How To Set Up A Camera For Recording

Making your own video tin can seem a piddling overwhelming at first, but it helps to become familiar with the iii main stages involved in creating a video. Whether it's a simple YouTube tutorial or a Best Picture winner, most videos follow the same three steps. In this article, nosotros will provide an overview of:

1. Pre-Product: The planning stage. How can you best set up to shoot your video?
2. Product: Shooting your video. What do you demand to practise know nigh camera, lighting, and audio equipment to best execute your vision?
3. Mail-Production: Editing your video. How do you put all the terminal pieces together to present your final video?

Having some familiarity with each of these stages before diving in volition assist you create your own video content.

Pre-Production is all near sitting down and planning how to brand your video. Photo by Flickr user Eelke.

Pre-Production

Let'southward say you lot want to throw a big dinner party. The dinner political party doesn't simply happen, it requires planning. You have to choice a time and a place, send out invitations, and mayhap even pick a theme (if you want to get fancy). You have to decide what food you lot want to serve, observe some recipes, get all your ingredients together, and make sure you accept enough time prepare everything on the day of the party. There'due south a lot of planning to be done before y'all fifty-fifty turn on the oven!

That'southward what the pre-production phase is for video. It'south checking your recipes and writing out your shopping list. This is the planning stage. This is when you want to ask yourself "What am I making?" and "How am I going to brand it?"

Pre-Production can be as simple as deciding "I want to do a video blog mail service talking virtually why I started dancing." Or information technology might exist as complex as to involve scripting, storyboarding, and shot lists. Possibly this video is simply going to be y'all talking into a smartphone's camera. Or mayhap you've written a scene, and you need two actors and a location to bring the story to life. Those videos will have dissimilar needs, and crave unlike amounts of pre-production.

You might too want to enquire yourself where is this video going to alive? Volition it exist broadcast in a theater or viewed online? It'southward important to consider the end goal now, so that yous know how to shoot your video during the production process. Pre-Production is you should take the time to brand sure y'all have all your ducks in a row.

Here are a couple of things to consider during Pre-Product:

• Script: Does your video have a script? Does information technology need 1?
• Storyboard: What do y'all want your video to look like? How tin can you plan that out now?
• Shot list: How many types of shots will you need to become for your video? What's the best order to shoot them in?
• Location: Where are you shooting your video?
• Gear: What are y'all using to shoot your video?
• Cast: Who practise y'all demand in front end of the camera?
• Crew: Who exercise you demand behind the camera?
• Last Video Specifications: Where will people meet your video – on Tv set? On Social Media? Does the terminal platform your video will exist exhibited on already list recommended specifications for video?
• Budget: How much money exercise you take to make this video?

Lights, camera, action! Production is when it's time to shoot your video.

Production

You take a vision, and y'all're prepared to execute it. It's time to shoot your video! Now, how do you do that? Beneath are a couple of simple and avant-garde techniques when it comes to choosing your camera, lighting, and audio equipment. Some of this equipment you might already accept on hand, some you lot might exist looking to buy. Most equipment is also available to hire for a cheaper fee than purchasing.

Information technology is as well important to call back that with production, ideally you'll capture more than footage than you need to utilise. If you're doing a simple tutorial video, possibly y'all'll run through the tutorial a few times, so that you can use the all-time have. If you're filming a scene, you might want your actors to run through their parts a few times so that you have a couple of different options to pick from when it's time to edit. You lot can never capture too much footage – the Oscar-winning film Mad Max: Fury Road, which has a run time of 2 hours, was cut together from 480 hours worth of footage.

Camera

If you want to shoot video, yous're going to demand a photographic camera. The product field has come a long way since the film cameras of the late 1800s, and there are tons of options available now when it comes to recording your content.

Smartphones, such as those adult past Apple, Google, and Samsung, are all equipped with video capabilities (left). Meaty cameras and camcorders (correct) offer a more than dedicated recording device.

Simple

In this day and historic period, many people actually accept a high-quality recording device in their pocket: a smartphone. If yous take a smartphone with a built-in camera, then you might exist all set up to go. Camera phones can be a not bad selection for shooting everything from a social media video to a full pic. In fact, director Sean Baker's 2015 feature picture show, Tangerine, was shot entirely using smartphones. And so if you lot already own a smartphone, don't discount that as a tool for shooting your video.

There are a few things that information technology's important to keep in mind when shooting with a smartphone. 1 is storage chapters – bank check to encounter how much space is left on your phone earlier you start shooting, keeping in mind that video can take up a lot of storage.

Smartphones as well require good light to capture video. In lower-light settings, the film can start to look grainy. And even though smartphones can zoom in on images, you probably don't want to utilize that feature when capturing video, as it volition produce a pixelated, lower-quality image. Instead, just physically motion your smartphone to frame your shot.

The side by side pace up from a smartphone is a defended camera such equally a camcorderor meaty camera, otherwise known as apoint-and-shoot. Point-and-shoots are named for their simplicity – you the point the camera at what you desire to capture, and shoot information technology. Camcorders operate in a like manner. While there is a wide cost range for cameras, in that location are camcorders and signal-and-shoots available for less than $500.

