Hi everybody! I’m Lorraine Grula with videoproductiontips.com. Today’s tip is about basic loading for video. We all know that a picture is really nothing but light, how it reflects, and shine inside your camera is what your audience will see. So what make sense that the better you’re lighting the better your video. That doesn’t mean it has to be hard, it’s not.
Let’s start with the two basic kinds of light, directional and diffused. Think about the sun the ultimate light source. On a bright sunny day, the light is relenting and harsh. Shadows are deep and dark. That’s directional lighting glaring down on you from one direction. Now, think about a cloudy day. The clouds act like a diffusion filter and bounce the harsh sunlight everywhere creating a soft even shadow less appearance.
Diffused light is usually the best kind of light to use for video production. Professional video crews often rejoice when they can shoot outside on a bright but very cloudy day. How do you get diffused light? Bounce it or filter it? See how these lamps are pointed up toward the ceiling? They are not pointing directly at me and the resulting light is very soft on my whole wrinkled face. Too bad and get it rid about double chin but anyway, unless you’re going for some kind of dramatic effect, this diffused light is probably exactly what you want. Using chip, shop lights like this is the easy low budget way to do it. Clip them on to whatever it handy, point them toward the ceiling or wall and there you go.
If you want to go with the professional light kit, most of this gizmos and gadgets exist to help you diffused the light to one degree or another. Reflective umbrellas give you a moderate level of diffusion. For even softer look try using a soft box like this. It gives and absolutely gorgeous, very high level of diffusion. Now if you want the easiest way to light your video, learn to take advantage of natural light. What light exist already? In that way you don’t have to set up any lights at all. Brighten up the room, open windows and curtains, open doors, turn on the lamps. Then place your subject so the existing light best flatters their faces that usually mean your subject should be at about a three quarter angle from the brightest source of light.
This is very important, you do not want to interview to be a silhouette even though that can be used for a beautiful effect does in this picture my daughter’s swimming. See how the sun is setting directly behind her? That’s what creates the silo wet. If I have taken this picture from the other side of the lake with the sun behind the camera instead of behind my daughter her face would be brightly lit. So, this is the second aspect of lighting you need to be aware when doing video from what direction is the light coming from.
Generally speaking you want light coming from behind the cameras back and follow you onto your subject. See these pictures of my living room? They were taken within seconds of each other using the exact same lighting every time. The pictures look drastically different because the direction of the lighting is different and that’s the only difference here.

That’s all for this video production tip, as always drop me a line at videoproductiontips@gmail.com and let me know your concerns. I’m Lorraine Grula and thank you for watching.