509 – Create the best video you can: Tom talks Ask Me a Video Question

Episode 509 – Ask Me A Video Question
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode five hundred and nine. Good the Commute podcast today it's ask me a video question, so we're doing. I'm kind of lumping together questions that are on the same topic. So I can, you know, make it more clear to you what an episode is going to be about. So this is ask me a video question, and I invite everybody listening to send questions to Tom@screwthecommute.com if you want to get your answer here on one of the shows. Now, I hope you didn't miss episode 508, that was one of my every once in a while, I do a cell phone and tablet automation episode so that you can work faster. You know, I'm all about automation. That's why I give the automation book away, which, by the way, I'll just tell you about it now. Go ahead and grab your copy at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and then listen to some of these automation episodes because you can work so much faster with this technology. That's right in your hand every day. So why fight with it if it's got all these features that maybe you just didn't know about so you can work so much faster? That was episode 508. All right. How'd you like me to send your big affiliate cheques well? Email me at Tom.

[00:01:41] It's good to CNNMoney.com. If you are interested in our referral program and you tell somebody about our stuff and you get paid for it. How do you like that when they buy something? Can't get any easier than that and pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screwthecommute.com/app where you can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road. Also, I'm sitting here begging you to help out with the Go Fund Me campaign for the persons with disabilities. We're getting them scholarships, we're training them. We're going to get them hired or in their own business or both. And it's a program you can really be proud to be part of. We're going to change these people's lives forever. So visit my school site. You know, I say it really fast on these episodes, but it's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. So IMTCVA.org/disabilities. This page that talks about the Go Fund Me campaign and all the things we're doing for persons with disabilities. And you can click right there. Go over to the Go Fund Me campaign and you'll see video updates from these inspiring people that I mean, two of them are blind.

[00:03:13] Ok, so man, if you say, Oh, I can't do it, I'm here, I'm having trouble. Well, just think of the trouble they have and and they're making progress. And the one lady is actually fully blind and helping her husband with his website. Think about that because there's all kinds of things other than the look of your website that apply, and she's learning them in the school. So just thrilled to death to be part of this. So help us out there. IMTCVA.org/disabilities.

[00:03:44] All right, let's get to the main event. Ask me a video question. So first question is Tom should I use a green screen for my Zoom calls? I would say unequivocally, no, don't do it. Just don't get sucked in with this green screen stuff. See, I had my initial training in Hollywood and I've had to Hollywood people that were retired working for me over the years. And here's the thing with green screen to do green screen really well, you have to be be almost a lighting expert so that things just are, you know, have to light the green screen. You have to light yourself differently. You have to be certain, you know, at least a certain distance away from the green screen. If you have certain types of hair, it's going to look terrible. If you're not careful and you put something green up, it's going to make a big crazy thing on the screen for people to see that, to make it look really goober like and low life, poor quality.

[00:04:56] So you're better off making a background and a background can be some, you know, pictures hanging on the wall bookcases, wall hangings, I mean, all kinds of stuff. And I happened to have if anybody wants, if they email me at Tom and screw the commute, I'll send you a file. I've been collecting of screenshots of people's backgrounds. And so you can get ideas from it. But it makes it so much less trouble electronically. And you're never going to have those weird things with your hair happening and you're never going to have things just disappearing. I mean, even people on national television have screwed up and like meteorologists where you can see right through their body because they were the wrong color. So I mean, just so don't waste your money on green screen, you're going to have a much better production making some kind of static background that's there. And it's real and you're not going to have any of these electronic problems because when they do green screen in real life in big time productions is 30 people involved in lighting experts and green screen experts and and and equipment that's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it all work perfectly. Well, you don't have any of that. So no, don't use green screens. All right, so another Zoom related things, I'm just starting to use Zoom for live calls and simulcasting to it, to YouTube and Facebook.

