Overview

When creating video for your course, there are some best practices to keep in mind in order to produce higher quality content. You can watch the following video which walks through some great steps to take when recording your own video and audio while also seeing what video and audio looks/sounds like without these tips:

General Considerations

1. Prepare some general talking points for yourself, but don't stick to an exact script. You'll want to sound well-prepared and organized without being robotic and pre-scripted.
2. Test beforehand: Before recording, conduct a few test runs to make sure your setup looks OK and that you know how to start, stop and save your recordings.

Audio Tips

1. Use a headset or an external microphone.
   1. When using an external microphone, make sure your mouth is 3-6 inches away from the capsule of the mic (easy rule of thumb for this is putting two fists in between you and the mic.)
   2. Speak over/past the mic rather than directly into it. Air hitting the capsule directly causes unwanted bumps in the recording.
2. Pick a quiet spot to record with no distractions (listen for ambient noises).
   1. Rooms with a lot of items/textures around or with carpeted floors are great for recording:
      1. Having more surfaces around means your voice bounces and fizzles out on those surfaces rather than feeding back into the microphone
      2. For example, having a bookshelf near your recording spot is great for this!
3. Set the gain level of your mic according to your space:
   1. Keeping gain low helps remove unwanted room noise and ambient sounds from the recording
   2. It is important to keep the gain just low enough to where you are sufficiently audible when you are speaking
      1. Don’t turn up the gain to compensate for speaking quietly. Project!
      2. If you don’t have physical gain control on your microphone or headset, you can do it through your system. Refer to the video to learn how to set gain in Windows PCs.

Video Tips

1. Check your angle of your webcam (reference the image above). Raise it to eye level. Books are great for this! 
2. Clean Backgrounds
   1. Ensure that your background is clear of any visual distractions (e.g., writing on a whiteboard).
   2. If you are using a virtual background (including a blurred background), Zoom will provide much better quality and consistency than EchoVideo.
3. Light Sources
   1. Face towards windows or strong light sources
      1. Having light sources behind you will leave you underexposed and blow out the background
      2. If the subject of the video is underexposed, it is visually more tiring because our brains will need to do more work to decipher the necessary visual information.
   2. Have a lamp nearby to remove shade as necessary
      1. Not always needed, but having a lamp around where the camera is placed can be the simplest way to light yourself if you don’t have access to natural light from windows.
      2. Alternatively, having it on the side where your face is in shadow can help with lighting.