On the heels of the entry I wrote last week, I was asked to do a follow-up. This time I am going to solely be focusing on ways to avoid bad video if you personally decide to shoot in your own home or studio.
The Focus Should Be on You – Don’t Distract Your Audience
This especially goes for musicians and entrepreneurs.
Viewers are brutal and they will look for any imperfections in your video that they can find, so don’t give them anything to look for. Keep the focus on you and your performance (and the song/lyrics) (or, for entrepreneurs, your message). If you’re shooting in your home, clean up the area in which you are filming. Don’t let your audience be distracted by knick-knacks on bookshelves behind you, dirty dishes in the sink, papers on the desk, etc. Carefully look at the frame within the camera to make sure the audience will stay glued to the subject. A good way to avoid possible distractions is to shoot on a green screen, either in a studio or even just a small room. However, this can come with its own set of distractions.
Make Sure the Lighting on the Green Screen Is Correct
Bad lighting on a green screen not only makes your video look extremely poor, but it will INSTANTLY take the viewer out of the video. It is fundamentally important that the green screen is lit properly. It should not have any shadows, wrinkles, or improper discoloration (having lights too close to the screen can cause it to look white on camera). It is VERY hard to fix something like that in post-production.
Similar to something mentioned in last week’s blog, if you’re going to use an outside professional to do your video(s) for you, look at samples of their work first, even before you contact them. If you see videos where it's a case of, “Oh, you can definitely tell this was shot against a green screen,” he or she is probably not the person you want for the job. Conversely, if you find someone whose work you like and then they tell you, “Yeah, these three videos on my YouTube channel (or website) were all done green screen” and you had seen those but couldn’t tell, that’s probably someone you want to hire – right away.
There is one more thing that can make your video go from professional to horrible – graphic design. When dealing with graphic design, there is one big thing to understand:
Videographers and Graphic Designers Are Not the Same Thing
Sometimes you can get lucky and hire someone who can do both, but for the most part, these are two completely different professions. Minor graphic design can be done within an editing software, but major graphics need to be done with Photoshop or an equivalent software. Something important to note is a program that is not an equivalent to Photoshop but unfortunately is used a lot: Paint.
Do Not Use Microsoft Paint for Graphic Design
Using Paint for graphic design just shows people that you didn’t care enough to do proper graphics for your video. Once your audience, or more importantly, videographers, see that you don’t care about your own image, they will never work with you.
On a related note, if your video is going to primarily be an on-screen demonstration, use software programs specifically designed for exactly that. Don’t take a shortcut just because such a workaround will mean you don’t have to invest any money in what you should be using. It’s like using the end of the handle on a screwdriver to bang a nail into the wall because you don’t have a hammer. You’ll probably be able to get away with it, but not having the right tool is less than ideal. Here again, look and see what other entrepreneurs or people in your field are doing and simply ask them what they use!
What resources do you have that you use and would recommend to others? What questions do you have from what I’ve detailed above? Write to me at dburdette@MovieKnightProductions.com and I’ll be happy to help.
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Dalton Burdette is an award-winning actor and filmmaker who has done short films that have been screened at festivals and has also done corporate videos. See some of his work on YouTube here.
Bruce
24 June 2019
By: Dalton Burdette