Lighting Tips for Better Video

Every videographer knows lighting is a key element to the success of a video project. It can single handedly improve the look and feel of the shot, more than the camera used or any other piece of equipment. Mustard Seed Cinema hopes to impart some simple but vital tips to make your next video project look its best with excellent lighting.
Here’s a few ways to easily improve videos with some simple adjustments to the lighting: 

Direction of light. The direction the main light source comes from is invaluable in regard to lighting the subject. Each angle provides a different look. You must decide where the main source of light will come from, in relation to the subject and the camera. Most beginners put the light right in front, very near the camera, but this rarely provides the most interesting and pleasing look. More on this later.

Remember, softness of light is a factor.  The larger the source of light is in relation to the distance from the subject, the softer it’s going to be. For example, think about the sun—it provides bright lighting, coming from a point source producing hard shadows. But on a cloudy day, the light from the sun is diffused and comes from many different directions, not just from the sun, so it is softer and generally more pleasing. Some movies intentionally use harsh light to achieve a desired effect, but generally soft light is most flattering.

3 Point Lighting. The classic lighting setup involves three components: the key light, fill light, and back light. The key light is the brightest light/main light used to illuminate the subject. For the interview setup, the key light would be at a slight side angle from the subject (not directly in front). The fill light does just that—fills in the other side of the face of the subject. Depending on the environment, sometimes no fill light is necessary but if you see dark shadows on the person’s face then you probably want some fill to lessen the harshness of those shadows.  Then there’s the back light—which is a light coming from behind, helping separate the subject from the background. Why do you need a backlight? Because dark clothing or hair on a dark background tend to all blend together, so you want to set up a backlight to create a little rim of light around the subject and help them pop.

NATURAL LIGHTING: 

Sometimes, you can use natural or available light without pulling out any extra lights.  The same principles apply but you still have to make careful choices about where to place the subject and the camera in relation to the light. The advantages to using natural light are that you don’t need any special gear, it’s easy and quick. Disadvantages include not having much control if the sun changes brightness mid-shoot, which will affect consistency.

1. When shooting indoors, employ natural light by putting the subject near the window. The window as the light source, will allow indirect light to fall on the subject, and will offer a soft quality to the light. Often, that light gets bounced around the room, providing a natural fill to the subject and eliminating dramatic shadows. By placing the subject near the window, it also helps their face be a bit brighter than other things in the room. (The viewer’s eye will naturally go to the brightest thing in the frame.)

2. For filming outside and only using natural lighting, the best time to film is in the morning and late afternoon/early evening. When the sun is low in the sky, it creates softer lighting and there is less of a contrast ratio between shadows and light. When filming in harsh sunlight, backlighting your subject will usually look best. This will provide a rim of bright light around them and keep the unflattering direct sunlight off their face. When doing this you will likely need to use a reflector to bounce a bit of fill light onto one side of their face so it’s not too dark.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT: Sometimes you need it, especially inside. Usually indoor overhead lights (fluorescent, etc) are terrible for video, so your best bet may be to turn all those lights off and start over. 

Sample setups with artificial lighting: 

Diffusion or soft box for a key light: This is a way of taking a small source of light and turning it into a much larger source of light. You can also do the same thing by shooting a light through a frosted shower curtain. It amplifies your source of light, spreading it across the whole surface. This is most important for a key light; remember to make it as soft as possible.   

Bouncing your key light: Another way to create the key light is to bounce it off any kind of white material, ie: a large white reflector, a white sheet, or even a white wall.  The bounce surface then becomes the light source, which again greatly increases its size.  If you want to just increase the ambient light in the room, aim your light into the ceiling, using that as a bounce. 

Fill light: You can use a second light to fill in the shadow side of the face.  You don’t really need a light at all though. Just bounce the key light by using the white side of a reflector and putting that on the opposite side of the persons’ face from the key light. Some of the light will hit the bounce and fill in the shadow side of their face. (This is our preferred way of taking care of fill light). The larger the bounce surface and the closer it is to the subject, the more light it will bounce back. Move it around and watch the effect it has on the person’s face. If you don’t have a reflector, you could use anything from white poster board to a white bed sheet as a makeshift bounce.  

