two Lar inputs rather than four. And then I believe if you just want the mics like you're filming videos, I think the zoom h two is great. Now these are incredible because these capsules are really high quality. The only issue and why I don't film videos with this is because the position to get good audio is quite annoying to get. So on the back there is actually a little clip that you can put into tripods and things like that, which is really handy. So what I used to do is I used to put it under the camera just about there, so it's just out of frame problem is it would then take up all of the typing on a keyboard, for example, or any desk movement the other way. And the best way to do it is to actually have it sort of pointed down at you, diagonally at your mouth or your face. And then have it just, I'm doing this with my arms, but just doing it, Yeah, just at a frame like that. So it's just above you, it's really close. It's obviously now peeking into frame because I'm just holding up with my hands. But that's the best way to do it. The only issue that I had was actually mounting that. So I had a really janky like symbol arm to do it with and duct tape. And although it worked and the quality was great, it did fall over a lot, which I didn't really want to do 'cause this is quite expensive. So now I only use this sometimes. But what I've moved onto, which is our second category, is a lave mic. So a lav mic is a microphone that sits just here. You'll see it all the time on loads of different people. They use it all the time on TV. On lots of Youtube videos, you'll see a little black mic just here. Now mine is hidden. Just you can be able to see a little block here just underneath my T shirt and my hoodie. And it's the DJ I lav mic. I think this is the second one. I really like this because it sits in a little box. Hopefully it won't cut out as I'm recording, but it's like airpod. So it's got three things. It's got, I'm going to have to close that because I can already se it freaking out. But it's got the middle capsule that sits on the camera. So me out on the camera right now and shows you the audio level on which mic's coming in. It's got two of these lab mics, which is really nice. And that's what it was freaking out a little bit there because it was picking up the signal from both microphones. But it also has lightning adapters so you can put it into a phone. It has USBC, so if you've got an Android, you can put it into that. And then it's got a camera out to sit on it, and it's really small. This is a charging case as well, and they last forever. And they're just incredible. So that's what I've used, This is what you're listening to right now. It's super easy means I can walk around the room and some talk and it's great. The last option is something like this, which is a microphone that sits on top of the camera and records it from there. Now if you're doing a lot more sort of log style, moving the camera around, talking to people, going outside, this is a great option because it just sits on the camera, plugs directly into it, don't have to worry about it at all. This one specifically the road video mice go, I used for years. It doesn't require any power, so you never have to worry about turning it on or off really quality And yeah, it's just really good. The only problem is that the lens that I'm using right now, it's quite noisy when it focuses. So it goes and that started to pick it up, which is a bit annoying. And I wanted slightly higher quality with something like the six before moving on to the lab mic. So actually it's just, again, with all of this, as you're very quickly probably learning, it's all very subjective. It's what works for you in your scenario and this is what works for me. But the road video mic might work for you better, or this might be perfect. Or even, like I said, an audio interface that you normally record a drum kit with, or an instrument with with a microphone, that might be the perfect one. So there is no right or wrong answer. This is what I've used and have had great luck with. So take this information and find what works for you. In the next chapter, we're going to start looking at software. As we've now pretty much come to a point where we can form a video. So we've got the camera, we've got the lights. We know how to light a drum kit. I've shown you roughly how to use the camera and make it look nice. So after that, it's a case of experimenting shooting the video. And now I'm going to show you some software that I know of and have used both free and paid for for beginners. And if you want to move on and yeah, we're going to look at that whole world. 