Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

So far we have covered the importance of audio and proper framing techniques in our HTMYVTDS series (I really need to work on that acronym), and today we’re going to tackle what is often the most difficult issue for aspiring videographers - lighting.  Many an otherwise acceptable video has been ruined by shoddy lighting, and today’s aim is to arm you with enough practical lighting knowledge to keep things looking sharp.

First thing’s first, you’re going to need to invest in some lights.  Yes, I know most of us are on a budget right now, but there’s really no way around it.  However, most of us aren’t aiming to recreate the dramatic lighting of Hollywood’s finer moments here, we just want people properly lit so they appear to have some depth to them, and no hideous shadows.

For our purposes, we’ll assume we’re shooting a stationary subject, and here we’ll try to cover two basic approaches to lighting.  First, the ideal for a one person shoot is three point lighting.  Three point lighting has three basic components, a key light, a fill light and a hair light (or back light).  The image below demonstrates this basic setup.

Your key light should be the most intense, providing the most brightly lit component of your subject’s face.  Ideally, your camera will have zebra stripes on it, which should have only the most brightly lit areas on your subjects face (oftentimes on the forehead) showing some slight zebra stripes.  If there is a significant amount of zebra stripes, you’ll need to close the iris a bit or tone down the lights, and the opposite if there are no zebra stripes.

If you’re dealing with a more rudimentary camcorder, you’ll have to use your LCD or viewfinder and just eyeball it.  Basically, you want to make sure the key light is providing a bit of “pop” to the subject’s face, but not blowing it out to a glowing white.

The fill light should do just what it says, fill in the other side of the subject’s face, at a slightly lesser intensity than the key light.  This provides some depth to the image, as video often appears flat.  Overdoing the contrast might make your subject look like a bad horror flick, so beware of that.

The hair light has one primary purpose, and that is to separate the subject from the backdrop.  Hitting the back of the head with a pretty direct and focused light will help clearly define your subject as the focus of the shot.

For a visual example of three point lighting, here’s a short video on the subject:

With one light you will not have the option of a fill or hair light, so you need to do the best you can.  Ideally, you’ll want to soften the light as much as possible, so if your lighting kit comes with a softbox, an umbrella, or some other tool that will help diffuse the light, you’ll want to use it.  You’ll have to set your light up offset to one side of the camera or the other, so by softening the light you’ll reduce the hard shadows on your subject’s face, and by experimenting with their positioning relative to the light and camera, you can still get a bit of that key/fill look to the shot.

While a hair light is out of the question here, you’ll want to worry about the shadow in a one light set up.  Nothing is worse than a large silhouetted head bobbing around behind your subject that you don’t notice until you go to edit.  Be very aware of shadows, and do your best to keep your subject a reasonable distance from any walls.  If you have a soft light, simply pulling them away from the wall behind them will often remove any problems you may have with shadows.

If you’re looking for some real bargain basement lighting, check out products by Smith Victor.  Not all of their stuff is professional quality lighting (I’ve only used their low end products personally), but they will provide you with a couple of soft lights and a light you can use as a hair light, and with a little configuring can provide a nicely lit shot.

Good deals can be found on ebay here.

As video has become more prevalent across the web, I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend in how it’s being used.  Simply videotaping something and slapping it up on your $25,000 site can be a terrible idea.  Yes, having video can make you look technologically savvy IF you do it well.  Putting a poorly made video on a nice site is like buying a new Lexus and putting your old white walls with 80,000 miles on it.  It will stick out like a sore thumb and take away from the larger message (”I’m loaded, check out my Lexus.” becomes “I bought a Lexus, but I don’t know what I’m doing with it.”).

So what I intend to do is create a short series of articles with pointers on how you can very easily make your videos look professional.  Now, before you start wondering why a search engine marketing guy is telling you how to make your web videos, please know that I have a bachelor’s degree in film and video production and spent four years producing video content for a handful of Fortune 500 companies.

So let’s get down to business.  Today’s topic?  Audio.  One of the things that repeatedly drives me insane about web video is the awful audio quality.  This, in most cases, is very easy to correct.  The answer?  Use a microphone.  Depending on how far away the camera is and the acoustics of the room, not having a microphone can make your subject sound like they’re talking in a cave.  For basic stationary talking head video shoots, a simple wired lavaliere mic can be obtained cheaply and give you marvelous results.  Wireless lavs can be a bit more expensive, and depending on the type of equipment you’re using, can be more susceptible to various forms of interference.

Here’s a video I found from a company that apparently does SEO and actually sells video production services:

Now, here’s one of our videos using a wired lav:

Which sounds better to you?

Of course, things get trickier when you have multiple people, or your subjects are moving.  In these instances, your best bet is to use a shotgun microphone.  Again, these can be obtained pretty cheaply, and you’ll need a fairly long cable as well.  Along with that you will need to either buy a boom or make your own.  A boom is basically a long stick that attaches to the microphone (you’ve seen them on TV shows and movie sets, the guy holding the long stick above the scene towards the actors).  What you can do with a shotgun is have a second person hold it above the shot and direct it at whoever is speaking at the time.

If you have a stationary scene with multiple subjects, you can always buy a small audio mixer and use several microphones, as well.  Connect your microphones to the mixer, and then run them into your camera.

Another important element here is to bring some headphones.  Whenever you’re shooting, make sure the camera man has headphones on to make sure the audio sounds good.  Consumer equipment doesn’t always have the greatest connections, and nothing’s worse than sitting down to edit your footage and realizing the audio is completely worthless.

Now, I’m assuming most people are working with amateur level equipment - basic camcorders and such, so you only have one microphone input to work with.  If you don’t yet have a camcorder, but are looking into doing web video, make absolutely CERTAIN that you have a microphone input.  A lot of the newer digital camcorders you can buy at big box stores don’t have them, and then you’re stuck with the subpar camera audio for your productions.  We use an old Sony mini-DV camera for our work and it does an excellent job given our needs.

So here’s your checklist for making great sounding videos:

• Make sure your camcorder has a mic input
• Get yourself a microphone, whatever suits your needs - we use this very inexpensive wired lav that we picked up at Golden Compass
• Make sure you have a pair of headphones so your camera operator can catch any errors or technical flaws with the audio while you’re shooting

So there you have it.  Step one in making better videos.  Stay tuned for future installments, where we’ll cover everything from lighting to camera techniques to editing.