Since the internet has graced artists with its presence,
it has changed the art industry.
I don't need to rely on any media company
to publish my video content and course as an artist
and with the increasing accessibility of video making
and live stream equipment,
I can create video content for my watercolor course
and my YouTube video like the one you're watching right now.
I'm starting to see the trend of artists
joining this exciting movement to promote themselves
with their own video content,
taking this power as a creator into their own hand.
And since my YouTube channel took off,
I got questions from other artists
who wish to start their journey as a video content creators.
Their questions include what's your video set up?
How do you set up a live stream?
How do you create content so efficiently?
What video editor do you use, and so on.
Now, there are many resources
that can show you different video equipments,
adding software and techniques,
but creating a painting video content
presents its own set of challenges.
So today, for the very first time,
I'm going to reveal my whole video
and live stream setup for you.
Before we take a look at my setup,
I do want to talk a few things that you should think about
before you start to build your video setup.
Hopefully, this will help you to avoid some of the mistakes
that I made for the past four to five years
as a content creator.
Number one, think about what you want your viewers to see.
This goes into a little bit more
of a content creator strategy,
so I'm just going to make this point simple.
You need to figure out what type of content
you want your viewers to see.
Have that goal in mind,
then put together the setup for that.
You don't want to have an extravagant, complex setup,
especially if you're new to this.
Do you want to show the viewer your painting
and palette at the same time,
or do you want to cut in between?
What about sound,
do you want to paint and speak at the same time,
or do you want to record a voice-over afterward?
This will all affect your setup decisions.
Number two, research, research, research.
Now you know what type of content you're creating,
research was the best equipment for what you want to do.
You want to be able to find equipment
that gives you the best bang for your bucks,
equipment that can help you to produce good quality content
without breaking your bank.
Also equipment that will last as long as possible
without a need for an upgrade.
Figure out what you really need.
The most expensive option might not be the best.
You don't want to spend a lot of money
on a piece of equipment that you don't really need.
Sure, you might able to return it later or sell it on eBay,
but you'll rather avoid that kind of hassle.
And number three, make sure you are ready.
Okay, I want to tread this water very carefully,
because I don't want to offend or discourage anyone
from becoming a content creator,
but here's the hard truth.
This is not an easy path.
Yes, you can put yourself out there into the world
a lot easier now compared to before,
but that means you need to do a lot of the work yourself.
First of all, your art needs to be good enough.
Yes, I agree that art is subjective
and I don't think my art is really spectacular,
but if you want your content to reach out to many,
you do want enough people to like your art.
Aside from your art,
you also need to work on your presentation skill.
I didn't speak in front of the camera
until my channel reaches 6,000 subscribers.
Before that it was just painting process videos
with me doing voice-over.
It took me a while for me to be comfortable enough
to speak in front of the camera and start to present ideas.
If that's you as well,
you don't have to push to get extra equipment
to film yourself speaking.
You can just have a simple setup
to film your painting process
and that makes things a lot easier to start off with.
Okay, now I'm about to roll back the curtain
and reveal all of the equipment that I use.
Before we start though, if you like my content,
please consider giving a like and subscribe,
ring a bell icon for more video like this one.
(soothing music continues)
Okay, so here it is.
This is my painting station
and also where I record all of my painting video
and where I do my live stream.
So I'll go through everything one at a time,
so you know how I set everything up.
So the very first thing I want to talk about
is my camera set up.
So usually when I'm filming my painting
or when I'm doing a live stream,
I usually have three cameras set out right here.
Now two of the cameras, they are pointing at the painting.
So there's two cameras, along with this led light panel,
they are all attached to its own articular arm
and attached to this pole
and screwed on this ceiling beam.
This huge ceiling beam is something
that I asked them to made
when I'm designing this tiny house workspace.
So let's talk about each of the camera that I have.
So this camera is Sony RX 100, this is model four,
so this is not the newest one,
but this is a very, very good camera.