7. Chapter 6 - Free and Paid Video Editing Software: Okay, so we've got all of the stuff, We've tried it, we've started making some videos, Hopefully here's some software that you can look at to start editing them, to bring them in, to cut them up, to make them the actual video that you want them to be. So with all of this, I'm going to try and recommend stuff for Windows and Mac. We're going to go from free to paid. From beginning to essentially what I'm using, and then above that to the Pros and the cinema guys. So first things first, if you're using a Mac, then straight away what I'd recommend, if you're brand new to this, is using eye movies. It's free on the Mac App Store. As you can see, I downloaded it before, so I've got a little cloud. It's a really easy, really great way just to start in the world of video editing. It's a really nice software, it's really friendly. And the best bit is that once you've gotten used to that, or you've maxed out all of the settings and you're comfortable and you've done lots, is that you can then just directly move up to Final Cut Pro, which is an incredible piece of software. It is at that point quite expensive, but the layout is pretty much the same as you move from movie to final cut. It's all in the Apple ecosystem, so it'll be easier to move through those two then to go from movie to Premier Pro, for example. Now if you're on Windows or if you're not a big fan of I movie and you're on Mac, then I'd recommend, I've heard amazing things about this and it looks incredible. I've seen people use it. I've had students that have used it and have great success. Quick. Heads up. Don't use the online video. I mean, I mean you can, but it's just not good. So I'd recommend downloading it. So for me it says download for Mac. Becaus, I'm on a Mac, but if you're on Windows, it'll say download for Windows. And this is sort of a go to video editing software. At the moment, a lot of people on social media, Instagram, take that sort of thing, use this for the captions because they are really good captions. So if you do use cap cup, you can use it for a while. It's probably in that in between between movie and final cut. In terms of movies for beginners, cap cuts begins to an intermediate and then final cut, Adobe Davinci resolve. That's professionals or people play around some video editing software. So that's what I'd recommend. I movie you from Cap Cut if you don't like I movie or you're on Windows. And then if you're comfortable with that or you're maxing out all of the options on it and actually that you want more from editing software. That's where you then get to what I call the big three, which is Davinci Resolve Premiere Pro and Final Cut pro. The one that I'd recommend to everyone without having to spend loads of money on any of this software is Davinci Resolve. It's made by Black Magic who are incredible. A lot of cinema, films and movies are now made with Vici Resolve. There's been a massive shift from Premier Pro into Da Vinci and that's because it's an amazing piece of software that's free to download unless you want the studio, which is 245 pounds. But for the most part, for what we want to do with it, the free version is perfect and it's got everything from normal video editing to motion graphics, to color, and then the exporting is amazing. I've heard some amazing things. It's super popular right now. So there's loads of tutorials on it and that's what I'd recommend getting. If you want some like professional grade software because it's free, why would you not for me, I use Premier Pro and the Adobe Suite. That's because I've used it since before. Davinci resolve was a thing and it is what I'm most comfortable with. So I use, like I said, Premier Pro. I also use that as a whole big ecosystem with light room to edit photos after effects, to do any motion graphics illustrator for titles and things like that. And then Photoshop for thumbnails. And they all work together, so I can send one photo through that whole thing with just a click of a button and it just works. The only thing that I wouldn't recommend with Adobe is that they are very, very well known to not be the friendliest bunch in the world when it comes to taking your money and then not giving it back. And what I mean by that is there are many, many horror stories in canceling the subscription. Adobe is hideously expensive. It's very good, but hideously expensive. On a monthly subscription, if you're getting the Adobe stuff, be really sure that you want to get it. I'd always try before you get with either someone else or if you're watching this and you're a student at a university, they generally have Premier Pro on their computers. And if you're just watching this as a person, then yeah. Jus just be very aware of the subscription models and things like that because although they're great, it's not the, the friendliest bunch. But there you go. That's editing software. The main point of this is there's no right or wrong with answers. As with this whole course and anything that you buy, it's what works for you. So you might see Davinci resolve and although it's free and a lot of people use it, you might hate it, and that's absolutely fine. That's why I haven't moved from Premier Pro to Davinci, because I don't need to. I'd know everything in Premier Pro, there's no point. Same with final cut. If you've gone from movie to final cut, great. If that works for you. If at the end of the day you can film, edit and upload a video of the quality that you want it to be. There you go, That's the winning software, so that's where I start. You might find some other software along the way. The only difficulty outside of the ones that I've mentioned here is that these are the most popular ones as of filming this course. So there's going to be the most amount of support and tutorials on it, so we finding how to do it and to learn it, you've got the most support. So just be aware of that as you look for software. In the next chapter, we're going to be looking at where to upload. It's a very simple subject, but it can be a little bit daunting. 