hello everyone my name is Mauri de Haro and for those who don't know me i do videos on youtube about
video editing shooting and color grading so in today's video i want to talk about something
that i've been learning in the last months as you know my youtube channel is pretty new
so i had to learn a bunch of new stuff and something that i want to talk about that before
starting youtube i had no idea how to do is how to film yourself and especially how to film yourself
at home so in this video i'm gonna give you all the tips from a filmmaking point of view
that they're very important when it comes to filming yourself so if you already have a youtube
channel or you're thinking and starting a youtube channel or you have to film yourself for any other
reason this video is for you tip number one the first thing i think is the most important when it
comes to film yourself when you're alone at home like me right now you have to be able to monitor
yourself and by that i mean that you have to be able to see yourself when you are recording and
the way to do that is either to have a camera that has a flip screen like my canon eos r6
that is the best case scenario if you don't have a camera that has a flip screen it's going to
be very complicated for you to be able to frame properly and like look at yourself while you're
recording now i have to mention that there is also other options in case you don't have a flip screen
one of them would be to buy an external monitor like a small hd for example and the other one is
one that i'm currently using even though i have a flip screen there is this right here so let me
show you the new canons come with a system that you can monitor yourself using your iphone so
if you see right here i can monitor myself so i have the iphone beside me all the time and i can
see so the only thing you need to do is download the canon app and you'll be able to do everything
from your phone i'm able to stop recording to change the shutter speed change the iso and
it's actually fantastic because to be honest with you right now i barely reach the camera
okay the second thing that i learned about filming myself at home is composition and by that i mean
if you're talking to the audience like i'm doing right now you have to frame yourself in the center
okay i understand some people want to get creative and frame themselves on one side on another
and try different things but on youtube you must center yourself right in the middle reason being
people feels more comfortable when they're talking to them and you are center frame just
like i am right now so make sure you're in the center of the frame also make sure the camera is
eye level right now this camera is literally on my eye level so you as the audience feel
you're literally sitting right in front of me like having a conversation if you put the camera under
it's going to look weird and if you put it up it's also gonna look weird so make sure it is eye level
and make sure also you use a tripod so the camera doesn't move and stay still the entire time of
your shoot the third thing i learned about filming myself is the focal length now you have to use
a wide lens and by that i don't mean a fisheye i mean something between 20 and 24 millimeters
because if you use a lens around 20 to 24 millimeters that pushes you to have the camera
close to you right now the cameras you can see i can touch it right here so with this focal length
you're actually replicating the real distance that i would have with someone sitting in front of me
if you go and shoot something like 50 or 70 millimeters it will look like i'm very far
and talking to you like look at these two examples so this is 24 millimeters right now it looks very
natural good distance but if we change it to 70 as you can see i look like i'm very far from you
and it just doesn't work so make sure your focal length is between 20 and 24 millimeters
the fourth important thing i've learned it's actually very useful to have a camera that
can do autofocus as you know my background is in filmmaking and we never use autofocus but i
can tell you that for these kind of videos it is perfect right now i'm using the canon eos r6 and
it tracks my eyes so if i get very close i'm sharp and if i go very back i'm still sharp and i'm
focused and that just works perfectly now if you don't have autofocus in your camera what i suggest
to do you place something where you're supposed to sit and then get your sharps and then you're
ready to record but the moment you move in and out you're gonna lose the focus but for example
right now i switch to manual focus and if i move in then my face is out of focus as you can see so
that's the only problem the next thing i want to talk about is lighting as you know lighting is one
of the most important things when we're shooting any video and my suggestion always is to kind of
have the light a little bit to your side so right now i have a massive sub box right here and it's
clearly on my left side right here i have to say that it's not fully on the left side it's more
center left but it's still to one side so as you can see right here i have a little bit more shadow
than right here because the light is right there so the light comes here and we create a little bit
of a shadow on this side and that's very important that you don't put the light right in front of you
direct because your face is going to look so flat and no contrast to it the moment we have a little
bit of contrast on one side and we have a darker side on our face is when we're creating a little
bit of depth and that's gonna look so much better and sometimes i don't shoot my videos at night and
when actually during the day my suggestion is to take advantage of any natural light that you can
have for example in this past video i shot as you can see on the right side there is the window so
what i did is i placed the light on the same side to replicate the light that was coming from the
window so if you're shooting in the middle of the day and for example you have a window on your side
what you should do is place your artificial light on the same side don't place it on the opposite
side you have to make that light be like if it was like another window so this way no one will
be able to notice your lighting and the next tip you should be doing when shooting yourself
