Transcripts
1. Why Building A Studio At Home: This video, I'm
going to show you how you can go from this. To this in just a
few simple steps, even if you're working
with a small space that doesn't seem
ideal at first glance. We'll break it down step by step so you can stop
feeling overwhelmed and finally build a home studio that elevates your
content quality, boosts your confidence
and authority, and helps you close more clients and land
more brand deals. I mean, let's be real. We all want to make
more money, right? But first impressions metro
each of these sets do you think makes the
best impression on a potential client? Exactly. But the crazy
part is that they've been recorded in the exact same spot. How you look on camera directly impacts how much money you make. I've been a digital
nomad for years, sometimes moving more
than once a month, and every time I need to build
a new studio from scratch. By staying professional,
no matter where I am, I've grown Nodens to over 1.2 million followers and gained 300 million plus views and also work with some of the
biggest brands in the world. Trust me, my first set
ups were a nightmare. It took weeks. Cost too
much and felt overwhelming. Now I've simplified
the process into six easy steps that
anyone can follow. First, analyze the room,
second, positioning, third, camera setup, fourth, lighting, fifth background
design, sixth audio. At the end of the class,
I'll share one game changing accessory that will make your content creation
process ten times easier, and not many people
know about that. Let's dive in, starting
with step one.
2. Room Analysis: Step one, we need to
analyze the room and understand what kind
of background we have, where the natural
light is coming from, what kind of
elements we can use, where we should
position ourselves, our lights, and our camera. So right now, I can
see that in my room, right here, I have a white wall. I have a green wall. I have a bunch of doors, then I have a plant right there. Then on this side, it's
kind of like the kitchen, very messy kitchen, not liking this. Then
there is another door. Then I got some huge
windows on this side. And also, I have a
table right here, then another white
wall right there. Using white wall will be
very difficult to work with. So one thing that I would like to use is probably
this background right here because I think the green
is what looks the nicest. Then probably we can move
also this blant right here. So even here, we need to do
a bit of trial and error, and I'm going to just
try to place the camera right here to start with so now I'm just moving the camera. And the first thing I
notice is that I can see this white wall and
also that white wall, and I don't want to do that. So the way to cut them out is simply by moving
the camera forward. There you go. Now I'm using
a lens that is quite wide. It's a 28 millimeter F 2.8
that goes up to 75 millimeter. So probably will have to zoom in a little bit just like that. And right now, I don't
see anymore this wall and that kind of wall the
front of this wall. So I'm going to
try to sit and see whether I like the background
and maybe it has potential. So I'm going to sit
just right here, and I can see that
this is not too bad. The lighting's also is great because today is
a beautiful day, so there is some nice,
natural light coming in. But this is a problem
because natural light is often an enemy of our content because if we
need to make some cuts, the light changes all the time. So every cat, you'll see
some change in exposure. Even though our eyes
don't notice it, when you're going to cut your video, you're
going to notice it. So our goal is not to use
natural light for anything, but to block out every
source of natural light and use only one
artificial light or more. But in general, one
is more than enough, and I'm going to show you
exactly how to do that. So I can see that this is
quite interesting. I like it. But again, there is
that that I mean, I'm not a big fan of the door, also this white wall, it's
a little bit intense. So what we can try to do is that we can zoom
in all the way in length and see whether we can remove this white wall
from the picture. So I'm just going to zoom
in a lot, probably maximum. There you go. Now I can
still see the door. But then if I go backward, maybe this could be a little
bit more interesting. Now, let me try to bring
the camera backward and see whether we can have a bit more
space to play around with. Just like that, then
I'm going to try to move the camera around and see what's the best
angle possible. Probably in this
position, right there. Let's see how it looks. Okay. I mean, this is not too bad. There is the door
right here that is still not I'm not
a big fan of that. Potentially, we can try to move that plant right here
in front of the door. So let's try to do
that and see how it looks. We're going
to move this one. Right here. There you go. Now, let's sit down again. Okay. I mean, I'm still cut here a little bit, but
that's not a problem. We can just bring
the camera higher, but I just want to understand whether this could
be interesting. It's not that bad, but I
think we can make it better. So let's try to see
whether there is any other angle that we can use. And because we cannot use this, I don't want to use
the white wall, I think the TV will be difficult to work with and
there's not much space. Maybe I can try to
place the camera here instead and then use
this as a background. In this case, I'm going
to have a green wall, which is very nice and
also one white wall, which probably we can work with to try to make it
more interesting. So let's try to do that. I'm going to just bring
the camera right here. There you go. As far as
possible from the background. So right now, I'm super, super close to the TV. And then now I'm going
to try to frame it so that I don't see the
end of that wall. And also, I don't
see this door on the side probably probably
right here should be good. But let's get a chair and let's see whether it can work or not. Okay, so let's see. We're
going to sit down now. And, honestly, yeah,
this is not too bad. I actually like, also this
one that is right here. Then I have this frame here, and this wall is a
little bit empty. So probably we'll
need to work a bit when the background will need
to design it a bit better, but I think this is not too bad.