8. Chapter 7 - Where to Upload: Where to upload the videos that you've shot. So it really depends on what you want to do with them. So if you're filming videos to send to students after a lesson, for example, then Dropbox is great for this. Or even if you want to go all out, then you can use something like square space. And square space is great because it's got a whole membership site. You can give students passwords and usernames and then only they have access to it. It's got its own self hosting thing and it's pretty good. But again, if it's just sending to students, and I'd recommend something like Dropbox or Google Drive, because that's the simplest thing. And then when exporting the video, you can pretty much just match the settings to what you shot it in. All of the software that I said in the previous chapter all has presets to export stuff in. So you don't need to worry about that. For me personally. With this course, the Youtube channel, and things like that, I have three main places that I blow to which is Youtube, Instagram, and Patron. And those are three separate videos in three separate ways. Now, again, there's no right or wrong with this. Youtube is really self explanatory and with Premier Pro, there is actually a preset to export Youtube videos. I use a slightly different one because I have quite a platform Mac. So I can do some extra things with it that you don't really need to worry about at all. Because it doesn't, in the ground scheme of things, make huge differences. It's very much at that point of diminishing returns. Again, like I said in the lighting video, I'm just a big at nerd, so I like to do lots of big fat nerdy things. But when it comes to all three of those, all three are essentially the same with a Mac, is great for an Instagram video because and I can send it to my phone and just upload it that way. Just if you're filming an Instagram, don't forget to turn the camera sideways because then you'll get the best of view, if you will. You may find that actually going from Youtube and then cutting in that Youtube video for Instagram works great, and that is perfect. Again, a lot of the editing software that I said in the previous chapter has precepts for you to then just cut in to an Instagram video. I know Premier Pro, again, because I use it for an example, has an auto frame feature. So you can say, I want to use this bit for an Instagram video. And then it'll just line up, it'll put it into the portrait mode, and you can go straight to Instagram. Again, it's completely up to you and it completely depends on what you want to do. The good thing is that uploading to places isn't that scary, which is quite nice. The only scary thing is hitting, uploading, and knowing that other people might see it. But in general, that's probably the simplest thing of making videos is just uploading it. The only last thing I'll say about why up blows because again, choose a site upload to it. I would try and avoid video. It's a good site, but I'm pretty sure they charge you now to host a certain amount of videos or something like that. I know a lot of big membership sites like Drumio use a video plug in to host all of their videos. But again, they're a huge company with a lot of money and they can spend all of that money on those videos. I think video is the highest quality of upload, so you don't lose that much quality when you upload it. Because I know Youtube you do lose some quality but none noticeable. And at this stage, it's something we don't need to worry about, so you can use video, check it out. Why not? It's there and there's a website to see. But just be aware that I think there's a paid service, whereas everything else is free, unless you're building something on square space, for example. But again, that's a whole website, so I presume you'd have other stuff with it anyway. Super quick chapter. This one, because it's something that is important to talk about in video, is that we do need to upload these videos somewhere. But there isn't a go to place a go to method to upload stuff. It's pretty much finish editing the videos, save it and export it, put it onto the upload place of choice, which is nice and easy. So in the next chapter we're going to start looking at audio presets. And you're going to have something to download from me that if you're using something like a zoom six for example, or any microphone like that, there's a logic preset for you. And if you're using something like this, a live mic, you've also got some premier pro presets, which is quite nice. So I'll see in that chapter. 9. Chapter 8 - Audio Presets for Good Sounding Audio in Logic and Premiere Pro: So audio, I'm gonna chat you through my audio of workflow. You already may know how to do this and that's amazing, or you may have never seen this before and that's fine with this. Just do whatever sounds good to your ears. That is the best advice I can give you, because to you it'll sound different to me and that's just the fun we have. But with this, I'm going to show you the EQ settings that you can generally copy to get a good sound. So if you don't have Logic or Premier Pro, which are the two presets that are downloaded with this video, then at least you can duplicate what these I'm going to do. So the first thing is in logic, if I'm using the H six for example, then I'll pull that audio into logic before putting it into Premier Pro. Now the workflow for this is a gait. So then when I stop talking, it's completely silent, which is quite nice. It's nothing too