[00:06:35] Can you give me some tips? Well, you know, you didn't give me a lot of detail there about what method you're using to simulcast. And but but I will mention that when you're simulcasting one of the big problems that happens, if you don't have the really, you know, more sophisticated software is that somebody will be watching it on one place like YouTube, let's say, and you're going live on Facebook. And you can't see the person on YouTube's. Comments. So they think you're ignoring them and they end up just leaving or thinking it's recorded or whatever they think. So that's one thing you've got to figure out is whatever software you're using, can you suck in all the comments so that you can respond to them? See, because what's the sense of going live if you if there's no engagement, you might as well just play a video and so you can alienate a lot of people thinking that you're just ignoring them. So that's one tip. Another tip that for every single thing you do on this, these live Facebook lives and zooms and and everything else, they got out there. As you must train yourself, you must force yourself to look into the camera lens. Not at the person or persons or the the view of 50 people on the screen because your eyes to them are looking just off camera. So it makes you look beady eyed.

[00:08:20] It makes you look untrustworthy. It makes you look like you're reading off notes instead of just talking to them. And I see this all the time in many places where people they even have the cameras on a different screen than their notes. So they're just looking out into the know no man's land and not connecting with the people. So that's probably the biggest thing of all. I mean, again, the backgrounds are stupid and the know. If you recall, the one lawyer was talking to the judge and he had a cat filter on it on himself that made national news. What a doofus that guy was, you know? And then, of course, you got the Jeffrey Toobin thing. Try to avoid pleasuring yourself while you're on a Zoom call. There's a good tip for you. But and then know how to operate Zoom. And then the other big thing is is know how to teach people that are watching you how to operate Zoom. I mean, we and some of the major events we do, we tell people ahead of time, if you don't know how to operate Zoom, get in touch with Larry or Travis or somebody in my office or myself and we'll help. We'll walk you through it while we're not on the live event. And so that you learn how to do it because you need to know how to share your screens. How to record if the you know, the leader lets you do it and.

[00:10:00] How to copy the chat. You know, there's three little dots down at the bottom of the chat window that you can save the text from the chats. I mean, just a lot of little things, and I don't claim to be any expert at it. But most of the major things I know how to do and I can tell other people how to do it so. So that's that's important. All right. So that should help you, someone in your life, Zoom calls. All right, Tom, I'm getting complaints that my lighting is bad on my videos, what should I do? Well, again, I don't have a lot of details, but I will give you some tips on lighting that again. I learned this in Hollywood, some of the same exact techniques I learned almost 40 years ago. Okay, are the same. The lighting, the lighting fixtures are a little bit different, but still light is light. So the first thing is is you've got to make sure you're not in front of some bright light source like a window. I mean, I know I one of my students, he's always sitting in his office and another one of my students, she's sitting in her office, but they have this great big window behind him. And even with the blinds shut, the blinds are white. And when the sun hits it, it's just a massive pile of white behind them. And what happens is, is your camera sees that gigantic a pile of white and real brightness.

[00:11:31] And so it reduces the iris, the, you know, to let less light into the camera. Well, what that what that does is it makes your face go dark and especially if your dark complected anyway, then you go almost, you know, it's just like almost you're on the witness protection program. All right. You can't see your face and and that ruins the connection with people. So so you've got to make sure you're not. And what I just described is called being back lit. You got to pay close attention to that. But in my previous little questions here, if you took the time to set up a good background, it's not going to be a window. I'll tell you that it's not going to be a patio door that's giant letting all the light in behind you say so. So that's one of the big things. And then let me quick, you quickly tell you how to light a person, and by the way, we go into great depth on all of this stuff, plus one hundred more things at my VIP video weekend. So check that out. I think we'll have a note in the show notes that if you want to book one of those, if you get three or four people together, you can come for free, you know, to one of those things, and we take you on location and show you how to shoot marketing videos wherever you happen to be.

[00:12:52] So, yeah, we like studio and we have our own TV studio here, but on location videos are very interesting, exciting, make you look current, you know, so. So we teach you all of that in our video weekend. All right. So back to lighting when you light a person. This might surprise you because everybody says, Oh, the windows are the sole or the know the eyes of the windows to the soul. I think that's what it is. Yeah, and the eyes are important. You want people to see your eyes, and I'll tell you about glasses here in a minute. But the the determinant we use to light a person is their nose. Ok? I said their nose. What? Yeah, so see if you just light a person put a light straight in their face that is like news editing where you're just getting the shot no matter what and you're not worried about looking nice, it's just better to get the shot than not get the shot. So you see, a news camera has a big light on top of it, and it hits you right in the face. But what that does is it kind of washes you out. It's it's you can tell it's you, but it's just there's no character or depth and or anything in the face. It's just ghostlike. So when you have a chance to set it up yourself, you put the your main light at a 45 degree angle to your face.