3. Positioning: Depending on the
lens that you have, obviously, your position
will be slightly different. For example, if I go backward, you'll be able to see
me a little bit more. But then if I come closer, then it's kind of
like more zoomed in. What is the advantage of being closer to the camera and further away from
the background? Well, this is because you'll be able to create
more separation. And therefore, for
example, right now, you can see that I'm in focus, but the background is
a of focus, is blurry. So we create this bouquet effect that is always very nice
and will make you look. This depends a lot on the lens and camera that
you're using in general, the lower the aperture. So let's say F 2.8 F 1.8 F 1.4 F 1.2 will create a
stronger bouquet effect. Now, if I go backward instead, you can see that everything
becomes in focus right now. I'm in focus, but also the
background is in focus. So there's not much separation. So the best way, for
example, right now, is probably to stay in between, try to find the balance whenever you see yourself
enough that you're not too close and that you're
not too far so that we can take advantage of
our lens and camera. One of the biggest mistake that I see beginners
make is that they just stay too close to the background themselves
as the subject, whereas our goal
is to try to stay as far as possible
from the background. Now, let's say you are very far away the camera
from the background, but then having inside the framing some elements
that you want to cut, then in that moment,
you can move the camera a little bit
closer to the background. But then the farther away, the more bouquet effect
you'll be able to create. So right now I'm maxed out in terms of distance between
camera and background, and I'm sitting
almost in the middle. I'm a little bit closer
to the camera, let's say. And this framing, I think
is the one that looks best. So I'm probably
try to stick with this one and then make sure that the positioning is right. But as I already explained, we got the camera
as far as possible. We are almost in the
middle, and then we have the background
right there. Then we'll play around with the design a little bit later. Now, whenever we have
positioned these three items, background camera and ourselves, we got the fourth item, which is our light. And this is going to be
the most important element that will make your videos epic. Don't invest in
cameras too much, don't invest in lenses too much, but invest in
lighting if you can. Because in general, light
doesn't cost that much, but will make a huge
difference in your content. And I'm going to
demonstrate you that. So let me take my kelte. So this is my keelte. I'm going to just detach it and it's composed by the key light
itself and a soft box. This is a foldable soft box, has a diameter of
60 centimeters, and it's just amazing
because it can be folded and it fits all
the time in my luggage. I always travel with this
one and this small light. The small light, as you
can see, is quite small. This is a NanltF 60 B Mark two, and it goes from 2,700
Kelvin to 6,600 Kelvin, which means that I can have
warm light or cold light. That's the scale of Kelvi. Then I have a cheap
tripod that I used to put my light on top and
also there is the adapter. Now, let me put
back the softbox. And now the goal is to follow a few simple guidelines
to make sure that we have the highest
quality video possible. And this is by managing
the position of the light. The light should be as close as possible to you but
just out of frame, which means that it doesn't
come into the frame, but it's just outside. This is because the
closer the light the higher quality
is going to be. So I'm going to try to place the light just right here
right behind the camera, and then I'm going to
sit to make sure that I am as close as I
can, and this is it. Probably it's gonna
be like here. Now, you can see
that, for example, right now, it enters the frame. So my goal is not to
have it in the frame, so I'm going to make it
a little bit higher. There you go. And
now, as you can see, I position this one a
little bit higher than my eyeline pointing down towards me 45 degrees on this side. So I'm not going to have it
T flat on top of the camera, but I'm going to have it a
little bit more sideways. This is because it's going
to create a more cinematic, more good looking effect, and it's going to be
super flattering. So now let's turn it on.
