Cameron

Produce your own semi-professional videos - Part 1 (Download Squad)

Sep 14th 2006 3:17AM I can't agree more with the previous posts about planning and storyboarding.

A couple more very basic things to consider that have a HUGE impact on the technical quality of your videos are: sound and lighting.

While people watching video will often put up with a bad picture, people get really annoyed by bad sound. Try to do something, anything, to get away from using the built-in camera mic. The closer you can get a mic to your sound source, generally, the better off you'll be. For lots of situations, a boundary mic (a microphone that you place on a table or floor in front of your sound source) can be very effective. Boundary mics attempt to reject reflected sound and admit direct sound -- giving a more close-up, intimate and clear quality to the sound. Try Radio Shack for inexpensive mics.

Go to the camera shop and buy some photofloods (About $8 each). They come in both a daylight version (for matching outdoor light) and a 'tungsten' version (for matching indoor light). Buy some clamp-on reflectors from the hardware store (About $10 each). Next, get some wax paper to use as diffusion material -- you are going to put this in front of your lights to soften up the light. Industry pros use wooden clips (called C-47s, or clothespins to you and me) to attach things like diffusion material to light fixtures. Be careful, these bulbs are hot! If you have a low ceiling, you can also shine your lights up at the ceiling to soften the light. Next, many camera shops sell the Smith-Victor gel assortment for around $20 (this is a set of 6 differnt colors of heat-resistant cellophane that you clip onto your lights to add color. http://www.smithvictor.com/products/detail.asp?prodid=148) For under $100 you can build yourself a basic 3-light kit that can take you pretty far.

Obtaining good sound and lighting your subject are probably the two most important things you can do to make your videos look more professional.