Looking Better in Your On-Camera Videos
Today I’m in Manhattan visiting family and my daughter, who is almost 15, is shooting a fashion video for her YouTube channel. She’s taking lots of video with her iPhone of her shopping excursion which she will later mix with webcam video. Webcam video is something I always stayed away from because I never really got a great setup in my house for a background.
Of course, now with Camtasia 8.1 you don’t have to even worry about the background because it has the green screen feature, allowing you to make the background anything you want. Later this month Lon and I will be doing a webinar on the new features of 8.1 so if you’re on our mailing list, you can expect an invitation to that.
In the meantime, if you’re considering adding some full motion video of yourself to your own screencasts – you will be interested in this video I found on YouTube. You’ll learn how to:
- get great lighting from just one light in front of you
- be sure people feel like you are talking directly to them and
- position the camera so you look friendly and natural
One extra tip that the video doesn’t mention, but that I’ve discovered through trial and error, is that you need to really listen to the background noise before you start shooting. Sometimes unless you are really paying attention, you won’t even notice the bit of conversation in the next room or some intermittent construction noises happening down the street. These can be nearly impossible to remove during the editing process.
Lon and I will be talking more about full motion video and how to use the greenscreen on August 15th at 8 pm EDT. If you are not already on our event list, please sign up to get your invitation.