Yeah, and that's it. As you can see, already, my face looks so much
better than without it. But now, one more thing that we said before
already is that we need to control
all the lights that we have inside our room. And therefore, we
need to block out the windows. So let me do that.
4. Camera Setup and lighting: A, right, now we got
the room that is almost black out and we
only have our key light. As I can see now, my Kelt
is a little bit too strong, but this is because
my camera settings are not perfect yet. Now, how do we decide
the camera settings? Well, consider that whenever
we put in manual mode, we have three main settings
that we need to take care of. One is ISO, then
we got aperture, and then we got shutter speed. So whenever you put
your camera in auto, then the camera will
try to understand exactly what are the best settings based on your scenario. But most of the times it doesn't work whenever we need to have our own studio because
the thing is the camera usually will try to calculate these numbers on
the overall scene, whereas we need to
have these numbers dialed in for our own subject, for our own face because
we want our face and our body to be
properly exposed. So we're going to set the
camera to manual mode, and the first thing that
we want to do is try to have the aperture
as low as possible. Meaning that this
depends on the lens that you if you have a lens
that goes down to 2.8, 1.8, 1.4, then try to have that as an aperture
number as a starting point. We can always modify later,
but let's start with that. Now my lens goes down to F 2.8, so I'm going to keep 2.8. Now, in order to have a
natural motion blur in our video so that
it reflects eyes, whenever we are on a
natural environment, we want to keep the
shutter speed one over double your frame rate. In general, everybody
uses framers that are either 24, 25 or 30. This depends on the
country you're in. I'm using currently 25, and I highly suggest you use
exactly the same as well. And then we're going to keep
the shutter speed 1/50. If you're using 30 FPS, which means 30
frames per second, then you want to keep the
shutter speed at 1/60. Then we have the ISO. Now, because before I was using my camera in a non controlled environment
regarding lighting, I kept my eyesO on auto, which means that it would
then adapt based on the shutter speed that
we have and the aperture to then have an
optimal exposure. But now because I'm in a
controlled environment where all the lights are
controlled and are fixed, I don't want to
have that on auto, but I want to try to
have it manual set. So in this case, I'm just going to change to instead of Auto, I'm going to see
whether on 100 ISO, my figure, my persona is
actually perfectly lit. And I can see that is okay, but I am a little bit dark. If you are a little bit dark, you have two options. Either you bump up
the ISO a little bit, and then I can show you right
now that all the image is going to look a little bit
brighter. There you go. Now, it's 250.
Everything is brighter, but maybe it's a
little bit too much, so I'm going to go down to 200. There you go. And this looks
perfectly fine on my face. It's not too bright
and it's not too dark. Also, what you can
do is that you can keep the eyeso at 100, but instead, you can increase
the power of your light to. In this case,
obviously, if you have the light that is a
little bit more powerful, you can dial it up a little bit, and then you can the Io at
lower number, let's say, 100. At the moment, my kel
is set at 37% exposure, which means that
I'm not even half of the power that I can use. But because it's so
close to my face, then I don't need it
to have full power. And this is an
entry level light, which means that it
is only 60 volt. You can buy a light
that is 12020250, 300, 500, and even higher
for cinema productions. Depending on how
far your light is, and depending on your
lens, then you might need to buy a more
powerful light. But in all my studios, everywhere I travel, I
just use a 60 watt light. And this is amazing, because with the
softbook as you can see, super flattering and my face, the shadows on my face, good. Now we have adjusted
the lighting, but one thing that is missing
is the white balance. Usually, whenever I go around shooting photos or
shooting video outdoor, I most likely leave the
white balance as auto, which means that it's going to try to balance the
cost that we have, and then the camera
will automatically decide the white balance, which means that weather
is going to make it cold or weather is
going to make it warm. So if it's 2,700 Kelvin, that is very warm is if it's like 7,000 Kelmin
then it's very cold. And now I want to show
you the difference. I have set my wife balance, not as auto, but as daylight. This is because I'm also
using my kilt as daylight, 5,600, 700, 800 Kelmin. That's the range.
