Video equipment

Lesson Details:

Video Transcription: In this video I want to talk to you about possible options for recording and I'm gonna start with free and I'm gonna go to some paid options so this video is brought to you by Appy Pie’s Academy there are a couple of recording styles for basic videos I'm not going to show you how to create action videos because those are really difficult to do it would require a lot more instruction but a video where where I'm sitting like this and instructing that's relatively simple to do so let me explain to you what the options are first of all the thing where you see me just my area of my screen that's called essentially a talking head video this particular video you can see I am a picture inside a picture that's called picture in picture and there's also just screencast only if I was showing you the screen only and I wasn't in the picture those are all possible by themselves or together now every computer PC or Mac comes with free recording software on a Mac its QuickTime on a PC it's something else I don't know I'm not a PC user but there is free software for it it will give you it will give you the ability to record talking head videos and it's free or it will give you the ability to record screencasts if you want this fancy picture-in-picture which I think at times is overrated and I think sometimes it's distracting a little bit because the picture can block the screen then there's software that you have to pay a little bit of money under $100 on a Mac it's called ScreenFlow that's what I'm using to record right now and on a PC it's called Camtasia some people pronounce it come taste yeah I don't know and they're all under $100 they're about $100 every once in a while there's a sale you can get it for maybe 70 or 80 dollars but I don't think you necessarily need it so if you want to do for free you can perfectly fine film with whatever comes for free on your computer there are a couple of other filming options if you want extra HD what I'm going to show you is here's the camcorder that I'm using actually it's a webcam this is the webcam that I'm using to record this right now you see the quality is pretty good on this it's really inexpensive it's you see here it's only 54 bucks on Amazon and it's it's quite good the video quality is better than if I used a camcorder that I have or it's better than if I use the built-in video the good the built-in camera from the computer so it's not free but it's relatively inexpensive also sometimes people use their iPhones to film HD video I think it's possible the main problem is that iPhones sometimes like a rectangle the screen you know the video comes out looking like a rectangle so there are options to make it like look normal but I don't know how to do that because I actually have never used an iPhone for recording I know other people do it successfully so if if you want to try that option that's option you should explore because it's free and you don't have to buy any recording equipment and you'll be able to create these talking head videos the only thing you'll have to do is buy a tripod and a tripod as I said you know for your iPhone to get fixated so it doesn't fall and essentially that's only maybe a $20 purchase or a 30 dollar purchase depending on how sturdy sturdy and how in high quality you want your tripod to be now you see behind me I want to talk to you about backgrounds you can have backgrounds created for you there are green screens you know you can have any color background it can have green screen if green screen is good if you're editing like if you're gonna record with a green screen and if you're going to then do some higher maybe an editor and they'll do something fancy for you or you can buy a design the background with your brand on it or something like or your logo on it now here you see this is actually just a regular wall so this is free and it doesn't have to take out extra space in your home so this is a clear color wall and if as long as you put enough light on it it should be it can look almost like something like this so if I click on it what I want to show you is usually.

If you if you zero you know this you you see that it comes with a stand you see how there's a stand right here and on the other side there's a little bit of a stand right here so if you have this in your home it will take a little bit of space you can put it next to a wall but you'll basically that the green screen is a sheet of paper and it gets hooked on this stand and so of course in the video the stand is not seen and only the stuff in the middle here it is is recorded and you're in front of that so it looks like you are professionally so you'll be able to have a professional style professional quality background but it will take up time place space in your home if you don't want that if you find the clear wall or if you find that a nice professional setting maybe a desk with flowers or a vase it's very nice and pleasant or a more professional look with your library of books boots behind you although for my taste a lot of books create a lot of clutter in the background so I'm not a huge fan of that but something clean and professional you can have it either for free or cheap this background and stand usually together it's about you know it can get you maybe will be around 50 bucks depending on you see the total price of all these three things is $59 so that's the for the stand and the background sheet the green screen so that's the options for the background now there's lighting.

In my case at the moment where I'm filming I don't have a professional lighting system essentially in my home I just have enough light you can have enough light coming from the window but on some days if it's raining or if it's dark in the evening you need either to have an evenly lit area in your wherever in the area where you're filming by lamps or you know things like that or you can buy something like this again it's very bulky for your home but this is the most professional you can get a three-point lighting system I want to explain to you how this works two of the lights point one light points to you from this direction one light points from this direction but together they cast shadows behind you so the third light comes from behind you to cancel out those shadows and gives you a texture between you and the background and it looks really beautiful problem is you can that you need a lot of extra space at home to have these lights and also you can notice that these lights can be a little bit flimsy because they're very top-heavy and the the tripods for them are a little bit not very sturdy and so they sometimes fall over if you have a dog or kids or anybody or even like I when I've had these at home I've just knocked them over myself over the years by accident so this kind of thing can fall the light bulbs inside these things can break after falling and at home it's hard to do them it's hard to have them at home especially if you have a space constraint if you don't get these just make sure that if you have lamps or something they're not pointed exactly at you so because that is gonna create a weird shadow behind you and that's gonna look weird on camera you might not notice it at first but you'll notice it later once you develop an eye for this and you'll be like oh my god that doesn't look good so as long as there's even lighting or natural lighting should be okay or if you have even lamps that you wanna you know add to make yourself a little bit lighter just make sure you also have a you position them in the way that cancels out all the shadows and one side of your face isn't more lit than the other because that that also becomes an issue and it's very it's often it is it does it doesn't make for a pleasant video so these are essentially all the parts of equipment the only other thing I'll mention is from my experience again you can have free equipment for recording there's almost it's almost unlimited from your phone to you know the software that comes with your computer but in case you get a camcorder I just want to give you one pro tip just make sure that it comes with an external mic jack or some way to hook up a microphone because if you don't have a microphone the camera does come from its own with its own built-in microphone but the problem is no matter how faint the camera when it's working it makes a sound it does a little bit of this whatever any electronics are working it you know the it itself working makes a little bit of a sound and because the microphone is placed right on that camera if you don't have an external microphone for this camera the microphone is going to start picking up this and it's gonna be you know that that hiss is gonna be on all your videos and you're gonna have to either edit it out or whatever some better just not have that hiss and you solve that by having if you do have a camcorder having an external microphone jack make sure you have an external microphone jack on that camera some of the cheap cameras which are attempting to buy because you don't want to overspend them they often don't have an external mic jack i i've run into that issue myself so these are all the options for free recording and on budget but still quality recording.