exciting. This is just the built in gate to logic. There are my settings. Essentially, the threshold is at a point that's not cutting off my words. The attack is relatively quick and then the holds and release are at a good medium. So it doesn't just cut off the end of my sentence, it sort rolls off to when I finish and there is a gap, it's quite nice. Next I have a compressor to bring everything up again, It's nothing too crazy. I've just brought the threshold down just so it's just tickling the compressor just just to bring in a little bit. And also the output gain on this I add is both make up and output to bring up the general level of everything. And I found this work best for the zoom mice or if I'm going through the audio interface and things like that. Next is a limitter. And the whole point of this, again, it's just to boost that signal so that's louder but not enough that it clips. So we do that with the output level, so it'll never go beyond -0.2 beats. I'll go pretty much all the way to the top, but not clipping. And then I can push it with the gain to make it seem louder. So up to this point, as you can see, it's all built in logic stuff, but all of it is to bring up the level of the audio. So mostly the point of this is that when you click on one of my Youtube video, for example, is the same level as someone else's, and you're not like turning up the volume or turning down the volume. Up next is a DS. A DS just takes off the harshness of when you go, just takes off that high end harshness. And then finally, right at the end, which is a little bit different, a little bit different, I put the EQ and that's just to tidy everything up. Now this is the important one, because this is going to make it sound good. You can pretty much copy this generally because this is sort of a go to for me and then you can adjust it to what sounds good to you. But essentially, all I'm doing here is I'm taking out all of the bottom low end to make it sound less muddy. And that's where a lot of mess can come from. In audio, I'm boosting where I have a low bit in my voice to just make it a little bit warmer then taking out some of the mids. Because generally when you have a scoop like that, it just sounds nice. It takes away some of that nasal sound and then I'm just rolling off some of the top ends and that's to help with the harshness of S and different frequencies. So you can pretty much copy those settings and or just copy the shape of that and that will give you a good place. But like with the mids and the low end, that will be specific to your voice. You might have a higher pitched voice in me, you might have a lower pitched voice in me. So it's finding those warm spots to then increase and make it sound nice. So that's my logic template for when I'm using an external mic. And again, you can download this logic template if you want it now if I'm using the DGI mics and why I like using them, because the audio goes straight to this camera. And I can just pull it into Premier Pro straight away and do all the audio in there. Because the problem with the H six as well is that I had to export that audio, bring it into Premier Pro and then match that audio. And it was, it was a whole thing. Whole thing. That's one of the reasons why I like the DGI ones. So here is a piece of demo footage of, well, hello there. And I've got two things that I just have a preset that I built going on here. The first one is an Q, and as you can see, it's pretty much the same in logic. It just looks a little bit different because the Premier Pro, so right here is all that low end that I'm bringing off. I'm increasing that range where I have a little bit of warmth. Slightly different with this Mic. Because this Mic is different, it's a smaller capsule. Obviously this is significantly bigger than the DGI Mics, and therefore these will pick up slightly less. So I have to bost it a bit more. I've taken out the mid just to get rid of that nasal sound, and this time I've actually done the oposite and I've really boosted the high end because I've found that with these mics it they sort of in that area. So I've just gone all out. I've just like, you know what, whoop job down and it works and that's the thing, is just to boost it. If it sounds good to you, then great, it will sound good to other people as well. It's a subjective thing. And then the only other thing I do after that is just a compressor, where I've quite literally just boosted to the output game, so it's just a bit louder in terms of the EQ, the only thing I've said it to preset is broadcast. But outside of that, not much has changed. And pretty much just using it to boost the volume of it. Because again, the outputs of these are relatively quiet, so I just want to make that a normal volume. Again, you can have both of those presets as a download from this video. They are unfortunately only specific to Premier Pro because they're using the built in Premier Pro stuff. But if you're using something different, feel free to just copy those settings to give you a nice sort of ground bit. So in the next chapter, and unfortunately the final chapter, I'm going to then go through my workflow for a video. So going from shooting the video to importing the premier pro, that essentially Yeah, my workflow. My workflow. 