But you can keep it at 5,700, let's say. Now, if I go into white balance, I can see that I
can have an auto, and this is going to
modify it a little bit, and then I can have
it into sunny, which makes it a tiny bit warmer compared to the auto one. And then we can
have also different setups of white balance. And now you can see
how it changes. For example, this one is extremely extremely
blue like cold blue. Then we have different setups. Or you can also go on K, which means that you'll be
able to set it manually. As you can see now, we
have a 2,500 kelvin, which means that the camera is trying to balance an ideal. Outdoor scenario
that is actually super warm and therefore
to balance it, then the camera is going to
make it extremely like cold. So we have these very, very, very cold colors. Then if we move it to 9,900, we can see that now it made it extremely warm because
it's trying to balance an outdoor scenario of 9,900 Kelvin which
is extremely cold. Therefore, that's why it's
called white balance. Usually, I keep it at
5,600 so that it matches exactly the color that
we have on the key light or I just use the daylight, which I like it
because it makes it a little bit warm compared
to the auto one. But again, never use auto whenever you
are shooting indoor, you're doing talking head,
you're doing live calls, whatever, set it
manually to daylight and consider that
you're going to have the key light at 5,600.
5. Background Design: Now the next step is to take
care of the background. And here, the goal is try
to have a balanced image, nothing that is too overwhelming
or that is too boring. We need to try to have
it in the middle. Usually, what I suggest is
that you try to have nothing exactly behind you behind your head because
this would be weird. Right now, we have this frame, and then I have
these spikes that are coming in behind my neck, and this is not what we want. So the first thing that
we need to do is that we need to move the frame away. So either you remove
it or you try to find a different position
in your framing. And in this case,
because I can see that probably this one will stay right here because
I like the plant, and here we have a
speaker is okay. But also, on this side,
it's completely empty. So now the image is
not balanced at all. We have this one
that is very big, is overpowering, and
then on this side, it's completely empty. So it looks like the image is like pulling on
one side, right? So what about we try to put the framing on this side
instead? Let's see it. This, again, is a frame that
was already inside the room. So it's not something
that I had to buy, but I'm just trying to play
around with whatever I have. Then, while I'm here, I also want to try
to have this one a little bit more
far back if I can. Okay, I think this is it. And then I want to make sure to try to cover the door as much as possible because
I know that I can still see the door
just in the back, but because we have this
plant in the front, then we kind of, like, you don't see it that much. So
I'm okay with it. Then now it looks already so much better because we
have a balanced image, but it's a little bit
too dark the background. So we want to try to have a bit more lights
in the background. And to do so, we can
use pocket lights. But before we move
to pocket lights, I just let you notice
that on the frame, I can see that my key
light is reflecting, and I want to try to
avoid that if possible. And to do so, we just need to find the right
angle of the frame. So I'm going to try to move it see whether we can get
rid of it. There you go. Just by moving a
little bit the frame, now we got the reflection
out of the way. So these are two pocket lights that I bring with me
everywhere I go once again. This is a tube lights ann
light Pavo tube to six C, but you can find it also
for any other brand. And this is a very
small pocket light, non light little light
five C. These are RGB, meaning that I can choose
any color that I want, and I want to use these to then try to illuminate the back. Now, the first thing
that I want to do is that this area is
a little bit dark. So I want to try
to put one light right here and I'm going
to use the Pavo tube. I don't want to have like
colors because I like to have a little bit subtle colors
and subtle contrast. So I'm going to use
it at 2,700 Kelvin. Now, consider that the
key light that I'm using is actually at 5,600 kelvin. So this simulates
the color, sunlight. So this one, instead, I want
to have it more warm light, and I'm going to put
it at 2,700 Kelvin at about 35% intensity. Then I'm going to try to
hide it behind the pillow. Just right there. And this
looks phenomenal because it illuminates and
it gives a bit of a bit of a color
to the background, and this is something
that I really like. Then I can try to add a little bit more light
on this plant right here, and something that
I bought whenever I arrived to this apartment
are some fairylights. Fairy lights are incredibly
cheap, super small. They're powered by batteries. And then I put them
around the plant, and they just look amazing,
usually in videos. You can have Christmas lights. You can have any
sort of lighting. But I think these are
super, super good looking, especially because whenever
you have a bouquet effect, it creates an amazing an
amazing vibe. Look at this. Oh, my goodness. I love it. I paid this, I think, like two euros 50 or something
in the home store. They're super cheap, and you can get them literally anywhere. Now there is one more thing
that I want to show you, and this is about having
another light opposite the key light on
the other side to then have this side a
little bit less dark. This is called Rim and in order to create an amazing
contrast within my frame, I'm going to try to
have it matching the light that I'm
using on the frame. So that is 2,700 Kelvin. This one is 5,600 kelvin,
so the key light. So I want to try to have
this one matching that one. So 2,700 kelvin. So I'm going to just turn
it on. There you go. And then I'm going to place
it just out of frame. I'm placing it on a tripod. Again, this is just the pocket tripod you can find anywhere, and probably I'm
going to place it right here, see how it looks. There you go. And
this looks amazing. As you can see this all reflection that
comes from the back. It looks like it's
coming from that light right here that is
illuminating the frame, but actually it's not it's
coming from this pocket light that I just put right
here. And I love.
