How to Record Self for Promotional Videos
Equipment
Recording Tips
When reading the script and if you are looking directly at the camera, put the words you're reading on a narrow screen and right below the camera lens. If you have a wide screen, people can see your eyes drifting left-to-right as you read. If you have the words too far down the page, your eyes will look down to read. Try putting a laptop with the script right behind the camera. Record yourself reading directly from the script and see how it looks.
Have a lot to read? Take your mouse and place it in your lap, covered by a blanket to muffle any sound, and use its scroll wheel to keep the script's text at the top of the page.
Try to break up the recording into several angled shots. This takes a bit of practice to get right and you'll want a consistent rhythm, tone, and position between each recording. Make sure your hair, clothes, microphone, lighting, and any other props/equipment (excluding the camera, obviously) are the exact same in between shots. Record an entire take from one angle. Then, switch to a different angle and do likewise. Recording different angles allows you to mess up if doing a long take. When you mess up, you can just jump to a different angle for that spot in post production. It also gives more flavor to the shots. Note that this isn't going to work so well if you're green-screening or otherwise altering your background, so only do it if you have a background that works from multiple angles.
Consider hiring a professional videographer, especially if you don't have an ideal location and they do. For getting just the raw footage, it's typically less than $300, but they can usually do all the post production as well for pretty cheap.
Only recording audio? Try recording it in your car. It has surprisingly good acoustics and sound buffering. Surprise surprise. A box that keeps out the thunderhead sound of 80 mph winds is a pretty good audio recording studio...
Last updated