Sometimes you want to increase shadows on a person's face. If you want a moody, dark shot or the lighting is too even and their’s no dimension, use negative fill (the opposite of regular fill). Put up a reflector that is on the black side instead of white (or a black blanket or curtain, could work too). The black side of the surface should be facing the subject. Use this similar to the bounce fill above but instead of adding light on one side of the face, you are taking it away. This technique absorbs and blocks light from falling onto their face and increases the shadows. Again, the larger the surface is and the closer it is to the subject, the more dramatic of an effect you will see.

In regard to backlight, it usually doesn’t need to be soft. You can just aim some kind of spot light at the back of the subject’s head. Tube lights can also be used as a nice backlight — put it behind the person, just high enough to be out of the frame.  The backlight doesn’t need to be too bright or else it will be distracting.  Just enough light to separate the subject from the background is perfect.  There may even be times when you don’t need a backlight at all, especially if you’re going for a more natural look, or if there is already nice separation between the subject and the background.

Last, lighting up the background. Usually you’re working to darken the background, but sometimes you might want to add bits of light to add interest. Little pockets of shadow and light in the background provide the most pleasing and interesting backdrop. You might like to create patterns of light or something else to make the background more interesting. Maybe you could try using RGB colored lights, or employ some lamps in the background to add little bright spots. Just make sure the lights aren’t too bright. You might have to get some really low watt bulbs to accomplish this.

Getting good at lighting a scene takes practice and experimenting.  We suggest watching movies and commercials to see examples of how these methods are being used. Then try it out yourself—It doesn’t have to be super complicated.  Any attention you can give to lighting will greatly improve the quality of your videos and will draw in viewers by making the subject of the project more interesting and compelling. Happy Lighting!

Sound Advice: Simple Tips for Good Audio

When producing a video, some would argue that good audio is more important than the visual component. Nothing screams amateur like poor quality audio.  It is distracting to the viewer and in some cases makes it impossible for them to understand what is being said. In either case, they are likely to just stop watching and move on.

Here are some simple ways to achieve good audio for your next project. 

Capturing Clean Audio:

Good audio depends mostly on the recording process.  If you mess up this part, there’s often no recovering.  So be sure to do everything you can to capture clean audio on the day of filming.

1. Choose your location carefully. Your shoot should be set up in a quiet space with little to no background noise. Turn off the air conditioning, unplug a refrigerator, kindly ask others nearby to take their conversations elsewhere.  Outdoor interviews are often difficult because even if you’re not in a flight path or on a noisy city street, there is still likely to be the occasional dog barking or trash truck in the background that could ruin that part of the interview.

2. Use an external microphone. There is practically no way to get good audio for a video with just the microphone on your camera. The single most important rule when it comes good sound is the proximity of the mic to the sound source. The microphone needs to be near the mouth of the person speaking (preferably 3 to 12 inches away). If this is the only change you make to your audio recording process, you will see a dramatic improvement! So get a mic!

3. Recording levels are important. A lot of video recording equipment automatically adjusts the recording level based on the loudness of the environment. That works, but it also means that your volume in the recording will be constantly changing, which can be distracting and there is no easy way to undo that.  If you’re able to set recording levels manually, that will be better, with one caveat — they must be set correctly!  Set the levels as high as you can without the audio clipping or distorting. There will be meters on your recording equipment, so just remember that you never want the meters to hit the top (the red) because there’s no recovering that distorted portion of the recording.  You also don’t want the levels too soft. If in the editing process you have to turn the volume up excessively to make up for low recording levels, it will introduce noise or hissing that’s difficult to get rid of.