10. Chapter 9 - My Personal Setup and Workflow: So here's how I make these videos just to give you an idea of what I do. You don't have to do this if you don't want to find what works for you. This is just my own personal workflow. So first things first is said in the camera. So like I said in chapter one, I'm sitting deliberately, slightly away from the wall. Now, the only problem with this angle right here is that I'm facing the doors and they have blinds. And unfortunately, I cannot control the outside light. And as I'm shooting this video, I don't really want to either wake up super early to film the stuff or stay super late to film stuff so that I control all of the lights in general. It still looks great, still does the same thing. I've just got to be conscious of when a cloud goes by. But I set the camera, I'm censored in the frame. I light the little candle there. I put the lamp on back there. I then have the newer six 60 LED just here as you can see as my hand goes overexposed and that is at an angle. So then I get a really nice shadow on the right side of my face. It's less so right now because of the sun coming in, But this gives me a nice dramatic look. And I've also done a little detail, or I've matched it where I see in this studio room here, I've got a light side, The wall is white here and the room is dark here. So I try to make sure that the light is hitting me this side and the dark is here to match the room. A small D all, but it's little things like that that sort of bring the whole shot together. Now in terms of audio, I'm using the DDI mic that I mentioned in the audio chapter, so I can see on top of the camera the audio coming in. And I've just got that connected to a jack to this camera. Now the camera I'm using is the cannon AT D with the sigma 18 to 35 F 1.8 And I've had this combination for a good number of years and I am now looking to upgrade because it only shoots in ten P. Sadly doesn't do four K, but it has lasted me many, many years and has filmed every single dom electrical video you've ever seen so far up to this point. So far it's doing great. It's hard to upgrade something that just works. You know what I mean? It's very much the diminishing returns at this point. So anyway, in terms of video scripting, at this point, I don't really need much scripting. But that's because I'm bringing in skills from being a lecturer here in the UK. So I'm used to doing essentially long form teaching to either a camera or other people. Now what I always do when I'm filming to a camera is I always hit record and then I sort of get into it. I never hit recording go because that adds pressure that I need to do it at that point. I leave it rolling for a little bit. I just make sure I'm organized. It means I have a little bit more to edit at the front where I need to cut it out. But it means that I then get used to the feeling of having a camera on me. That's gotten loads better over the years. So now I can pretty much just hit record and go because I know what that feels like. But you may find that your first few videos are a little bit clunky and that's fine. It's like playing an instrument. We need that practice to get to that next. So the only thing I'll script is I'll have a little note that I'll have bullet points just to make sure I'm hitting the right things in that video. Because I'll see Tech is there, it's quite complicated. But apart from that, that's it. But what I used to do, I used to write out everything. I used to have a full script and I used to look over, read the sentence, read it out loud, next sentence, things like that. And then eventually I just came away from that. You may find that you prefer writing everything out. You may prefer that you want nothing at all and there is no right answer. Again, with all of this, as as I've said many times, it whatever works for you. Full completely subjective. Once I have my footage, however long that may be, I then have a preset folder that I built ages ago to put everything in. And I just love organization. So this is what I do. I put all the footage into footage within the footage. Sometimes I have screen recordings, so they go in there, then I have audio. So again, if I'm using like zoom six or a different mic or a different audio source that will go in there where I'm using the DJ mic, I go straight into the camera. So I don't necessarily need to worry about that anymore. I've got all the project files, so this is where I'll save Premiere Pro, and in here I actually have a blank template, which you can see just behind here. And basically, the reason why I have that is because I have folder structures and different elements that I've just added over time. And rather than building it every single time I open Premiere Pro, I was just like, I'll just save a project, then I've got titles, Misc. So that's if I have any pop ups or titles in that video, they'll go in there. I then have a thumbnail. So when I make videos, at the end of that video, I'll make a thumbnail that goes in there. And then finally export. And that's where all of the exports go for when they're good for Youtube, Patrion, Instagram, or a course like this. So with all of this and my point with this as well is that if I ever hand this over to an editor, it's super easy for them to see where everything is. And also when I look back now on the first ever dram electric videos, I've still got all that footage. Just 'cause you know, I like to keep it all for no reason whatsoever. But all of the folders are structured like this, so it's just so easy to