Hi y'all, it's Annelies and if you're like me you have been probably living
your life through these devices as of recent, not just for social media or text
messages or phone calls, but for one thing in particular. Video calls. Now
whether you're a student, you're working from home, or you're just trying to
socialize in this time of isolation, you know the importance of a good video call.
Being somebody who considers themselves to be pretty good at this whole video
thing, you know, YouTube and such, I know the basics of what it takes to make a
good video and audio experience. I also understand that not everybody has the
perspective or experience that I do, so that's why I decided to make this very
video. In this video I'm going to be showing you some hopefully helpful, free
and very easy ways to make your video calls the best that they can be. I'm
breaking this video into three sections video, audio, and general tips. The
timestamps for those sections are here, they're also in the description so you
can feel free to jump around as you please. and now without further ado, let's
get into video. I would say one of the number one most important things when it
comes to video is the lighting. Now of course you can have fancy lights like
this one, or you can use a lamp, but the best lighting you're gonna be able to
use is daylight. I'm actually filming this video in front of a window right
now, and that's how I do most of my videos. With daylight, because daylight
looks natural and it looks the most even so when you have the chance if you're
taking a video call, take it near an open window. Of course you don't want to be
right up on the window, because then you're gonna get a lot of sun in your
face. But if you take a little bit of a step back, I'm about three feet away from
my window, you can see I'm nice and evenly lit, and it looks natural and nice.
Most importantly, I can be seen. The most important thing to remember when it
comes to lighting yourself during your videos or video calls is that you should
be facing your light source, and your camera should be in between you and your
light. So right now I'm standing here, the camera is in front of me, and my window is
almost directly behind my camera. If that concept of having your camera in between
you and your light source makes sense to you, go ahead and skip to this timestamp.
If that doesn't make complete sense, stick around because I'm gonna go ahead
and explain that a little bit deeper. Okay, so for this explainer I'm going to
be using my ring light as an example of the sun, or whatever light source you're
using, whether it be a lamp or a light like this. If I have my light source
facing me you can see that my entire face is
clearly and evenly lit. Now if I were to have my light source on the side of me
you can see that two problems have been created. One side of my face where the
light source is nearest to is now blown out. There's no detail and it just looks
really bright and really white. The other side of my face, where the light source
is not facing, is really dark and it's created a whole bunch of shadows and
I've lost more detail in my face. Now if I were to put my light source behind me
and have my camera in front of me you can see that two problems have been
created. First of all that whole bright side of my face thing is now the back of
my head, so the back of my head is really well lit, which is great if a camera was
facing there. Now as you can tell the front of my face is darker and you have
no detail or definition within your face. Another tricky thing is when you're
doing like a video call, typically the camera tries to pick up on the brightest
thing in the picture so with this situation I've created a halo around my
head, and a really dark space on my face. So the camera is going to try to pick up
all that light that's around me and it's not gonna pick up any light that's on my
face, because there is none. So just remember when it comes to lighting your video
calls or any videos you might be taking of yourself, your camera should be in
between you and your light source. You should be making a light source and you
sandwich. I know it's weird but you're not going to forget it. Now let's say
it's dark outside, and there is no beautiful, natural daylight that you can
use to light yourself in your video calls. What are you gonna do? The next
best thing you can use is a lamp here, but honestly anything that articulates
or moves will be perfect for this. Now you might be tempted to point the light
directly on your face, that makes sense, my face is dark, let's point the light
straight on my face. Like I've mentioned, I have a lot of equipment, so I'm going
to use this tiny light to show you an example of something, but this works with
a desk lamp, this works with a house lamp, it works with any light, especially ones
that can be articulated or pointed in certain direction. So I'm gonna turn my
big fancy light off, and you can see how actually dark it is here. Now if I
take my tiny light and turn it on, my face looks very bright.
