Have you ever made a lecture video? If so, have you watched it? What do you think about your pacing, the environment you shot in, and your performance?

More importantly, what do you think your students would say about your videos? Would they say you’re:

            Boring?

            Unfocused?

            Hard to see or hear?

            In a distracting environment?

            Verbose?

Fear not, even with the driest of materials, you can still put on a scintillating lecture. Today I’ll share with you some tried and true techniques to get the most out of your filming time, and to improve the end product both for you and for your students.

Before the shoot

Before you say your first word, you should be sure of the environment, your equipment, and your materials. First, let’s examine your lecture materials by applying some basic principles.

1. Less is more.

If you have long passages of text, don’t put them on a slide in their entirety; students will just read the page and tune you out. People read faster than they can listen, so if you give them the option, they will read ahead.

2. Show, don’t tell.

It is better to replace passages of text with short bullet points, or even better, an illustration that will jog you to say the right thing. Less is more; the less you have on a slide, the more they will have to pay attention to you.

3. Show me something real.

Are you talking about a document or form in your presentation? Show us the authentic document rather than simply talking about it in the abstract. A concrete representation will go a lot farther for students than just explanations.

4. Add emphasis and value.

Do you have a way to highlight important points? It could be callouts on a slide, or you could use handwriting tools, but either way, annotations add value for students by showing them exactly what you want them to be sure they retain.

The Shoot: Lights, Camera, Action

I use the phrase Lights, Camera, Action to describe the setup and shooting process, in the order it should occur. This is how the professionals do it, and you should too, if you are interested in consistent results.

Lights

Lighting can really make or break a shoot. It’s important to have lighting that is bright but not too bright, and soft but also feature-defining.

1. Light from the front!

If you have only one light, be sure you light from the front. Lighting from behind will turn you into a silhouette, and make you look like the anonymous witness in a news program. You don’t need anything fancy; a desk lamp pointed at you will do the trick. I often advise DIY faculty to purchase a clip-on LED lamp with a poseable gooseneck, as it can be clipped to a table or a computer monitor and positioned exactly where you need the light.

2. Key and Fill

If you have multiple lights, try experimenting with the key and fill lights. Key lighting typically comes from above and should be the brightest of all your lights. Fill lights come from the opposite side of the key light, and should be pointed horizontally, directly across your subject. The idea behind the fill light is to eliminate the shadows produced by the key light and soften the overall effect. If you have a third light, you can try lighting the background, although most shoots will be fine with just two.

3. Ambience

Overall, you want light to be ambient rather than directed (i.e., it doesn’t look like you’re standing in someone’s high beams, but in a gently lit area).  It should be as bright as possible without producing glare (off of skin, hair, eyes, glasses, etc.). Most importantly, the viewer should have a clear view of what’s going on and be able to easily see any fine details you might point out.

4. Clothing

Finally, think about clothing. You don’t want to wear anything that will blend too much into your background, or you will look like a floating head. If you’re doing a recording with a lightboard, remember that the video will be flipped in post-production, so don’t wear clothing with words on it. And if you’re doing something with a green screen, don’t wear green!

Camera

It is a conscious choice to appear on camera; you do not have to. But study data suggests that students may feel more engaged with the content when they see a real person talking to them, so it’s worth investigating.

What kind of shoot will it be? Just you talking to the camera? Showing slides as well? Or are you interviewing another?

Where will the shoot be? In a studio, or in a public area like a classroom? You will want to be sure you are capturing what you want the audience to see, and nothing you don’t want them to see. Check your frame before you begin; can you see yourself? How much of yourself can you see? What else is in the frame? If you’re in an area with a lot of extraneous motion, like people walking by or moving in a classroom, you will want to make sure they don’t overwhelm the eye and distract from what you are doing. If they watch the background and not you, they might miss the point.

Action

The final point to consider is your actions. What will you be doing on camera, and how will you ensure that you are providing consistent footage?

1. Blocking

Figure out before you shoot where the edges are; that is, where do you go off camera, and how much usable space do you have to move around in? Pace around your area and figure out how many steps wide, and how many steps deep, it is. Find the center, as this is probably where you will spend the most time. You may find it useful to make tape marks on the floor where your boundaries and the center are. Also, if you know you move around a lot, try and make those movements intentionally slower, as the camera will often be auto-focusing on you. Moving too much or too quickly can cause blurry results.

2. Stuff

Will you need accessories just like these available accessories from burning sands Greek store during the shoot, such as tools, writing or drawing utensils? Do you need water to drink? Do you need to use a device? Try to locate anything you will need during the shoot in a place where it is easily accessible from on camera; you don’t want to have to venture off camera in a shoot to get a sip of water, as your students’ focus will wane the moment you leave camera, and might not come back again. One of the tricks I use often is to place everything the speaker will need on a small table just off camera, where it can be easily reached but can’t be seen. It’s ok if your hand goes off camera and comes back with a water bottle, but it’s not ok if your whole self goes out of frame for that bottle.

3. Words

Take full breaths, and speak with projection. If you don’t speak clearly or loudly enough, it’s very difficult to fix later. Imagine you’re hosting a radio program; your listeners will not hear you as well if you are not directly addressing them on the camera, and if you do not enunciate clearly enough, they might not understand you either. Try to intentionally slow down when you speak; most of us speed up unconsciously when we are nervous (which pretty much everyone is, at least a little, on camera).

Even though a DIY lecture video can seem like a very simple thing to create, it is quite another thing to create a really quality video. Following these tips can help you make sure your output is consistently engaging; don’t just cross your fingers, think Lights, Camera, and Action!