The camera in most laptops and desktops is usually a little dot at the top and centre of your screen’s frame.
You want to be looking straight at your audience – and that means getting your eyeline equal to the top of your screen.
If using a laptop, either lower your chair to bring your eyes into line with the camera, or else boost the height of your laptop by placing several books or a box under it. Make it something solid so that when you touch your keyboard, your laptop doesn’t wobble.
Position yourself about one arm’s length away from your laptop – not too close, and not too far away. You want your head and shoulders taking up most of the screen.
Assume your audience is watching your video on a small mobile phone screen, so don’t worry about trying to fit in that painting in the background behind you … it’s about you and your face. Your audience won’t see your hands on the keyboard, so you can operate our in-built teleprompter – including the space bar to pause it, and the arrows to increase or decrease the speed - without anyone knowing.
It’s very effective to record yourself in the daytime with natural light, if possible. With natural light, if you have a window, you actually want to be FACING the window rather than have it behind you. This means you are using the light coming through the window to actually light your face in a natural way.
So in other words, try and have the light coming over the top of your laptop and towards your face. Try not to have a window behind you – it could ‘blow out’ the lighting and make you look like a ghost.
If you are recording yourself in a room with no natural light, or else in the evening, then room lighting is fine.
Just rotate your laptop and your chair around until you find the best quality look on your laptop screen.
When you see yourself on the recording, remember that what you see is what you get.
So if the room where you are recording is a bit dark, or the lighting is not great, you may notice you have a ‘grainy’ look. That usually means you need more light.
If you have access to a desk lamp, try positioning it behind and above your laptop, again so it shines into your face, to see if that improves things. If it’s shining too brightly on your face, move it a bit further away. You can keep playing with the positioning and intensity of your lights until you are happy with how you look on camera.
Try and make the space where you are about to record as quiet as possible. Can you shut a door, record in an area with a carpeted rather than hard floor?
If it’s a nice quiet space, and you’re no more than an arm’s length away from your laptop or computer, then your device should record decent quality audio.
However, if you want to guarantee the best quality audio, plugging in a microphone directly into your laptop can give you improved audio quality.
Finally, check your face, hair, clothes and also what the camera can see in the background behind you.
If there’s anything messy or that you would rather not be seen in your recording, make some final adjustments, then you’re ready to record!
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