Unlike with mirrorless or DSLR cameras, there's no worrying virtually lenses with smartphones, camcorders, or betoken-and-shoots. All of these camera options are user-friendly and don't require much extra work beyond putting the camera on a tripod, framing a shot, and striking tape.

Mirrorless cameras and DSLR cameras are much pricier, only offer more sophisticated command over the shot through built-in settings and different lens options.

Intermediate

If y'all want higher-quality video and more than control over your picture, y'all will probably want to look into a mirrorless photographic camera or a digital unmarried-lens reflex camera (otherwise known as a DSLR).

While these cameras do come with an automatic setting, the real reward to them is the sophisticated control they requite the user, assuasive the user to independently adjust things like aperture, ISO, white balance, and focus. Doing a piddling fleck of inquiry and condign more familiar with these technical aspects will help y'all to fully take advantage of all that these cameras can offer y'all.

Another advantage to these cameras is lens options. Different a smartphone or bespeak a shoot, when you purchase a mirrorless or DSLR photographic camera, y'all're unremarkably ownership the camera trunk and volition need to purchase at least one lens to be able to actually shoot anything. These cameras come up with a variety of different lens options, all of which offer another level of control over your picture show.

DSLRs are a much pricier option, with camera bodies costing anywhere between $500 to $2000, and lenses running around a like price.

Lighting Equipment

Unfortunately, it's actually not as uncomplicated as signal the camera and shoot the picture. In social club to capture the best possible video, it's important to lite the scene.

A proficient identify to start with lighting is to understand three-point lighting. Even if you're not working with a full lighting kit and your ready is just yourself and a window, having a familiarity with this standard set up will assist inform your lighting choices and production set upward.

Three-point lighting is the become-to method for lighting a scene. Information technology involves using 3 lights (called a key light, fill light, and dorsum light) to lite a discipline while also minimizing background shadows. The central light provides the most straight low-cal on the subject area. The fill up low-cal also shines on the subject, commonly in a manner that "fills in" the residual of the subject, eliminating hard shadows that the key calorie-free might exit. And the back light illuminates the subject from behind, helping to divide them from the groundwork.

Simple

One of the most accessible forms of lighting is natural light, or daylight. Information technology'due south free, and if used efficiently can offer proficient, even coverage. To see an example of how daylight can be used, merely look at the difference between taking a photo with someone who has a window behind them (or is backlit) versus someone who has a window in front of them.

In the first photograph, the human is backlit. In the second photo, he is front lit. The only departure is the position of the camera. Photo by Tasnia Habib.

If you're shooting in a dwelling, yous tin besides compliment daylight by beingness strategic about where you shoot. In front of windows offers expert coverage. Shooting in broad open rooms with light colored walls likewise helps to reflect or bounce light. You lot can besides utilize lighting already available in your domicile, such as ceiling lights, floor lamps, and desk lamps, to provide even more coverage, or human activity equally improvised key lights. Simple materials that y'all take on mitt, such as affiche boards or aluminum foil, can too function every bit reflectors or bounce boards.

Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki won the University Award for his work on 2015'south The Revenant, which used natural lite when filming. Never underestimate the ability of natural light!

Another pop, cost-efficient lighting option is the band light.

A band lite mounted on a stand (left), and a woman demonstrating how to use a ring light (right).

The aptly named ring light is a low-cal in the shape of ring, usually designed for the camera to sit down in the centre. Information technology provides piece of cake lighting for shut-up shots, making it particularly well suited for any directly-to-camera pieces and a pop option for vloggers. Ring lights are also on the cheaper side when information technology comes to lighting equipment, running anywhere from $15 - $100.

Intermediate

Okay, and then you lot want to be able to shoot independent of daylight and have full, consistent command over your scene'southward lighting. You want to get serious and invest in a lighting kit. There are a lot of options and avenues to explore when it comes to putting together a lighting kit, since lights can toll anywhere from a hundred to a couple thousand dollars.

If you're putting together a lighting kit for the outset time, you're probably looking at LED or fluorescent lights, since these are the most affordable and easy to use. You might explore other lighting options likewise though, such as tungsten lights. These lights all have different pros and cons, from cost, to power usage, to amount of oestrus emitted. Many places sell beginner lighting kits for video, and these are usually a good starting point.

An LED lighting kit by GVM, a fluorescent lighting kit by impact, a tungsten lighting kit by CAME-TV. Photos from B&H Photograph Video.

Your lighting kit should likewise include equipment such every bit lighting modifiers – similar to how about lamps in your home are probably covered past a lampshade to lengthened and direct light, lights for video too use unlike types of equipment to maximize and command light.

While there are many types of lighting modifiers, such every bit reflectors, umbrellas, and gels, one of the well-nigh common types is the soft box. The soft box is a versatile slice of equipment that goes over the lamp to help diffuse light. They are most often box shaped (hence the proper name), but come up in a variety of shapes and sizes. A skillful starting soft box volition probably be around $100.

Audio Equipment

Almost cameras take built-in microphones and will record sound alongside video, and maybe that's fine for your video! However, fifty-fifty a little bit of extra thought and planning tin can get a long style in producing meliorate sound, and that extra planning is well worth it. Bad audio volition oft ruin a video in a manner that bad lighting doesn't – think virtually it, how much do you enjoy listening to the audio of a static TV?