Once again, it's kind of blown out. This is a little bit of an exaggeration, but also
I'm looking straight into a light, and it's dark everywhere. I can barely see
the camera right now, it's not a good time. So instead of pointing your lamp
directly into your face, try turning it away from you, but not just anywhere.
Ideally you want to point that light towards a white wall or a surface. This
is called bouncing light. The reason why you don't want to just point the light
anywhere is because the light will just go anywhere. However, if you have a light
colored or white wall behind you, you can point the light into the white, and what
white surfaces or lights do is they reflect light back at you. That's why if
you've ever been to like a photo studio, you might see a big circle that is just
white or silver or some light color, and lights pointing directly into it. That
process is called bouncing light. It helps create a more even and softer
lighting look as you can see right now. So yes I might not be as bright as
before, however you can see all of my face, and all of the detail in my face,
which is the most important part. Just so you can see, this is what my setup looks
like right now, I have my lamp pointing onto my white door, and my camera facing
me. Now I know that this situation here is not super realistic, so how about I
show you a more realistic situation. So it's 11 o'clock at night right now and
the lighting situation is not too bad, especially since I have a nice daylight
light bulb in my ceiling light. However I'm going to use that lamp light bounce
technique that I just showed you. You'll see how much better my face is gonna
look. Look at the world of difference that made, my face is so much brighter.
You can see all the detail in my face, all the different facial movements I'm
making, if I had to show you something, you can see everything nice and clear
and I'm not looking directly into any lights I'm using that dust lamp I showed
you earlier and I pointed it directly to the back of my desk where it's a white
wall now all that light is bouncing on to that white wall and shining onto me I
have my desk lamp pointed against this wall and my phone is sitting right there
next to my computer I hope they showed you how you can make such a small change
and it can make a huge difference now that we've talked about lighting and its
placement let's talk about camera placement ideally you want your camera
to be a level with you this is what feels most natural it makes it feel like
we're talking to each other in person now if I move my camera downward
pointing down at me this just looks really odd it makes me look really short
and you really tall and that's just the case so this is just a weird angle
now if instead of being too low we go pointing upward this is a very
unflattering angle now if you have the camera pointing up at you it's bad for
two reasons one this does not look good on anybody this is a very unflattering
angle and secondly it's a straight up the no shot nobody wants that the last
thing you want is to be notified that you have a bat in the right cave during
like a business meeting not a good angle but if we move down to eye level again
this feels natural this feels right this is comfortable
now if you're using a computer or a laptop the webcam is typically higher so
it's closer to eye level however if you're using a smartphone things like
tripods can be really handy I understand that most people do not have things like
that so I've come up with a great way to prop your phone up safely and securely
alright students while you might not have a tripod but I guarantee you you
have at least a couple of these objects here I have some canned corn and canned
green beans a bottle of conditioner and two Kleenex boxes you don't need all of
these things I'm just showing you some variety the key to this stand is to have
two larger than your phone things on the bottom and one thing that is heavier
than your phone on the top first step take your tissue boxes and put them in a
v-shape the reason why they need to be in a V is so that way it can still hold
the edges of your phone without blocking the bottom this is typically where your
speaker is going to live next you're going to take your object that is
heavier than your phone and put it behind your phone balanced a top of the
two tissue boxes beneath it now you'll want to kind of Jimmy it around and
adjust it to make sure it is in the safest and most stable position but now
you can see that my phone is much higher and closer to my eye level it's also not
going to go anywhere because it can't push the green beans back because my
phone is not that strong and it has somewhere to balance on top of that is
lifting it off of my desk like I said adjust this if you need it
but here's a really easy way to make an at-home phone stand I'm a genius I know
and the last thing I want to talk about in this video section is the picture
check your picture before starting your video call or your video first of all is
your camera lens clean if not take your shirt a microfiber cloth or whatever you
can get your hands on to clean your camera
secondly check your background the last thing you want is anything incriminating
or embarrassing in the background of your video
now I understand before a video call you might not have the opportunity to clean
up or the means to do so so all you need is one thing a blanket
