When we moved into the new house I didn’t pay much attention to where my computer was set up for video. I follow an awesome Twitter account @ratemyskyperoom that started rating people’s rooms when they were on TV. Their book is called How to Zoom Your Room: Room Rater’s Ultimate Style Guide and today’s post is about my journey through it all focusing on these three things.
- Good Lighting
- Camera Angle
- Setting up the Scene
My thoughts on studio set ups… and why I think it’s important.
Good Lighting
I’m launching a series of teaching videos and wanted to clean things up. [Before] My computer sat in front of a bank of windows facing south. The light streaming in the winter was great, but on dark days and during the summer the video is too dark and I wasn’t happy. The pot lights in the ceiling are distracting, but turn them off and it looks like I’m sitting in the dark.
I ordered this simple Ring Light, that works great. It has a switch to change the light intensity… it also sits behind the webcam moving up and down with an easy access switch.
Camera Angle
I replaced my computer webcam long ago with a Logitech c920 Webcam. This week I learned there’s a way to adjust the camera depth along with the left and right position. Duh! You can see in the before and after above… how I made the adjustments.
BTW There’s a new webcam that my friend Jessica recommends called Lumina (I’ll link to it in the resources below).
Setting the Scene
Clutter on video is a real thing. My background sucked and it was driving me nuts.
First I opted for a 10×10 cloth made to hang on a rod. After setting the giant curtain up I it looked the Merv Griffin episode on Seinfeld. Remember where Kramer finds the set display in the trash and then sets himself up as the host.
Is your background noisy? If you’re teaching on Zoom have you looked at the video through eyes of your viewer?
Resources:
Check out my Podcast & Video List on Amazon.
