RE: Aligning my Business Objectives with Steemit in 2018
Finally! Something I can comment on by drawing on my "semi day job."
(Yes, consulting on building home studios for AV production is something someone can do. It's a crazy world.)
Don't forget to factor into the cost of building your backyard studio the cost of properly soundproofing it, including putting in good flooring and ceiling audio tiles. You would be amazed at how much of a difference it makes in capturing good audio to have a studio which is largely sound dead. Your micing can be hotter while still avoiding background noise, you can move around more comfortably without worrying about destroying the audio take, and you just generally have a lot more flexibility.
And while you already have lighting, obviously, you will probably want more. Glancing through your videos, I see a lot of very flatly lit presentation, which may not be the most flattering in all cases. Especially if you want to do more in shots with close-ups of your face and moving to a wider, three-quarters shot, you want a little more dynamic side lighting to increase the contrast just a little bit. And more use of a rim light would not hurt.
All of that means that you need to think about investing a few dollars in perhaps a little more infrastructure support for lights and maybe the camera then you may have on hand. You would be amazed at what you can put together with some PVC and imagination, but you still have to buy some really quality clamps and be willing to put in a little bit of work.
All of these are not immense investments, but they are both time sinks and going to require some extra dollars that you may not have been planning on upfront.
(I admit that my personal pet peeve and most video is "bad audio," which generally involves microphones being placed in rooms with no sound treatment, 5 feet from the speaker so that almost all of the bass roles off and you're left with just weedy mid range and up. As I'm sure you already know, most of that goes away with a decent lavalier mic.)
There's definitely a need for some onboarding systems for Steemit, if it's going to survive in the highly competitive social media marketplace. No question at all. Whether or not there is sufficient market to actually be worth harvesting in this way – well, that's always the mystery of business, now isn't it? No one knows until the first person goes, and then everyone else either regrets not going first war is terribly glad that they didn't go first.
thank you kindly for all of this. Sound can be difficult to get right and yes I intend on spending a bit to get all of this right.
Tell me, what is rim light?
I'll make reference to one of my favorite photography instructors online to help answer your question.
The short version is that a rim light is a light source which comes from above and behind an actor or talent which exists to separate them from the backdrop or background. It helps the viewer read the composition of the scene, pulling the speaker away from whatever is going on behind them (even if that's just a solid, motionless space).
You don't ever want to be having flat lighting on you and flat lighting on the background because you effectively disappear, making it much harder for someone to pay attention and stay focused on what you're doing. (This is actually one of the reasons that a lot of online instructors who do three-quarter views end up being less interesting to look at than a close up. The usual composition is widescreen, with a three-quarter view you are taking up only about 1/6 of that screen, and there's just not a lot of detail to notice beyond broad physical gestures. Headshot close-ups at least bring a viewer in on your face and eyes, which gives them something to focus on. Choosing what composition and shot to use at any given moment – that's more an art than a science.)
The easiest lighting in the world to get right is three point lighting, and that's a key light (main light), fill light (a bit of light coming from the opposite side from the main light to make sure that your shadows don't get too harsh; you can use a big piece of white card to balance light from your main if that's what you got), and a rim light to create some contrast between the hairline/profile and the background.
Get that right and you can be visually ahead of 90% of the people doing communication videos on YouTube.
(I have a whole lecture I could give on proper lens selection for various shot types, but no one has time or the sanity points to burn to survive that.)
All that being said, the most important thing to get right for the kinds of videos that you have done is the audio. Clear, crisp, slightly compressed, very slightly noise reduced audio is exactly what your audience wants. Don't record in a room with no sound treatment on the walls because it's immediately obvious when you get that empty room hollow echoing sound, make sure that your mic levels are right and if you have to err, err on the side of having them too low because you can always turn it up a little bit in post if the noise floor is low enough, and don't get overly cute with inserted sound effects or even complicated bed music.
And another of my personal pet peeve, the one almost no one will tell you, don't spend more than five seconds on a title lead in or close out. I've seen so many 15 to 30 second titles and closes that essentially just waste the time of the viewer. Don't do it. It can be really hard to step away and trust that the viewer is there to get just what you're delivering, and so many people can't do that, but it is absolutely crucial. Anything extra that you think people should know, don't stick it in a title, put it in the description. All of that stuff is searchable and clickable, unlike the video.
Oh look, and that's me going off on a long and rambling lecture despite my best intentions.
Hopefully some of this was useful to you. If you have any additional questions, feel free to let me know. Obviously it doesn't take much to get me started talking at ridiculous length.
thank you !
My pleasure. It's increasingly rare that I get to talk about the things that I actually have direct experience with.