Recording sound can also seem complicated, but it's easy if you go along 2 goals in heed: you want to be able to control your surround, and you desire the microphone to exist as close to you as possible.

When recording audio, information technology's important to consider the environment you're in. Nosotros don't always notice the sounds effectually us because nosotros're then used to them, but accept a moment to listen. Is there a fan going? A fridge humming? Birds and traffic? A plane overhead? Roommates talking? All of these noises can compete with the actual audio you are trying to tape for your video. If you can, do a test recording then that you tin listen back to it and run into how it sounds.

Y'all volition get better audio if you record in a quiet, indoor space. Endeavor to avert big, empty rooms as they can cause more of an echo. Rooms with rugs or audio-visual panels tin can help absorb sound. If you lot're not shooting any video and just recording your voice, then a small space like the within of a car tin actually become a great impromptu sound berth!

So now y'all know where and how you lot should record, but what should you use to capture your audio?

Simple

Headphones or earphones with born microphones are a great identify to starting time. Wireless earphones are particularly great if you plan to be standing far away from your recording device and can't rely on its built-in recorder to capture your voice. In general, most other microphones volition be better than relying on your camera'southward built-in mic.

A lavalier microphone (left), tin can be clipped to the speaker'southward clothes. First photograph by Flickr user ttexhwby37, second photo past Flickr user Asim Bharwani.

Another simple solution is to get a lavalier microphone, sometimes called a lapel mic or lav mic. A lav mic is a small microphone that is usually worn under a person'southward clothes and clipped somewhere about their neckline and is a not bad mic for capturing just ane or 2 people talking. They can either tape audio into annihilation with a headphone jack (such every bit a smartphone or figurer), or can be used alongside a professional person audio recorder. Lavalier microphones take a wide cost range, anywhere from $15 to a couple of hundred dollars for a wireless mic set. Nevertheless, fifty-fifty investing in a cheap lavalier mic will offering a noticeable improvement in quality over a built-in camera microphone.

Intermediate

If you want to get more than advanced with your then you might want to look into a split up sound recorder or field recorder. Audio recorders office for audio the same fashion cameras function for video; it's a device dedicated to capturing audio files. They will ordinarily capture sound files to a split up card, such every bit SD carte du jour, and require some amount of post-production work to marry the sound files to the video.

Audio is primal! Audio recorders might require a lilliputian more than work and enquiry to utilise finer, only the results will exist much clearer than audio captured from a smartphone or set of headphones. Photos from BH Photograph Video.

Audio recorders will usually accept their own loftier quality born microphone as well as separate inputs that allow you to connect more microphones. Why would you desire to use an audio recorder? Well, fifty-fifty a fancy DSLR camera isn't going to accept much more than than an aux input. With an sound recorder y'all can have two wireless lavalier microphones and a shotgun microphone gear up and all recording to the same device.

Audio recorders range in price, with simpler ones ranging anywhere from $100 to $2000.

That's a wrap - time to edit! Professional editing bays can involve many components, such as the ane pictured higher up. Photo by Uwe Schwarze.

Post-Product

That'south a wrap on shooting! At present you accept a bunch of video files on your smartphone, or maybe on a carve up bill of fare like an SD card. Maybe you even have a carve up batch of audio files. What comes next?

Now it's time to put everything together. If y'all had a really uncomplicated fix – maybe you lot just plugged a lav mic into your smartphone and recorded a video of yourself talking to the camera – then y'all might not have much postal service production at all. Your next step might just exist to upload your video!

But if you accept an SD card full of .mov files and some other SD bill of fare with .wav files, then it might be time to dig into more of the post-production process.

Mail service-production is everything that happens afterwards shooting and is mostly defined past editing, the process by which you gather all your pieces together to create your final video.

During editing, you'll effigy out how all your pieces will fit together – this is where your script or storyboard is going to exist useful. First yous'll have to transfer your files onto whichever device you are using to edit (nearly likely a reckoner) and bring them into a program designed for video editing.

A department of the editing timeline from Toy Story four, edited by Axel Geddes. Photo from Pro Video Coalition.

Like all stages of the video process, technology has besides fabricated editing more accessible. There are many free video editing programs available to download, although most might require a quick tutorial if it's your first time video editing. In that location are besides more advanced editing programs that will price more coin, but over again will offer much more command over your terminal production.

The editing process can be as simple or as advanced as you want. Recollect Mad Max: Fury Road? It took film editor Margaret Sixel three years to assemble that motion-picture show. Editing is all well-nigh choices, and a the bare minimum will normally involve putting your video and audio together on an editing timeline, but it tin can likewise include adding music, graphics, titles, special effects, colour correction, and many other things.

When you're done with your edit, it'southward time consign your video. This is when you'll want to check those specs again to make certain you are exporting a video with right settings.

And congratulations! You're done! Now y'all get to curl out the red carpeting and premiere your hard piece of work. At least until the side by side idea strikes you lot!

Source: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/how-tos/production-101/

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