6. Audio: Now we're moving
into the last part of our setup, which is audio. Now, we set up the camera, we set up the light, we
design our background. We got a bunch of lights
in the background. The last remaining thing to create amazing content is audio. And remember that this
is super important. People are okay with
medium visuals, but they are not okay if the
sound is really, really bad. So one of the mistakes usually people do is
they don't really care about audio and then
they use the audio that they pick up
from the camera that you're hearing right now. This is absolutely
a terrible mistake. Some very cheap
alternatives out there that you can have to
have a better result. Now, I'm going to
show you, let's say, two alternatives that are
the two most common ones, and one is the one that I'm using right now
that you can hear, which is love mic. This is a wireless microphone
that I have attached to the camera so that I can move anywhere
around the room, and I don't need to
stay in one place. This will pick up my
voice anywhere I go. Now the problem is that,
like in this room, there is a lot of echo, so
the audio is not really good. But I had no alternatives if I wanted to move but instead, whenever we're doing
talking head and we just need to speak
in front of the camera, we have the possibility to use, let's say, a podcast mic, which are obviously very
famous for podcast, but they're also great for talking head videos
because the audio is going to be amazing. Now, I want to show
you what I have. This is a sure MV seven plus, and I think it's the
best quality price mic that you can find that
has an XLR output, which means that you can go
with professional setups, but it also has a USBC output, and I usually use all the time USBC because I
need to bring one less cable, and I can link this one to my
computer or phone and then directly record on the computer or on your phone as
an external audio, and then I'm going to sync the audio track and the
visuals afterwards. Now, one bad thing about this is that I cannot link the
USBC to my camera. It doesn't work, but I need to record the audio separately. But now I bought also
this super super cheap. I think I paid probably four
euros or like ten years. I don't even remember,
but I bought it in Bali, so it was super, super
cheap, Podkas arm. Then then I can plug into
any sort of table or sometimes I always
plug it also on the light stand that I have in front of me or maybe
on the camera tripod. And then I can use this mic
extremely close to my mouth. And as you're going
to hear in a minute, the audio is going
to be amazing. So I'm just going to place
it right here on the table. With its own mount.
There you go. And now I can have it
extremely close to my mouth. Now, one thing that
is important to understand is that
the audio quality is directly correlated to the distance that you
have on your microphone. A microphone that is medium to low quality will
sound much better if you're super close than a microphone that is super expensive but you're
very, very far. So the concept is try to speak as close as possible
into your microphone. Now I'm going to show
you also the difference. I'm just need to move
this little shelf unit a little bit closer so that the mic is extremely
close to me. Then I'm going to take my phone. I'm going to plug it into
my phone right here, and then I can see from the LED right here that
it's becoming green, which means that it's active. Then I'm going to
go into voice memo. And then I'm going
to start recording. And now, it should be picking up the audio directly
from the microphone. And probably you already notice the difference
from having the lav mic to when I speak instead inside the Spotcas mic. Now, the difference that I
want to show you is that whenever I actually move
away from the microphone, the audio sounds so
much worse, right? It's not really great. Whenever I'm very close
to the microphone, this is an amazing quality audio that is very pleasant
to our ears. So this is why it's
super important to have the audio to have the microphone as close as possible
to your mouth.
