You Ask, I Answer: Recommended Setup for Webinars?

In today's episode, Paul asks, what's your recommended audio, video, and lighting setup for webinars and events? Well, this is a great question, and it's less about the gear and more about how you use the gear. Like cooking, for example, a master chef can do amazing things with the stuff in anybody's household. Whereas someone who's incompetent can be put in a five-star kitchen and still burn water. So let's talk about a few things.

Number one, audio. As David Temess over at uh Kinoei teaches, uh, great video begins with great audio. You want to get the microphone near your mouth. Now, if you're using a a boom mic like this, uh with which is uh this this particular mic has a cardioid mic, um, it picks up the sound right here. No sound here, but you have to know the c kind of microphone you're using.

There are some microphones where the element is not on the top, it's actually on the side. And so read the manual to make sure where your microphone's element is that's actually picking up your voice. Now with a microphone like this, you want to test. You turn on a video recorder like this and test to see how you sound because it will sound different in different places. Let's bring up his diagram here.

You can see there's nine numbers I put on this diagram. Uh the nine different places you could position this mic. What you want to do is turn on a video recorder like this and test it. Position one, position two. This is probably you'll never use this.

Position three, position four, position five, position six, position seven, position eight, position nine. And then you'll go back and watch the video, listen to the video, and see how each position sounds and get a sense of okay, that's where I want my mic. If you don't have a windscreen on your mic, you want one. Because what you don't want to hear is breathing. Most if you look back at this chart, position five and position eight are where this mic tends to work best.

But position five, you will hear breathing. Even with a windscreen, you'll still hear it. Position eight down here by your chin, with it still aiming at your mouth, is the probably the best position for this mic. Regardless of the microphone type you own. Like, you know, you have it.

This is an example of a boom mic. You know, positions two and five are probably the best positions for it. You want it near your mouth, and you want it aimed at your mouth. Wherever the microphone element is, aim it at your mouth. So that's audio.

Again, you don't need expensive gear, you just need to use it well, use it properly. Two, lighting will do more to improve video quality than pretty much any camera. People are like, what camera should I get? Yeah, what's the best camera? If the light sucks, it doesn't matter.

Uh you can even, there are systems, there's software that you can use your smartphone as a webcam for for recording a video. These cameras work great in good in good light. In crap light, they work terribly. It's one limitations of this type of camera. If you have a webcam, either built into your computer or into into you have a separate one.

Again, great lighting matters. Let's look at three examples. This is just a single overhead light. You can see, looks terrible, right? This is an overhead light, and the the the ring light that is uh in in my particular camera.

So there's two points of light. You can see it's better, right? It's better, but it's not great. Now I have a a cheap yard sale lamp. I got it like off the side of the street somewhere for like a dollar with a a naked bulb on it, nothing fancy, just a standard light bulb overhead at about 45 degree angle from me.

This is what I mean, this is what you're seeing me with this video on now. You can see there's a world difference, even between a two-point setup and a three-point setup. So you want that three-point lighting setup. Simple overhead light to fill out the background, right? Uh a light in front of you, and then this strong overhead light that put creates very pleasing shadows.

Now, where you put the camera matters too. There's fundamentally three levels you can put it at. You can put it at above your head. This is what it looks like when people are looking you'll the camera's looking down on you. There's at or near eye level, which is where I prefer to have the camera, and then there's people who put the camera super low where you're looking up somebody's nose.

This is not a good look. Most laptops, if you're using the webcam on the laptop, the laptop is down, looking up your nose. The angles are wrong. You you it's unflattering for some people, uh, and it just looks weird. Uh it it it creates this impression the person's looking down upon you, right?

This is not a uh something you want. If you look at how, for example, most news broadcasts where they're trying to portray the person in a neutral friendly light, it's at eye level. You're looking at a person eye to eye. And you want to create that same impression. So if you have a laptop and you're using the laptop as your as your camera source, stick something under it, stick some books, uh, milk crate, whatever you got, anything to get it to roughly about eye level.

I or just slightly above eye level is is where I like to aim things. When you're doing instructional things, if you're doing a a straight live stream, uh, it's okay to have the camera be dead center with you, right? This is this is me dead center. If you're doing instructional stuff like this, where you want to have space, try and have the camera slightly offset so that you have space to display images, picture in picture stuff if you're doing that kind of thing. Um I also tend to personally like to have the camera at an angle.

You can see this is a standard bookshelf, so you get the vertical lines okay, but the horizontal lines are at an angle. It it gives you depth and perspective. If you shoot against a straight background, like where you're just straight against the wall, the background doesn't really pop out because there's no depth, it's just a big flat space. Even if there's books and decorations on it, it still looks very flat. So having your camera at an angle to your background uh creates a sense of depth and a sense of space.

Be aware, if you care about these things, of what's in your background too. If you look down here, I got a uh milk crate with some wires that are sticking out, right? If I was doing a uh a segment where I was gonna be on like broadcast TV, I might want to clean up some of that stuff, right? Um when you're on camera, wear stuff that is not busy, right? Wear planes, uh uh limited patterns, no plaid, right?

No paisley, uh things that the cameras, depending on the quality of your camera, it may not be able to pick up well. But again, it's less about the gear and more about how you use the gear. Inexpensive lights, like we're talking, you know, go on Craigslist since he was throwing away a free lamp, right? Um simple, simple stuff. Keep it simple and instead focus on how you're using it.

What angle is the camera at? Where is the microphone placed? Uh how you lighting the room, that's gonna give you the most mileage for the gear you've got to create better quality video. And obviously, if you want to spend money and and you've got the money to spend on high-end gear, great, go for it. But take care of the surroundings and take care of the environment first.

It's going to give you much better bang for the buck. So, good questions on this fun and challenging topic. Live video, any kind of video, is is tough for a lot of people because they're very concerned about how they uh portray themselves. Totally get it. Um, but use these tips to make the most of what you've got.

Make the most of what you got. If you have follow-up questions, leave them in the comments box below. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and the newsletter, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Want help solving your company's data analytics and digital marketing problems?

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