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A Guide to Filming Yourself

3 steps to better home videos

01.

Setting up

We recommend using your phone 📱 to record yourself. This gives us good quality footage in the quickest time possible. If you are able to, please use the rear camera on your phone and ask someone to hit record and tap on your face to focus it. In this first section we’re going to talk about camera settings, phone positioning, lighting and audio tips to ensure your footage is as good as possible.

Camera Settings ⚙️

Using the correct camera settings will allow for the best results possible! We recommend choosing 1920 x 1080 30fps (1080p at 30fps) in your camera settings. This means that you will be recording in high definition, and it makes it much easier for us to edit.

To check what settings your camera is using please follow the step by step guides ➡️

Click/tap on the images to enlarge

Press on the images to enlarge 

Phone Positioning 🤳

Good composition within the frame is really important! Here’s some quick tips to help you out:

  • Have your phone in landscape orientation and not portrait. We’re not looking for any selfie videos!
  • Try and position yourself in the centre of the frame with your eyes on the top third line and your head level with the camera
  • If you’re hair is cut off at the top of the frame, you’re too close – move backwards until there is about 1 inch to 2 inches above your head
  • Try and look at the camera, so that your eyes are looking at the viewers. It might help to place a small dot of blu tac or something similar next to the camera for you to focus on
  • If you don’t have a suitable device/tripod to hold your phone, try using a piece of blue tac to stand it up

Lighting 💡

Good/bad lighting will significantly change the way your video looks. Bright pixels = sharp pixels, and so to make sure you are in focus and nice and sharp, we encourage you to make sure that your face is lit up well.

Choose a filming location that is bright – in front of a window, outside (try not to have your face in direct sunlight or you will be squinting), a well-lit room etc. Natural light is the best light, so we’d definitely suggest finding a window to sit in front of. However, avoid sitting with your back to the window or light – your face will be dark and the background will be too bright!

Audio 🔊

Poor audio can be very distracting for the audience, and we would suggest that getting as good quality audio as possible is even more important than lighting and video quality! Before recording it is important to think about how your video sounds.

Listen out for some noises in the background (like a fridge humming, road traffic etc) and try and move away from these noises if you can. Find somewhere that’s relatively quiet so that the audio is as good as possible.

Check to see how echoey the room is – if the room echos a lot, try and find another room that doesn’t echo as much.

02.

Presentation and Delivery

Now that you are all set up, you’re almost ready to go! We just want to give you a few pointers about your delivery and presentation. This will help you to be as engaging as possible for your audience.

Expressions 😀

It’s really difficult to be as expressive as you would normally be in person when you’re on camera… in fact one of the things we always suggest is to try and be over expressive! Big smiles, facial expressions, hand movements, wide eyes… if you feel silly and uncomfortable, you’re probably doing it right! The golden rule is that if someone was to pause your video at any point, your face should look silly – that’s how you know you’re being expressive enough!

Keep it Real 👍🏼

Being in front of a camera can be really awkward; you suddenly forget everything you were going to say, panic, and before you know it you’re on take 9 and still haven’t finished the sentence before you crack up laughing! Try and keep it real…  Act as if you would when you’re at home, because you are! Don’t feel the pressure to deliver a perfect take every time, people like it when you are natural and yourself. Take a few deep breaths, relax, and enjoy yourself! And remember.. practise makes perfect.

Visualize talking to someone 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧

It’s hard speaking/preaching/talking to an empty room… actually it’s really weird! Try to picture the people you’re talking to. Imagine you’re talking to an audience and deliver the message to them. If it helps, get someone from your household to watch/listen, and try speaking to them (while looking at the camera, of course)!

03.

Sharing

Once you’ve finished filming, you need to send your files to the media team. Due to large file sizes, it can be tricky to work out the best way to do this. Below you’ll find some instructions for the best way to send the files to us, either vis iCloud (iPhones) or Google Photos (Android Phones).

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Share via iCloud:

  1. Open up the photos app and find your video file.
  2. Tap on the video, then tap on the share icon in the bottom left corner
  3. Swipe upwards until you see an option called ‘Copy iCloud Link’. Tap on that. This will copy a link.
  4. Open up an email or an iMessage to the media team and tap where you want to type a message. You see the paste option come up. Tap on paste and it should paste the link.

Share via Google Photos:

  1. On your mobile device, open the Google Photos app.
  2. Select a photo, album, or video, and tap ‘Share’.
  3. Tap Create Link.
  4. Open up an email and paste in the link. Send that email to the media team.

Send your video files to:

media@livingrock.church