is to actually use soft light soft light is more flattering than hard light it's more
natural looking and it makes the subject look more welcoming friendly and warm it actually makes skin
looks better so for those who care about that it makes your skin look more smooth and your
eyes be brighter in my case i'm currently using the godox vl-150 but what it makes it look very
nice is the parabolic softbox i have and if you don't own a like like this or a parabolic softbox
don't worry because there's many other ways to create soft light one of them is for example using
something like this that it will just diffuse a light so if i put it right in front of me
right now it's blocking quite a lot of light but if i were to get rid of that softbox
you will have pretty much the same effect and i also want to talk about using practical lights
practical light is any light that you actually see in frame for example that light over there
this light over here or that light over there and i wanted to show you these new lights i just
received from the company pixel hq i have them right here so this is the rgb video light g3
and basically with this light you can attach it to your camera or you can use it as a practical
light and that's what i'm actually doing so what's really cool about this light is that
you can actually change the color temperature and intensity and it's really bright like this is 10
25 50 75 and 100 as you can see this is very very bright
it also has like different modes that they're pretty cool so you can basically go here
this is supposed to be police so you can replicate police pretty cool
this for example replicates a tv screen pretty nice lightning
sos rgb fast i actually threw a party recently and i used this light and it was pretty cool
like look at these colors i don't know pretty dope right so this is called rgb video light g3
i'm gonna put all the information down below so you can check it out really nice light and the
other light i wanted to show you is the one that i'm using as a practical knight that is this one
and this is the poked video light lever by the same company pixel hq and it's really cool
this is just simpler it has a little softbox but i use it as a practical light and you can also
change the color temperature so this one is a little bit smaller than this one it's actually
really nice so as you can see i use it as a practical light i just put it back there and
it looks pretty nice so thank you very much pixel for sending this actually this is not sponsored by
them they just sent it to me they said if you want to check them out if you like them great
and i was like you know what i'm going to check these lights and i love them so if you want to
check them out link is down below thank you the next thing i want to talk about it's one that i
think it's very important and a lot of youtubers they never never never think about it please leave
as much distance as you can between yourself and the background try and separate as much as you can
yourself from whatever background you have and i understand that sometimes that might be hard
because maybe your house is very small or the room that you do your videos doesn't have much
distance but try and think and be creative on how can you have as much distance as possible to have
your background be far from you and the reason i'm saying that is because if you're shooting with a
shallow depth of field you'll be able to separate yourself from the background so much better by
doing it this way and using a shallow depth of field you'll be able to you yourself be the only
thing that it's unfocused and the rest will be out of focus your background will be out of focus and
doing it this way the image will look much better and also your viewers won't pay attention to your
background if your background is out of focus people won't pay attention at your background
if your background is very close to you everything will be in focus and sharp therefore people will
be able to see everything that is around you and that will distract them so that is very important
just try and keep as much as distance as you can between yourself and your background and
my last tip that it might seem very obvious but sometimes we forget to do it is the following
make sure you have good quality audio so in my case i decided to buy a lavalier that is i have it
right here and i've been using the rode wireless go to now i understand that this might be a little
bit expensive for some of you in my case i bought it because i use it when i'm filming interviews
but it's just one of the best investments you can do invest in good quality audio keep in mind that
youtube is two things video and audio and people tends to forget about audio so you should not do
that you have to make sure your audio is very clean and clear and everyone can understand
everything that you say and there's not like random noises coming around now if you decide
to have another type of microphone that's fine too but make sure it's very close to yourself so
the audio is very clean and once you have good quality audio make sure to record yourself at
the beginning talk a little bit and then stop recording go and put headphones and listen to
what you just recorded this is also like a very important tip because sometimes we just take for
granted that everything is being recorded properly and then we record for five minutes and guess what
something was wrong the audio is not recording properly or maybe the battery died or something
like that so always shoot for like 10 20 seconds do some tests of audio make sure the frame is fine
and then go and watch it yourself to make sure the video is gonna be fine and that's it for
today's video those are all the tips that i've been learning over the last months and that i
consider that everyone should know in case they're considering filming themselves either for youtube
or any other platform and as long as you keep all these tips that i just told you your videos will
look very nice and professional so keep that in mind and if you have any other tips that you think
i missed and you think i should have mentioned please put them in the comments down below and
as always if you like this video just give me a like it actually helps me a lot to grow on youtube
and if you like this kind of content hit the subscribe button and i'll see you guys very soon
you