hey how you doing welcome back this is a video all about how to light yourself when you're making a really basic video don't have any of the fancy stuff I've got a big light up here I've got two lights back here let's take a look at them I'll grab my osmo pocket 3 so I've got this great big light up here that lights me that's called my key light it sets right next to the camera here at a 45° angle if I spin that around I've got a light back here hidden by this bookshelf in my main shot which actually casts this light onto the wall right here to separate me from the background a little bit I've got this light over here on my desk which is actually acting as a desk light but really it's a video light again to just make the background pop a little bit it can be a little confusing huh that's one two three lights what if you don't have one light let's literally leave all these lights behind right now and I'll show you let's head over this way let's bring this camera with us it's going to show us exactly where we're going what do I have right here a window yep that's right it's a window and look this is it this is how simple it can get um all you need is a great big source of natural light like a window like this and it is the simplest and easiest way to light yourself we could actually even forget all the professional lighting that I have there behind me and for the purposes of this video why don't we do that right now okay so here we go here I am I'm in basically a dark room with only the window Illuminating me I've got this nice even light across my face which looks pretty good I think like it's not too bad it's not the most flattering light but we'll jump into that in a second if you're in a pinch you need to light yourself this is the first step now before you run away and record your next YouTube video there's one more thing we want to do the the background looks a bit flat a bit dark a bit dingy so how do we counter that well what we do is we just turn a couple of lights on and now I'm not talking about my professional video lights I'm just talking about the lights that are in the room I'm going to get Siri help here let's see if he can help me hey Siri turn on my lamp you notice it adds a bit of definition a bit of depth right there but now this side is a little bit dark so what I'm going to do is try and put a light on over there look at the little monitor here to check it as I go it's always worth looking at how things look through the screen on your camera and not just relying on how things look through your eyes can things can look different on camera than they do Through Your Eyes okay hey Siri turn on my cinema lamp there we go so it's illuminated that area over there a little bit I think that one actually needs to be a bit brighter hey Siri Cinema lamp 50% so with those two lights on the background has a bit of depth and a bit of sort of a sense that something's there it just doesn't look dingy and boring um but it's not taking over the shot and then I'm completely illuminated by the light outside what I can experiment with doing as well is I've got these curtains now obviously on camera I'm not going to cover the camera up but if I bring this back like this then what I can do is I can pull the curtains backwards and forwards to see how the light changes on my face face there now I'm actually suspecting I'm filming in a log profile which makes their picture on the screen look very very flat but I actually suspect that light might be better I'm going to roll with this light just for the purposes of the video I'm going to open these curtains up nice and wide the next thing you can do then with your light in the background with your light hitting you I'm standing about an arms length away from this window just for your reference um but don't use an arm necessarily just use what looks good on your face and obviously you don't want to be too close to the camera that and chop the top of your head off and things like that if you want to do framing check out my framing video but what we're going to do now is give my face a bit more definition at the moment it's very evenly lit there's not much shape to it to add a little bit of contouring and to thin yourself out a little bit if you need to um I'm in my 40s I probably need to even on this wide lens um if you turn your face a little bit and if you look what's happening to the light on my face this side's illuminated this side isn't so much and what that does is it has a sort of a natural thinning effect if you like on camera which is really really nice for anyone who's advancing in their years like I am who am I kidding the 40s isn't that old it's the new 20s or something that's what all the 40-year olds keep talking about anyway but anyway what it does is it helps just give my face a little bit more definition and a little bit more shape but without having to use professional lights and know how to use them so practice with that just turn around like go a 45° angle to your light source most of the time but there's no right or wrong it's whatever looks good for your face but 45 tends to be a pretty common solid angle to use that's what most people suggest for cinematic lighting instead of high quality interview lighting that term cinematic gets overused a lot let's just say high quality for the purpose of this video so what do you think do you like this shot better I actually quite like that but not necessarily the background I like the background there even with the mess and my TV and all that sort of stuff but hopefully you get what I'm talking about it is literally this easy using just the lights in my house and a window to light myself really really well now for a lot of people they don't necessarily have all their furniture and their camera set up and whatever they want in front of a window it might necessitate a little bit of extra setup or using a tiny little camera like the one I've got in my hand right here just to get yourself in front of a light source but it's incredibly powerful thing to do once you get outside once you start using natural light it can be far easier I'm going to tackle all the pitfalls of filming outside in another video that's coming very soon but for now that is some really simple really easy indoor lighting to help you with your YouTube setups your work calls whatever else find a nice source of light so a window um or a nice bright light that doesn't cast a color on your face when I say cast a color by the way I'm talking about that yellowish color from bulbs like that um that might make you look a bit yellow or might make you look a bit blue if it's fluorescent lighting so look at the quality of lighting on your face and how your camera deals with it and then ultimately I'd say try and go for a bit of Contour I do like that if I was going to spend more time on this shot i' probably put some more lights to light up that bookshelf I get rid of this curtain somehow push it out of the way somehow or reframe myself a little bit there we go stun to get there I'd make sure that that television wasn't in the background I can stand there to hide it I think I'm coming up with a pretty good shot for one of my next videos anyway I'm not going to make you watch the whole thing of that that's it that's how simple it is to light yourself these lights that I've got set up here as you can see they were just mimicking what I was able to do with natural daylight from the window and a couple of Lights I switched on in the background in fact the lamp right next to me is still on now and kind of giving me a warm glow I might use that again in the future so that's really basic lighting hope you enjoyed that I hope it was helpful stay tuned subscribe for more like this and for even more in-depth deep dives into creativity inspiration the processes of others and me profiling some of the great creatives like Anthony Bourdain you can check out that video um on my channel as well um who have inspired me to do my work take care see you soon bye [Music] the