(dreamy electronic music)
(intense rock music)
- What's up, everybody?
Peter McKinnon here and welcome back to
yet another Two Minute Tuesday.
It's so great to have you here
and see all of your smiling faces.
It's been a minute.
It's been two minutes.
It's actually been way longer than two minutes,
because you get it.
Today we're talking about how I light my videos.
I see these comments all the time, every week,
emails, DMs, tweets, carrier pigeons.
That's right, someone sent a raven
with this very question.
It's something I see a lot of,
so I figured we can take two minutes
and rip through this real fast,
so let's throw two minutes on the clock
and let's go.
All right, simple, simple, simple video.
How do you light your videos?
Well, I use an Aputure 120D Mark II
and an Aputure Light Dome.
Essentially, when you are lighting someone,
or an interview, or anything like that,
you're gonna use a three point lighting setup.
You're gonna have a key light,
you're gonna have a rim light,
then you're gonna have a fill light.
I don't use any of those.
I mean, I use a key light,
but that's the only one I use.
I don't use a hair light or a fill light
because one light right here
pretty much does the job.
All right, so, this is what the setup looks like
with one key light.
It looks a little bit like this close up,
but if we back way up, you can see
it's actually not that big of a setup.
It's pretty easy, it's pretty versatile,
and it's pretty clean and tight,
so that is the wide shot
of what you're looking at or what I'm looking at
when I'm actually making these videos.
Let's bring it back in!
Okay, what's up?
So, that is what it looks like.
I have one Aputure 120D Mark II up and to the left.
I usually try to light it so it's down a little bit,
it's not pointing directly at my face,
but I have it as close to my face as I can,
because the closer you get,
a large light like that with a big soft box,
the softer and more kind of just pretty
that light is gonna look,
and then you get that catch light as well on your eyes.
I don't know if we can zoom in on my eyes here,
but you get a nice catch light.
Now, that's where the new Aputure Light Dome
Mark II comes in, because the old one
kind of has these harsh edges like an octagon.
I'm not even sure how many sides it has.
It's probably something crazy that I've never heard of.
But you can see those hard lines,
whereas the new one, they've added even more rods,
so you can see it's way more circular.
So the catch light in someone's eyes,
which is the reflection of the light
that they're actually using
to light their film or their movie, whatever,
it's gonna be perfectly round,
so that is always a huge plus.
So, the fact that they've added that
into the new Light Dome, woo, yes please!
Also, it sets up and tears down in seconds.
The old one, the rods had to come out
and it was just a mess.
The new one, donezo, like literally two second set up,
two second tear down, so that makes everyone's life easier.
They've got two versions of it,
they've got a large version and they have the mini.
The mini would be great if you were
filming in your bedroom
or you had a really small, tight space
but you still wanted to use a soft box.
It won't be as soft, because obviously
the light is gonna be more directional,
given that that soft box is smaller.
So, the bigger you can go, the better,
but if you're kinda tight for space,
the mini's a great option for you
if you wanna use the same lights I do.
These are LED lights, so they dim
to really, really, really, really low.
Let's dim 'em right now, shall we?
Watch, I put my hand here and we'll dim.
(humming)
Sound effects included.
But you can kinda get it to any setting that you want,
which is great.
So, if you want it really, really low
'cause you wanna have something in the background show up
or vice versa, they have the option to do that,
and they don't burn hot.
You're not gonna sweat at the table
while you're wearing a leather jacket
making a video about lights
like you typically would have years and years ago.
So, that is an awesome feature.
Another really interesting way to light your videos
is from directly above.
This is what I do sometimes
when I'm shooting B roll of things on a table
or I wanna make something even more dramatic.
Right now, the light is kind of at 11:00,
facing me as close as I can get it
'cause the table's in the way.
But if I wanted to make that even more dramatic,
I might put that light on a boom arm,
hang it over the table,
and then that light would look something like this.
Just look at how dramatic that is, so dramatic.
I love it.
That is what it looks like when it is hanging over top.
Very dramatic, very cinematic,
very interrogation cell.
Like, you'd see this technique in Marvel or something,
on like the Netflix series if they wanna
make someone look intimidating.
However, lighting something from above
does look so good when you are shooting objects.
So, if you were shooting pieces of gear
or you wanna get a nice, crispy shot of a thumbnail
or a product for any type of video that you're making,
this light is my favorite for that very reason.
Oh, and if you wanted to see,
here's a wide shot of what this looks like.
Hit it.
Looks pretty sweet, right?
Looks like an official film set.
Someone walks in and you're doing this,
they're like wow, you know what you're doing.
So, that is a super fast Two Minute Tuesday.
I'm pretty sure, yeah, I definitely went over,
but that's a quick look at how I light my videos
using one key light, which is the Aputure 120,
the Light Dome, and one light source,
plug it in, good to go, and your videos will look like this.
It does make a difference.
I used to be the window light guy,
and I still do that when I'm vlogging,
but if I can use a light in anything at any time,
I will because bright pixels equal sharp pixels.
Your video will look better if it's lit and it's bright.
I hope you guys got something out of that.
I'll leave the links to everything below
if you wanna check it out yourself.
That is your Two Minute Tuesday.
Thank you so much for watching.
Hit that like button if you like this video,
smash it if that's something that you're into, 2018 style.
Subscribe if you weren't already.
That was a mess.
And I will see you guys in the next video.
Goodbye.
(dramatic electronic music)