2.3 - Tips for Recording Videos

Lighting

Try to get your camera between you and a natural light source, like a window. Try to avoid only overhead lighting, or recording videos in very dark areas.

Recording with a light source behind you will make only your silhouette visible and students won't be able to see your face.

Angles

Try to get your camera to be level with your eyes or even above you. Avoid having to look down at your camera as you record.

Looking down at your laptop makes it hard for students to see your face and makes you look distorted. Raising your your camera, like with a stack of books, brings your camera level with your eyes and improves your appearance in the video.

Audio

Be sure to speak loudly and clearly towards the microphone in your computer. It might be helpful to use headphones with a built in microphone to cut down on background noise. Or at least try to record videos in a quiet area.

Short & Sweet

Keep videos to no more than 6 minutes each to reduce the cognitive load on students and avoid burnout and overwhelm.

Its better to have five 5-minute videos than one 25 minute video, so think about how your content could be chunked if your video starts getting too long.

Practice

If you've never recorded a video of yourself, or your voice, it will feel very weird and awkward at first. That's okay! Be sure to keep practicing and tweaking your set-up and process to improve your videos. Practice makes progress!