[00:14:18] And if you put a main light at a 45 degree angle to your face, what happens on the opposite side of your nose a shadow? All right. And the brighter the light is, the more shadow you're going to have on the other side of your nose. Well, having shadow there does help you with the character and depth depth of field, they call it, so it makes it more interesting. But if it's too much shadow, it looks ghoulish and weird. So the main light that hits you on the side of your face is called the the key light. That's your key light that's lighting your face on the other side of your nose, though, we put another light called a fill light. And it's less intense than the main light. And you adjust the intensity of it, you can use a dimmer or you can move it further away or closer, depending on how much shadow you want to take away. So if you leave a lot of shadow that's more theatrical, you probably wouldn't do that on a Zoom call. But a little bit of shadow is good, so you'd move. You know, you move the light, your fill light back and forth or dim used the dimmer until you get just enough shadow that it looks nice and and puts character in the face, but it doesn't look too theatrical. Then if you if you really want to get, you know, serious about this, you have what's called a backlight.

[00:15:51] Now I just told you don't don't be backlit, right? Well, that's massive amounts of light right behind, you know, a backlight is to set you apart from your background. So it's above your head and my hits you on the back of the head. And it's a much less intense light and hits you on your your head and shoulders. And that sets you apart if you watch any shows on TV where it's like the like an award show or something. You'll see the back of Peep if you look closely. I mean, you're not supposed to notice this stuff, it's supposed to just be there to make a pleasing shot. So you'll notice some light hitting the back of the people that sets them apart from the background. Now on a big stage on an award show, they're 40 feet from the background. You're not going to be 40 feet from your background. But that's the next tip is to stay away from your background. Get away from, you know, don't be too close to your background. We call that the convict. Look. All right. Ok, so that's that's some lighting tips and soft light is better now. The lights nowadays are going to be LED because when I first learned they were quartz, we still have some quartz lights, but they create a lot of heat. So I guess if you're in a cold situation, yeah, you go ahead and use cheap quartz lights.

[00:17:14] But most modern lights are going to be LED and create no heat. And also, you like to soften the light a little bit because you don't want even when you have shadows, you don't want them too harsh. So we use what we call soft boxes or diffusion, which the light is blowing through, almost like a white handkerchief kind of thing. So it spreads the light out and doesn't create harsh shadows. All right now, let me talk about glasses for a second. If you do wear glasses, here's the problem I see even when you have mastered the technique of looking directly into the camera. Well, that can be problematic when you have glasses, and I don't care how much you paid for them and how much anti-glare stuff you put on them, it ain't going to work for videos. All right. So there's a technique that we. Well, let me tell you the problem. The problem is, is your computer screen. Or if you've if you've placed your light directly in front of you, which you shouldn't. But the computer screen is is the big culprit in these, because a lot of times people are using their webcam on top of their computer screen. And so. The it's just basic physics, the light from the computer screen hits your glasses and bounces directly back into the lens of the webcam. And then they can't see your eyes, they just see a blue big blue blobs of your screen moving around on your eyes.

[00:18:51] That's terrible that they not only can they not see your eyes where your eyes should be, you look like a robot or a cyborg or something. All right, so. So this is terrible. So there's a couple fixes for this. One is light yourself properly with outside lights that will somewhat overcome the computer screen. Dim the computer screen, see them in your computer screen doesn't change what they see it. It only changes what you see. So on on the Magic Keyboard, there's dimming things up at the top left. And this, at least on this wireless keyboard I have. And then on the PC, there's you can hurt hit certain function keys to to dim the screen. So that's that's helps. But one of the tricks I use since all the times I've been on TV learned this from media trainer years ago is you take the temples of your glasses and you tip them up a little bit. Now I've had trying to tell people on this and they're moving their glass, they're grabbing the lenses and pulling them on their nose, down on their nose. No, the glass lenses are going to stay exactly the same place on your on your nose, but you're going to reach back clear to the back where they're on your ears and you're going to tilt them up a little bit and you're going to look into the screen into the into the webcam.