So as you can see, this is responsible
to give you the overview of the painting.
So it points directly at the painting,
so that's why you see a good overview of the painting.
Coming to the left, this is Canon Vixia HFR800.
Now this is a camcorder.
Now the reason I choose a camcorder,
is because it's optical zoom capability.
So if you're looking at this screen right here,
this screen is actually focusing on a specific part
of the painting, its zooming way in,
so it'll be a lot easier to focus on a detail
when I need it to.
Coming here to the right, this is actually a webcam.
I believe this is Logitech C920.
So this webcam is not for Zoom call,
this webcam is specifically for my pallet.
So when you're watching my painting video or my livestream,
you'll notice that there is a pallet view
on the right all of the time,
because I have a dedicated camera just for this one.
Now, since this one is just for the pallet,
I'm just using a webcam because I don't need
another big fancy camera just for the pallet view.
And now for the sound, this is Tula Mic.
I did a video review about this mic before.
This is a small but beautiful mic
and the sound quality is awesome.
I use this mic mostly for
my coffee time video, my podcasts
and when I'm doing a voice-over of my painting video.
One of the things that I really love about Tula Mic,
is that you can attach your own Lavalier mic
into this mic
and the reason I want to use a Lavalier mic
attached to a wire like this
aside from making me look like a tech support,
is because no matter where I turn,
you will be able to hear me very, very clearly
and I also don't need to speak very, very loud
for you to hear me,
I can just speak with pretty much my normal volume
and when I'm painting,
sometimes I am painting on the paper
and sometimes I'll turn a little bit and start mixing color
and if I have a fixed position microphone
when I'm turning around,
the sound quality is not going to be consistent.
I also try to attach my Lavalier mic here,
on my clothes, on my collar,
but as soon as I turn my head,
the sound also changes a little bit,
so I think the best way for me to have a consistent volume
and consistent quality of sound,
is to have this sort of a wire
attached to my Lavalier mic.
So all three video signals from my cameras
and the audio signal from the microphone,
they're all going into my computer
and it consolidates all the videos
and audio signals into this.
So here it is behind my computer
and over here, you'll see a capture card.
So this capture card is Elgato Camlink Pro.
This capture card takes four HDMI inputs,
so I'm able to feed all of my camera's signals
in here.
And over at my computer, I'm using Streamlabs OBS
to lay out everything exactly the way I wanted to.
So this is what you're looking at right now.
So this program,
I'm not going to go into detail
because that's (indistinct) its own video,
but basically what it does
is you can set up different scenes.
But what this program does
is that it takes all of your video and audio signal
and you can arrange them any way you wanted to
and present it to your viewer.
So this is what you guys are looking at
when I'm doing my painting video or my live stream.
Now you can project your final output to another monitor
as Streamlabs OBS, so that's what I did.
So I project the final output at this monitor.
So whenever I'm painting or whenever I'm doing live stream,
I can just swivel my monitor to the other side,
so that when I am painting, I can actually see everything.
So this ensured me to control
what I want my viewers to focus and look at.
So the monitor is attached to an articular arm
that's mounted on the wall.
So when I'm working at my computer,
I will move the monitor back,
so I have a dual monitor set up.
Aside from that,
there is this pole that clamps to my desk
and that pole has three arms coming out.
So one arm is attached to my iPad here,
so I'm able to look at my reference while I'm painting.
The other arm is for my microphone,
so when I'm recording voice-over, or do coffee talk video,
I can move my microphone right in front of me,
in front of the computer
and if I don't need it,
I can just move it back out of the way,
so I have a clean area to work with.
Over here on the top,
the third articular arm is attached to my camera.
I'm actually using this camera to film right now,
but this camera is specifically for myself
when I am talking in front of the camera,
when I am doing coffee talk video.
The camera that I use right now is Sony ZV-E10.
This is a wonderful camera, this is actually quite new.
And I'm attaching the camera to a small teleprompter,
this is a little prompter.