find everything and see where it all is, especially if I'm cross referencing videos, it's just so easy to find it all. But anyway, once I've done that, I'll bring it into Premiere Pro and I have this really handy plug in called Watch Tower. And basically what that means is I can click on it here and I can select essentially the footage to the audio. The and what it does is it watches that folder. So if I ever bring in a new piece of footage, it'll automatically import it into Premiere Pro. It's a little tiny thing, but again, I just got tired of like double clicking import, waiting for it to import. Especially when it came to like the titles and miscellaneous. Like if I had five different titles, it started getting a bit annoying to re import it. And where I'm using Illustrator to do a title, what I can do is rather than exporting the Illustrator thing, I can just save the Illustrator file and import Illustrator into Premier Pro. And so now what happens is that if I make any changes to the title, I just have to save on Illustrator. And it will change automatically in Premier Pro rather than having to re export and do all of that stuff. So little things like that that have just added up over the years make it super easy to do. Now as you can see in here, I've also got folder structure and they're all numbered, so when I import the folders, they all just sit in there beautifully and match stunningly. For now though, I'll just demo the footage that I used for the previous chapter in audio and this is what the raw footage looks like off of the camera. So already that's absolutely fine. I just keep that as is and I wouldn't have to do anything with it. But what I tend to do is I tend to nest this, and I'll call it Talking Head because that's what it is. And essentially what a nested sequence does means that I can double click into it. And I've got the raw footage and in here I'll then add E and compressor to the audio. And then I've got a basic camera adjustment for color. As you can see, it just brings out the highlights a little bit as the vignette. It just rounds out all of the footage a little bit more. You don't necessarily need to worry about that. I didn't used to do this at all. Again, it's just showing my workflow. I like that little detail on it and I just like the nerdiness of dealing with color and learning that whole solve space. Now what I can do here is I then go in and I cut everything. This is actually a pre edited video, as you can see, there's screen recordings here and all that sort of stuff. But what I'd then do is I'd then bring in the screen recording. I'd match it up and synchronize it, then go through and cut. And the best bit is because this is a nested sequence. It means that if down the line I'm like actually the audio doesn't sound good or I want to change the colors. Rather than then having to edit every single clip that I've then cut together. I can just go into the nested sequence and then change it for every clip like that, and it makes it so much easier. The last thing I'll talk about is keyboard shortcuts. I've got the letter X to cut it. As you can see there, a handy one with Premier Pro is if you cut it, if you skip ahead to the part you want to cut two, I hit Q, and it deletes all of the bits before and just cuts to there is really, really handy. And I've just placed it on the keyboard, so I've got a nice little, I've got like this shape on my hand. I can just, you know, do that as I edit through and then it's a case of just exporting it once. I'm happy sending it to Youtube patron, Instagram, wherever it's going and job done. The key thing with this is that this is after years and hundreds of videos edited. When I first started editing videos, I didn't have the keyboard shortcuts, I didn't have the plugins, I did have the folder structure, but I didn't have the synchronization between titles and things like that, and I just went in used to the little cut thing and that's what I did. And eventually it got to the point where I was like, this is taking too long, can I make this quicker? So you're now seeing my progress after many years. So I'm under no expectation for you to copy this, but it's to give you an idea of, at least in my workflow. And hopefully to give you some ideas. And feel free to copy any of this and try, it might work for you, it might not. And that's absolutely fine. This whole subject is completely personal to you, so I'm just hoping that this is giving you some ideas into what to look for, what to buy, and how to progress with it. 11. Chapter 10 - Conclusion: So hopefully that's given you a little bit of insight into the world of video and hopefully it can give you some improvements to potentially either your workflow or at least giving you the starting steps to join us in the world of video lessons. Now, every single chapter is a whole course in itself. So please take the information from each one and then apply it to your own set up. Feel free to send me a message or an e mail or however you'd like if you have any questions about this. It's a huge subject and I'm sort of, I've tried to compile years of knowledge into one course. And as filming this, I very much realized that I could just go off on waffles for ages. So feel free to shoot me any questions, especially when it comes to buying equipment. And I'll give you the best insight that I can. And yeah, I hope you enjoy making some high quality videos.