Equipment: 

There are two types of microphones that work best for video:

1. A lavalier microphone is the tiny one that clips onto people’s shirts.  It can be handy because it stays close to the mouth, and being wireless makes it great for situations when the speaker is walking around.  Lavalier microphones don’t offer much wind protection so if you’re outside, you might encounter a low rumble from wind noise. Lavaliers can also be visually distracting. They are usually seen clipped to outside of the speaker’s clothing, and it can be tricky to hide them without introducing rustling noise from clothing. A lavalier mic would generally be the best choice when the person who is speaking is on the move. Today there are many affordable wireless lav options, costing a few hundred dollars. You can just plug them into your camera and there are even adaptors to plug them directly into your phone, in case you’re using that as your camera.

2. A shotgun microphone (or boom mic) is typically attached to the end of a boom pole. The pole is either mounted on a stand or held by someone who is also monitoring the audio and adjusting the levels. Shotgun microphones are excellent at picking up a narrow pattern of sound directly in front of them and are great for sit-down interviews. You can position the mic above the person’s head, just outside the frame.  This way the mic is close to the subject without being visible in your shot. These microphones generally produce higher quality audio than a lavalier would and can work well outside because you can put a large windscreen over them to block out wind noise. The biggest downside to the boom mic is that it can be difficult to get the mic close enough to the person talking — especially on wide angle shots or walking shots.

Post Production: 

After you’ve recorded the audio, you will often want to make some adjustments in post-production. 

1. Depending on your editing software, there is usually a feature to normalize the audio. This means that the software will adjust the volume to the point where it’s as loud as possible without clipping or distorting. You want your audio volume to be near the top of  your meters in order for it to play back at the proper volume when people watch it. If your editing software does not offer audio normalizing, you can do it yourself by turning up the volume until the waveforms have reached the top. 

2. Applying a compressor / limier can be very helpful, especially for dialogue.  Compression in essence evens out the volume, which can be helpful for times when someone laughs loudly or raises their voice.  A limiter prevents levels from distorting by setting a ceiling and not allowing any part of the recording to exceed that set ceiling.  A compressor and limiter both help you smooth out the volume of your dialogue and allow you to raise the overall volume, making your audio more pleasing to listen to.

3. In some cases you may want to employ an equalizer, but be careful.  You could easily do more harm than good with EQ.  This is a skill that takes considerable practice, expertise, and a finely tuned ear.

4. If your editing software offers audio noise reduction, this can be a very valuable tool for some situations (mostly when one of the important parts of capturing clean audio outlined above was not well executed.)

By following these simple tips, you can greatly improve the quality of your audio, and thus your entire video project.  Go ahead — try them out, and hear the difference!

Better B-roll Tips

Creating a video can be an exercise in fun – or frustration.  Using beautiful and compelling shots can make for a far more watchable video. But how do you achieve it? A few simple tips can make all the difference. 

In most video projects, there is B-roll, which is the video shots used over audio. They may be used over a person’s interview, scripted narration, or music. But B-roll shots enrich a project and show more detail in storytelling.

Shooting effective B-roll can vastly improve a project. Remember, variety is important, and you can never shoot too much. Sometimes when you’re editing, that needle in a haystack – the perfect B-roll shot – appears from your laborious shoot. 

The B-roll should capture details that might be important to the story. While the interviews are taking place, make mental (or written) notes of things mentioned in the interview, so you can shoot B-roll of them later to potentially be used in the video. Also, it’s helpful to shoot B-roll of all people you are interviewing, as this video can prove incredibly valuable in the editing process. You may want to shoot the entrance and exit of people being interviewed, as well as shots of them walking, interacting with others, and doing activities mentioned in the interview.

Try to get a combination of wide, medium and close-up shots for the B-roll, and move around so the shots show different perspectives. Don’t forget to hold your shot; stay on it for a good 10 seconds or more. That helps with editing later. Another often overlooked practice is to get eye level with your subject. Whether you’re videotaping children, people sitting, or any other subject, make sure the camera is level with the subject’s eyes.