[00:20:23] I mean. And what you'll see is, and again, it's basic physics. The light is hitting the glasses horizontally, but since you tilted the lenses forward, the light is going to bounce down to the bottom of the screen instead of going directly back into the webcam. And so then people will be able to beautifully see your eyes and you're not going to look like a cyborg. And if you don't pay attention to what I'm talking about, you're going to look stupid. All right, so go back and listen to it again if you have to or, you know, come to our VIP video weekend and you'll learn this and a thousand other things that you should know to do good video I've been doing video for. I mean, I think close to 40 years, you know, back way back when it wasn't as easy as it is now. Ok, so there's some tips for you about lighting. All right, next question, Tom, I want to get a Gimbel, what what should I get? Well, first of all, I need to explain to everybody what a Gimbel is. Jimbo is is a mount for your camera, either a big camera or your cell phone. They're usually different symbols for that. I would suggest unless you're really serious and doing this big time that you'd get, just get one for your cell phone because they can cost a lot of money. But what it is, it's it's a stabilizer kind of thing that you can do all kinds of trick shots and and.

[00:22:02] Move your you know, you can be moving, you can be riding a bicycle now it's kids kind of dangerous and I've seen people do it. But, you know, holding the gimbal instead of, it's kind of like an it's super advanced selfie stick, so you can hold it out there and do all kinds of things. And the gimbal, it's like it's it's like a a top, you know, it's got spinning stuff in it that keeps the camera from flopping all around. And it's got batteries in it and and apps to to make it do stuff, I mean, I some some of them have pre programmed templates and it says, OK, shoot this scene for two seconds. Shoot this other scene for one and a half seconds. Do this for three seconds and then it cuts it all together and puts music on it into a really fast, beautiful thing. So it'll do all kinds of stuff like that. You can circle around. You can make people make it look like there's a circle going around, and every time it hits part of the circle, you appear again. I mean, it's just crazy stuff like that. But here's the thing. I mean, so if I haven't confused you enough with those kinds of things, just go look up, sample gimbel shots. And I think it's spelled gimbal. I can't remember in YouTube and you'll see all the cool shots you can do with these things.

[00:23:34] I mean, there's going to be hundreds of videos and people bragging about this beautiful shot that they did, and here's how they did it and all that can be very theatrical. In the very cool. But here's the thing. I gave our gamble and I forget what brand it is, but it's good quality, good quality cell phone gimbal to my video guy who's been VIDEO I mean, 20 years, you know? Video Guy. And I said here, figure this out, and let's do some cool shots. All right, so he's, you know, he has to study it like crazy, not only study how to use it, but you must practice like crazy. And if you don't, you're just wasting your money. Because I mean, so so I'm very reluctant to suggest you even get one unless you're such a video fanatic that you're going to use it every day because there's buttons all over it. And to get the shot, you have to know which button to push and how. Like, there's a trigger on this one that we have. If you push it once it does one thing, if you do two two quick things, it does another thing. If you if you push the button three times real fast, it does a third thing, you know, and and and that's just one of the buttons. There's buttons for your thumb, for your forefinger, you know, for other things. And that would be just.

[00:25:03] And then you have the app to tell the gimbal what to do. And I mean, so. So I can't get excited about suggesting this to you unless you're really serious. And if you're really serious. Yeah, you can watch all the YouTube videos and and practice like crazy and learn how to do it. All right. Let's see, Tom, I shoot a lot outside, I'm getting terrible wind noises on my videos. Ok, so yeah, I've I've had lots of experience with outside shooting and a couple of things one you want always. If you're outside, you want to do what, unless it's a super calm day without any background noises. And there's never going to be no background noises unless, I don't know, after a nuclear attack, maybe the whole world is still, but there's going to be birds singing. There's going to be squirrels running up trees, dogs barking. There's going to be. People landscaping cut and grass using blowers. I mean, traffic noise, there's all kinds of stuff. All right. Just besides wind noise. So almost always, unless it's super quiet and you're grabbing a quick shot and you're the the phone is right up against your mouth while you're showing people something all right or you're doing a selfie and it's relatively quiet. You can just use your phone microphone in, it is great they're shooting TV shows with cell phones now, so that's OK. But other than that, you need to to do what we call close miking, and that means you must have like a clip on Mic.

