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Chapter 9 Shooting Semi-Pro Videos 97

Lighting

One of the easiest ways to make your videos look more professional is to improve
the lighting. Videos shot with existing indoor lighting typically look dark and
grainy, and have trouble reproducing correct colors. You’d be surprised how much
of improvement you get by shining more light on the subject.

To this end, you want to supplement your existing internal lighting with some sort
of auxiliary lighting. You can go with a camera-mounted light, like the one in
Figure 9.5, or a more versatile multi-unit lighting kit, like the one in Figure 9.6. I
like going the lighting kit route, with either two or three external photofloods; this
provides the most versatility and best results for lighting just about any kind of
scene. And you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg for this, either; you get a cam-
era mounted light for under $5, and a decent lighting kit for $150–$200.

Figure 9.5 Sima’s Universal Pro LED camcorder light.

Seamless Background

When you’re planning your videos, think about where the subject will be sitting or
standing, and what’s behind him or her. You don’t want to position the subject in
front of an open window or cluttered bookcase, which can be distracting to the
viewer.