Good videographers are aware of framing, and attempt to shoot in unexpected ways. There are ‘rules’ for this such as the ‘rule of thirds’ and ‘looking room’ that you can check out, but the main idea is that it’s OK not to have your subject in the center of the frame.

Having compelling foreground and background elements to add more depth and interest to the frame can bring interest to projects.  Depth of field (blurred backgrounds behind subjects) offers a pleasing look, and draws the attention to the object in focus. Also, lighting is a big topic – beginners might shine light right in front of the subject, but there could be more interesting ways to light the shot.  Be aware where your primary light source (whether natural or artificial) is coming from and intentionally position your subject if possible to avoid being lit from straight on. Side lit or back lit subjects often look great on camera.

B-roll can make or break your video project, so address it intentionally for the great value it lends. Just as you are strategic about your subject matter and interviews, consider B-roll for the true asset it can be to your video.

• To watch a tutorial video of me covering this material with some example clips, click the source link below.

Video Interviewing Tips

Learning the intricacies of pulling off the perfect video interview can take years to perfect, but there are a few rules of thumb that may help a novice. In order to create a welcoming, comfortable environment for your interview subject, you must set the tone. 

BEFORE YOU START:

If you’re at ease, that will go a long way toward making your interviewee calm and confident. Of course you’ll plan ahead to create the perfect location for the interview, free from noise, airplanes flying overhead, buses driving by and dogs barking. And you’ll maybe even do a pre-interview on the phone ahead of time. This is helpful for you both; you have a more clear picture of who you will be dealing with in the interview – he/she understands a bit more of what to expect in the interview. 

Do your homework. What is the goal of the video? What should you be asking the interviewee to accomplish this goal and tell the story? Write down questions for the interview, but don’t plan to read them at the shoot. You want to seem ‘all in’ and engaged, so no peeking at the question list unless you truly have to. 

ONCE YOU GET STARTED:

Do what you can to make the interview subject feel at ease and comfortable. This will go a long way toward a more authentic interview. Explain the interview and editing process so they know what to expect. You might want to tell them things like not to look at the camera, but to look at you off camera, as well as to ignore the camera and just have a conversation. At the start of the actual interview on-set, ask the subject to say and spell his or her name, and give their title, so you have it on tape. You might need this later in editing. 

One trick to make the interviewee comfortable is to actually start to roll tape without them knowing. You can be chatting with them as the camera is getting set up, and then just organically begin a meaningful conversation before they know you are rolling.  Also, you might want to explain to the interviewee to phrase answers as a complete sentence, restating your original question in the answer. (You ask why they joined an organization; they answer: “I joined the organization because…”)

It’s wise to have the person introduce themselves, either at the beginning or end with something like “My name is James Johnson and I’m the director of the Phoenix YMCA.” That often ends up in the final edit.

AS THE INTERVIEW PROGRESSES:

Don’t talk over the subject! The microphone will pick that up and what may be a great quote may be unusable if your voice is detected. Also, be sure to silently communicate with the interviewee. You can nod, smile, have good eye contact and show active listening and still not make a peep.

Think on your feet– be a good listener and craft appropriate follow-up questions. Always be quick to affirm and encourage them - compliment their answers, how they look, etc. Be patient!

MORE THAN JUST QUESTIONS 

The most successful interviews tap into the subject’s emotion, not just answer the questions. Ask ‘how’ questions (How did that make you feel? How did that change your life?) The more you can tap into the emotional side and how they felt, the more convincing and interesting the interview. 

Oh, and sometimes silence can be good. Give them a little time after some silences– they may add something profound at the end and the silence was a poignant addition to the interview.  

AT THE END OF THE INTERVIEW:

You may consider re-asking a few of the first questions at the end of the interview, now that the subject is all warmed up and more comfortable.

Interviewing is an acquired skill and its success often depends on both the interviewee and the interviewer. By preparing yourself as thoroughly as possible, you will definitely have a leg up in the process. Hopefully, you can infuse some of these above suggestions to make your next interview more successful, interesting and memorable. 

• To watch a tutorial video of me covering this material click the source link below.