[00:26:57] That's a love. They call it a livelier clip on where it's close to your mouth. All right. And then because as soon as you get more than three feet away, even if you put a tripod up and put your camera on it, the after two or three feet, the audio goes terrible. I mean, it just starts going downhill fast, so you don't want to do that. Now, if it's windy out, usually your microphone will come with a little foam thing that you can put on it. All right, so that'll handle small amounts of wind. Now, the next step up from that is what we call a dead cat, and that's what it's called in the industry, and it's a big it's a fuzzy thing that will go on your microphone and they can be expensive. I mean, for a little one for a lavalier probably not too expensive, but we have big ones that are 50, 70, 80, 100 bucks and they've got this big fuzz all over it and you put the microphone in it. And so that takes higher levels of wind. But if it's really, really windy now, you've got to pull out all the stops. So in that case, you, you know, like we did a thing in December where we were making my fatso tennis video out on the tennis courts and it was cold, windy and we kept trying to get the shot and it was just too much noise.

[00:28:25] So we had to actually put the microphone under my clothes. So my mouth wasn't really going right into the microphone. It was going through several layers of clothes. So we had the dead cat on it and we had it hidden under my shirts. And still there was wind noise because it was so bad, but it was acceptable enough to get by. So, so you have to pay close attention to this. Now, sometimes you can pick a place where you're shooting, which is downwind from where the the wind is hitting. So let's say you could go around the corner of a building so the wind is now hitting the building. And if you stay close to the building, you know it'll knock the noise down quite a bit. So, so those are some things you can do. But yeah, when these are things you have to pay attention to when you're outside, when sun, rain, all kinds of things and we teach you how to deal with all of them at our VIP video weekend. Ok, let's see, my selfie videos are making people nauseous because they're jumping all over the place when I'm walking and talking, what am I doing wrong? Well, my smart aleck answer is, are you sure it's the jumping around that's making them nauseous or your face? For me, it would be my face because I know how to do it without it jumping around.

[00:29:54] Ok, so here you go on selfie videos. First of all, you got to get a good quality selfie stick. I mean, I've actually seen them at the dollar store and they're just terrible. They're skinny. There they are. You know, they flop around and make noise. You try to put your cell phone on it. The cell phone's too heavy and they start to bend a little bit. I mean, yeah, so you get a good quality selfie stick. Now the one, I have several of them, but one of them has a little tiny tripod at the bottom that I can get. I can when it's folded up, I can hold it really good in my big, you know, hand or I can sit at somewhere and put the little tripod out and just sit it somewhere. So that's nice. It's a dual use the selfie stick, and it's a little mini portable tripod. Ok, so then the next thing is is you've got to get the technique down, so the technique is to, you know, a lot of people just hold it out, you know? The bad thing about that is that your arm gets tired, so that creates shake. If they don't have good image stabilization on their cell phone or whatever other camera they're using, I mean, it's going to be heavier if it's a different camera than a cell phone unless it's a GoPro or something. But you know, those are kind of weird for for regular stuff.

