Video Skills Update

My January blog post on developing video skills for workshop teaching and YouTube outreach is in need of updating already! 

1.
I splurged (lucked into a sale!) on a great ring-light designed specifically for filming top-down demos.  I'm glad I waited until I'd done some filming without much investment past my DIY equipment.  That way, I knew what my situation and video goals needed. 

The light is super well engineered, and does away with duct tape set-up and take-down, and the difficulties of reaching around a precariously balanced camera tripod to sew.  It’s more for ease of use than any great increase in video quality I think, but I’m really appreciating the ease of use.  (The light is by Canvas, and I am not affiliated with the company in any way.)

The photo above shows the set-up for my new foray into filming for YouTube.  My daughter walked me through the editing and my son walked me through the posting.  I have yet to try all that solo.  ;-)
Preserving Our Quilt Legacy - Hawaiian and Memory Quilts

Looking at the photo shows that the new light was much brighter than the clamp light on the chair on the right.  I'd forgotten that I could adjust the brightness of the new light! to match! 

2.
For broadcasting live demos,  I stopped using the Camo app I described in the previous post.  My daughter taught me the super simple (by comparison) method of using the laptop and phone cameras as two different guests on Zoom.  So I use my laptop as I would for any lecture/meeting, and the phone mounted on the neat new lamp becomes a different guest, looking down at my demo.  The phone sound is turned off and muted so there’s no feedback.  I "Spotlight" the phone camera when doing the demo.  

3.  
I use earbuds/microphone as much as I can when filming.  Seems to make the sound a bit clearer, and also helps filter out background noises.  I still have the plug in kind, so I need to be close to the phone.  I may someday get the wireless kind.  But for top-down demos, I’m sitting right there demo-ing, and for the YouTube video I was holding the phone/camera while filming, so I was close enough to be plugged in.  So the plug-ins are working ok in both situations, so far at least.

At this point, I'm really hoping that I can stop needing to learn more techniques or acquiring more equipment.  Though it's kind of nice to feel a bit competent, I'm really not a techie and don't really want to be.  As my husband notes - I've been busy learning all sorts of things I never wanted to learn!