if you can't clean it up just cover it up what could be under that blanket a
dog a can of green beans dirty laundry anything it's all covered by the beauty
of the blanket so just remember if you can't clean it up cover it up all right
now that we've talked about video let's go ahead and move on over to audio now
when it comes to audio it is a little bit tricky to perfect however there are
a few really simple and easy things you can do to improve your audio just a
little bit first remember that blanket that we used earlier hopefully you have
to because blankets can be great for sound dampening if you have a really bad
echo issue I would suggest getting a blanket or something soft like pillows
or comforter and throwing it on the ground now in this situation I might
want to use more than just one blanket to cover just that section because
there's a lot of hardwood in my room however something as simple as throwing
a blanket on the ground can really help an echo issue now honestly echo is not
that big of an issue from what I've experienced with my video calls the
biggest issue is clarity when it comes to clarity of your audio there are a few
things you need to keep in mind first of all if you're using a set of headphones
as your audio source make sure you're aware of where the microphone is
and not to touch it the most frustrating thing that I've experienced as of late
is that my friends who have like the Apple headphones that come with your
phone and they have the microphone that hangs right below your chin they
constantly touch it or push it or their hair gets in it and if their hair gets
in it it muffles the sound if you're touching it it's a really scratchy sound
and especially if the person on the receiving end of your audio is using
headphones it can actually really hurt so just keep in mind when you're using
any sort of headphone be aware of where that microphone is and try to avoid
touching it at all costs secondly make sure your doors and your windows are
closed I live on a main road and so I have a
lot of issues with not only my video calls but with my youtube videos of
getting interference from the sound of the road but by just closing my windows
and my doors it actually helps that issue a lot this is also really
important if you live with other people or with animals by having your doors
closed you're not going to get any other interference from your family
conversations people might be having in the other room or the sound of your
birds chirping or your dogs barking or at least it will reduce that sound just
by a little bit and lastly if you're taking a video call in your bed or on
any sort of soft surface make sure you're aware of where your phone is
being placed something i've personally experienced is friends who put their
phone in between their pillows in their blanket and now your microphone is
buried in between a whole bunch of things that are going to dampen that
sound like i mentioned earlier the cloth it takes sound it doesn't help echo it a
little bit of room between these two is all you need so now that we've talked
about video and audio I have three more tips that are just general tips for
making your video calls the best that they can be first of all have your dang
device charged I know I have been guilty of having a nearly dead phone and then
it dies in the middle of a FaceTime call with a friend and then you leave
somebody on a really juicy cliffhanger just make sure you have your phone or
your devices charged I hope you would think about that before you have a
really important call but just make sure all of those devices have got enough
juice to last you your call next if you live with people I highly recommend
letting them know and advanced before you have a video call especially if it's
an important one now of course the lives of everybody in your household can't be
on hold just because you have a zoom meeting but if you compromise with the
people that you live with it can potentially provide a better experience
for your video call and lastly put your device on do not disturb if it's capable
or any sort of silent mode this will just help prevent any interruptions from
things like social media dings text messages or spam phone calls so there
you have it y'all some simple free and hopefully helpful ways to make your
video calls the best that they can be and of course everything that I
mentioned in this video applies to video as well I know some people are having to
do video auditions or video projects for their classes and you can utilize every
tip that I showed you in this video for a recording standard video hopefully
this video was helpful for you and if it was hopefully it will be helpful for
somebody else so share this video with somebody that you know this time we're
living in is really weird and living through a camera is really odd so I want
to do what I can to hopefully make this weird experience a little more normal
for you I love trying to help and teach people through my videos so if you have
any suggestions for videos that you would like to see of things that you
need help on or you would like to hear any knowledge that I might be able to
impart on the subject let me know in the comment section down below I love making
videos that I love to and along with that I love making videos
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marvelous day and I will see you in the next one, bye!