[00:31:22] They're good for what? They're good for action stuff. So I don't hold my hand out if I'm using a selfie stick. What I do is I hold my hand down at my hip and hold it against my hip. Or, you know, my side or something, anything that if I'm walking, it's not it's not causing like a rocking thing making the camera move. And then I I extend the selfie stick to where the camera is right at my eye level, and I make sure that the camera is shooting directly on my eye level and not tilted up or down if it's tilting up. It's going to shoot too much sky and look stupid. And if it's tilting down, it looks stupid. So you want the camera with your eye level, so you adjust the length of the selfie stick to make it from your hip directly to your eye level. And then now you've got some your camera stabilization and then instead of your arm getting tired flopping around in the wind, it's got its braced against something and your your selfies will improve like crazy. Now if you do all this and people are still nauseous. Well, it was your face. Okay, so anyway, that's the selfie thing. All right, then, before I tell you the last one, which is just so common a mistake, I want to remind you about our pilot program for persons with disabilities. Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. IMTCVA.org/disabilities. Click on the Go Fund Me campaign. I mean, literally, it's something you can really be proud of because we're changing these people's lives forever. I've I've saved a lot of animals and fed homeless kids and everything. But yeah, it's kind of, you know, sometimes it's kind of a Band-Aid, but this is changing somebody's life forever. And so any little bit you can contribute, we appreciate. And if you're really flush with cash, you could sponsor a person. And I mean, you really change their whole life. So. So and we're also going to use some of the money to hire persons with disabilities to help run the program. Then we're going to call up all the companies and get in with them so that they have a place to work at or if they want to start their own business. I'm certainly qualified to teach them to do that. So I'm really, really proud of this program and you could be two if you help out. All right. So that's I am to receive a mortgage disabilities. All right, so the last one here on ask me a video question is Tom my camcorder is constantly going in and out of focus. What's up with that? Well. But first of all, you probably have it in auto focus and auto mode. Now this is great, a great feature that was invented years ago for people that just want to get some shots of their kids at the Christmas tree, you know, and the kids are running everywhere.

[00:34:45] That's wonderful. But no, no professional shoots in auto mode. They always shoot in manual mode. So you have to figure out for your camera how to use manual mode or or focus lock, which in a lot of like the cell phones, you touch the screen where you want the focus to be, and that's where it locks. So this is really important and this will totally cut out your problem of searching, you know, because as soon as you move, it tries to focus again and then you move somewhere else, it focuses again. That's what that's all about. So you want to shoot in manual mode. You'll find it's so much better now. You're going to have to adjust your focus if the the subject is further away or closer or whatever. But the thing is is you won't have that searching problem and most of the time you're editing these things. And so if you have a different scene, you focus that scene and shoot it and then focus the next scene and shoot it. And then when you edit them together, you don't have all this, this crap of focus going in and out. All right, so that's an easy one, but I got one more. You know, I forgot that I didn't see it here on my notes. What should I wear for professional remote presentations? Well, you can be a little more casual in most cases than before.

[00:36:13] But if you if you wear a suit or if it's a big deal corporate presentation, yeah, you wear your suit and tie. But kind of the same things that I teach for people who are going to be on TV are the same for these remote videos. You don't, although you don't have to wear pants or skirts for these ones, you don't want any close patterns because they create what's called a more' effect, which means that it's shimmers so close patterns in your suit or your tie or your shirts. No, absolutely no. I suggest you don't wear white. We always wear Off-White or blue or gray, because that looks white on video. But White reflects light way more than than you might want to. So that means that however you light yourself when it hits that white shirt or white blouse, then it reflects and makes the iris of the webcam shut down and everything else goes darker. So we suggest powder blue is good gray, beige, anything but but pure white. And then no jangly jewelry that's going to catch the light and be reflective and make noise so you don't want any big earrings that are overpowering. Now this all depends on your shtick. I mean, there's some people I know that their whole shtick is great big flowers and and in their hair and on their dresses and massive costume jewelry. I mean, that's different if you're expected for that.

[00:37:58] Yeah, but the question was professional remote presentation. So other than that, you don't have too much to worry about as you would if you were in a live stage event, because in that case, you have to worry about microphone placement. Your suits big enough so that in the front of your suit, if they put two microphone packs on your belt in the back, it doesn't pull on the front of your suit. Same for ladies. You know, and you've got to think, where am I, where we're going to put these, you know, if you don't, if you have a dress with no belt and is not a skirt, where are they going to hook the microphone packs? You've got to think about these things because what are you going to do? You know, so so ladies on stage need to pay attention to that. We're in the remote presentation. You don't have to worry about that. You're talking into a microphone or your webcam or something and and you don't have those packs to worry about. So. Well, there you go. That's my story. And I'm sticking to it. That's ask me a video question. I invite your questions at Tom@screwthecommute.com and we'll answer them here live. I'll probably answer you personally, but then I collect them all and and help everybody else out with the question without revealing who you are. All right. Get you on the next episode. See you later.

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