So this is what teleprompter look like.
If I put my camera on behind it,
I put my phone here and using a teleprompter app
and I also controlled it with my Bluetooth keyboard,
so I will able to pause the script,
I'm able to play the script,
make the script go faster or slower,
or I can go back if I miss a line or two.
So this is very, very useful,
especially when I am trying to speak over a lesson,
or trying to make some points.
And I know using teleprompters seems like a cheat,
but it did help me save a lot of the time,
otherwise, it'll take a lot of time for me
to try to stay on point
and memorize a script and everything.
And that did take a little bit of practice
for me to read off the script
and as well as trying to be natural when I'm doing so.
So when it comes to filming yourself talking,
having sufficient lighting, like this
is very, very important.
It makes yourself look better
and it makes the overall image quality better,
because making video filming
is all about having sufficient light,
because your image is not going to look as good
if the lighting is very, very dim.
So this is why I have that led light panel
and it come with a remote control,
so I can make the light brighter or dimmer,
or just turn it off completely
without needing to fiddle with the light switch.
So one thing that's worth noticing is that
all of my camera has constant power.
So this battery looking cable thing
is a constant power source.
When I put that in my camera,
it will recognize it as a battery, but with constant power,
so your power never runs out.
This is very useful because you don't need to worry
about your battery life, you can just keep on recording.
And this is a micro HDMI cable that goes into the computer.
So when I'm painting and recording video
and doing live stream,
I need to be able to control my video very efficiently
and effortlessly because I am just one person,
I don't have anybody to tweak the camera for me,
so I need to be able to do that all by myself.
So I have some tools that can help me doing that.
So the first tool is this, this is stream deck.
This is a very powerful tool,
so each of this individual LCD screen
is actually his own button
and you can assign different function
and different features into each of this button.
So right here, if I press this button,
you can see that I'm switching between my overview camera,
to my detailed camera
and press it again it will switch back.
I can also control the volume of my computer
and I can also mute the microphone if I needed to.
And this button is for recording
and this button goes live stream.
I put a stream deck over here, so when I'm painting,
I can just reach out to the left and press the button
and I can switch between camera while I'm painting.
And another problem that I needed to solve
is the zoom camera, because when you're looking at a detail,
you're only looking at a portion of a painting.
So what do I do if I need
to focus on another area of the painting.
So this is what this comes in.
This is a motorized tripod.
I attach my camera on this motorized tripod.
This is actually a very affordable motorized tripod,
but what's so cool about this
is that it has a remote control
and I place it here and same thing as the stream deck,
when I just reach to the left a little bit,
I am able to move my zoom camera
very, very smoothly to exactly where I want to focus.
So if I'm painting the cow
I can let you see the detail of the cow
and I can move back to the barn.
And because I set up my monitor here,
I'm able to see what you're watching
and I am able to adjust it accordingly
without leaving my painting station,
without even taking my hands off the brush.
So this is why this setup is so useful and powerful for me,
because I can do everything by myself
when I'm doing live stream and recording video.
So one huge advantage of a setup like this,
is that what you see is what you get.
I can just record this whole thing
and that's the final outcome.
Because if I record them individually
from each of the camera,
I will need to record footage here,
record footage here
and record footage here
and to combine them together afterwards with post editing.
That's going to take a lot of time.
So instead I feed everything into my computer
and this is what you see
and I can record everything at once.
This saves me a lot of time for the post editing.
So aside from giving a great live stream experience,
this also cut down my editing time significantly.
So there you have it, my equipment and my setup.
I know there are quite a few things,
but again, this is what I end up with
after doing this for four to five years as a YouTuber.
If you are just getting started,
be sure to really think about what you want to do
before you start purchasing equipment and set up.
That's it for this week's video,
I really hope you enjoy this.
It took me quite a bit of time to make this one,
because I need to do everything myself.
So hopefully this is helpful for you.
I'm Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
Hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are.
I will see you next time.