7. Bonus + Class Project: This will bring your
content and calls to the next level. But
there is a problem. What if you want
to create content, but it's very slow
because you need to memorize all the
lines in the script, and then the video is so
long and you just can't really memorize it and be natural while
speaking to camera. Well, there is another
accessory that is actually an incredible game changer
that's going to make your content creation
process so much faster. And this is a teleprompter. Oh. There you go. This is a teleprompter. And if you don't
know what it is, it's actually a game changer. But if you know what
a teleprompter is, then you might not
know about this model, which is ten times better than any other teleprompter
in the market. And I'm not sponsored
by these guys. I just put it because I heard recommendations and it's
actually mind blowing. But what is a teleprompter? Well, teleprompter
is nothing else than a simple tilted
glass that allows to reflect text from either
an external device, so let's say phone or iPad or also an external monitor like this one in a way that you can read it by looking at the glass, but the camera doesn't
pick it up from the back. So let's say you're going
to have the camera right here in this hole
where the lens goes, then you will be able
to look directly inside the lens of your
camera while the text is scrolling on top of the lens so that you
can read exactly by looking into the camera
or maybe you can look at your clients directly into
their eyes into the camera, but no one can see that
you're actually reading. This is something
that all televisions, all reporters use. They all have
teleprompters on top of the camera because they
can read information. When I started using this, my life as a content
creator absolutely changed because I can now
write scripts word by word, and I can simply read it. No need to memorize anymore, no need to ruffle around and just saying random words
to get to the point. You write everything you want
to say, and you read it. It's amazing. Now, the difference
between this model and any other model is that this one has an external
monitor attached, which means that I
can link my computer, and then I project anything I want as it was an extended
monitor of my computer. So I can project text. I can
put live calls right here, so let's say Google Meet or
maybe Zooms and so on so forth so that I
can look directly into the eyes and I
can see my students. I can see my clients directly looking into their
eyes in the camera. And this allows me to have not my webcom but my camera
as a webcom which means that I look
absolutely epic because my background looks
great and I have an expensive camera and
so on and so forth. Usually, that's why
your video calls might not look really good because you
don't have lighting. You're using a webcom and you probably have a poorly
designed background. Now let me show
you how it works. I'm just going to
move this one away. There is a cable that goes
inside the teleprompter, and then I'm going to
place the teleprompter right on top of the camera. Then what I need to do
is that I need to link that cable to my computer. So at the moment, I just
have my computer on my laps, but if you have a table in front of you, that would be best. Then I linked the
teleprompter to my computer, so now it's powered on. And then from here,
you don't see it, but I'm looking directly into my computer like
it was a webcom. So let's say I wanted to open a Google Meet and then I link
my camera to my computer, I can use my camera
as a webcom instead. And then I'm looking
directly into my clients or my students eyes.
And this is amazing. And then the game changer
part is that, again, I can place any script that I
and then now I can play it. And then as you can
see, the text just starts going down and I can look directly to
the camera and read. You don't see it.
Now, with Cam A, you don't see it,
but with Cam B, right now, you actually
see everything, right? You can see that there is
text that is scrolling. And this is super, super cool. So I can literally write word
by word, whatever I want, and then I can read it looking
directly into the camera, so I don't need to
memorize anything anymore. But this class project, I would like you to transform any room that you have
into a home studio. You can use the
principles that we used in this class
and then apply it to your own room and create an epic framing so that
you can look great. You can create amazing content much faster and also
close more clients. Then posted in the
protect section because I give
feedback to everyone. Now a couple of
things to remember. If you are unsure what to buy, check out my gear list below. It includes everything I personally use and recommend
for the best result. Going to link my website down below in the
Resource section. We offer a variety of services related to
custom studio creation. Just get in touch, and
then we can organize a discovery call to see whether we can work
together or not. And also, don't forget to leave a review about this class
because this will help me a lot be discovered by other entrepreneurs
and small creators. Alright, I hope you
enjoyed, and I'm going to see you in
the next one. Chow.
Simone Ferretti, Professional Photo/Videographer
