Timestamp:
Software allows for greenscreen
:43-1:02
Why I don't like greenscreen
1:02-1:31
Why greenscreen may seem easy
1:36-1:50
Studio space feel
1:51 -2:18
Personalized office space
2:18 - 2:58
Customized office space
3:14-3:30
Use lighting to enhance the space behind you
3:42-3:52
What office lighting consists of
3:52-4:11
What is the point of the backlight
4:11-4:39
Different types of lighting for your background
4:39-5:13
Make your office related to your content
6:30-7:02
Use old items related to your niche for props
7:18-7:58
How can you make your space interesting?
9:21-10:01
Lighting can change background appearance
10:01-10:37
Background visual ideas
10:37-11:09
How to open up your office space
11:36-12:06
Using books as filler props for background
12:06-12:15
No Rhyme or Reason
12:15-12:52
Make background space yours
12:52-13:10
Transform Your Office Into A Video Production Studio
Hey, everybody it’s Craig with Clipscribe today, I want to talk about setting up your office space to also be a studio space and some things that you can do to kind of spice it up a little bit.
The other day, somebody posted on our Clipscribe Facebook group, asking how they could get that office background that they see in our tutorial videos. How can they make that background for themselves?
Background Is Important
My own background as if this behind me is a photo and I’m using a green screen. But this is not, this is real, it’s not a photo, it’s an actual backdrop. Now it is possible, of course, many of you know at this point that you can use a green screen background behind you.
And a lot of software allow now you to take out the background on the fly, even if you don’t have a green screen behind you. I’ve done green screens before. I’ve got a big roll of green screen paper here that I bought at our local professional photo store here.
Greenscreen Pros And Cons
I am not a huge fan of green screens. It adds a layer of complexity in order for it to look good. You need to ensure your lighting is spot on, which adds another layer of complexity. It may seem easy, but if you’ve seen a green screen, on zoom or something like that, you can see it, and it’s usually fuzzy around the edges.
So for me personally, because this is a space where I have my office – this is my studio, this is where I work every day, this is where I create video content. It’s a place that I want to feel comfortable, that I want to be happy to be here, but it’s also a place that I want to use to create video content.
Make It Your Own
I wanted to kind of have a unique feel about it when it’s on camera. And so for me having this kind of organic space where I’m not just putting a photo behind me and it’s personalized was a better fit for me, and it might be for you. Now, obviously, if you don’t have a space like this, an office where you can shut the door or where you can be left alone, then that’s totally understandable, but if you do have a spot where you can create content in the same place over and over, I want to give you some tips on things that you can do to kind of spice up your place and make it more friendly to you, but also to your viewers.
I’m just going to talk a little bit about what I’ve done back here, how I personalized this area, some of the things that I did to personalize it and just hopefully that’ll help you out a little bit as you try to do the same thing.
So in the background behind me, I wanted to have a place to put a number of different things, some things that I already had, some things that I literally just fabricated solely for this space right here. I literally bought this bookshelf off of Wayfair I think, or something like that. I thought it was a cool looking bookshelf.
That’s why I bought the bookshelf and I like the shelving and everything. One thing that I did that I recommend is to use lighting to enhance the space behind you. I have a lot of different lights going on back here and the lighting provides a backlight that separates you from the background and in video and film, especially interview type stuff like this lighting is usually made of a key light to fill light and a backlight.
And the whole point of the backlight is to separate you from your background. Putting traditional back light back there. The lighting definitely helps separate you from your background and it also helps for you to be away from your background a little bit. That’s what causes the fuzziness back there because I’m not right up against the wall. If I was back here you wouldn’t really see that kind of depth of field thing back there.
I have literally a mixture of lights – from stuff I bought at Home depot to stuff I bought on Amazon. I bought this one that always turns off, but this is a light that I just purchased and just put a color bulb in it. I’ve got a couple of light bars behind the shelving there. I have another lamp I bought from Ikea. I have these lights here, these shelving lights that I got at home depot and I painted them black. You can even kind of see the wires there but I did my best to hide them.
Include Niche Related Items
This was a fun project for me because I thought what can I do that’s interesting or creative with lamps. So I literally had this camera, this is my dad’s old super eight camera and this thing looks really cool. It’s quite simple like if I push it it’ll probably knock over and fall over because it’s literally just barely put together. I just screwed a hole in it and jammed a light receptacle down in there and put a bulb in it.
This actually has a wifi bulb in it so we can change the colors and everything, so I can kind of make the color where I want it. Then I got my tripod lamp over here, same thing, had an old tripod, turned it into a lamp, taped or screwed a bulb, a receptacle in there and put a bulb in it, got a shade for it.
That was pretty much it. So the thing about both of those is "What am I talking about?". Talking about video? I’m talking about making video content, what does Clipscribe about? It’s a tool to help you maximize the attention you get from your video content and maximize the reach you get from it.
So obviously I’m talking about videos, so I tried to think what creative things I can do that not overwhelmingly screaming "Video" at you, but kind of hints towards what my whole thing is about here.
Those were a couple of fun things. Obviously you see a lot of other photography stuff back here. This is one of my first semi professional video cameras, it’s out of date. I don’t use it anymore. I thought it’d be a really fun book stand and then I have just my camera gear.
I’ve got a number of cameras back here, older models that I don’t use anymore, or lenses. I’ve got a bunch of mini DVD tapes that I don’t use anymore. I have boxes full of this stuff so why not put those out with some lenses, a viewfinder. I just have a lot of this stuff that is related to what I do, but it just kind of makes the background fun back here and it gives some interest to the viewers.
Curiosity = Engagement
It draws people – "Hey, what is that back there?". I think it adds a bit of intrigue to your viewers. I have this camera, kind of old timey, whatever fifties or sixties camera, not a camera clock. I literally bought that off of eBay for a video that I did one time and I had it laying around and I just think it’s a cool retro looking camera. Not much to it, but it just looks cool. Then these pictures are literally stuff just like I printed out some stock photos from online.
I’ve got the Clipscribe logo here. I have another logo for my Craig Lillard site. I have some old kodak, like an old kodak ad up there again kind of hinting towards video or film or imagery and then I just have a photo that I took when I was in panama years ago and it just adds some color and interest, a clock literally from hobby lobby that means nothing.
Just kind of fills in the space. You know, one thing that I had to consider is that I’ve got this blank wall back here and there’s no color in that wall. I’m not going to paint the wall. So that’s a hurdle. You have to jump over how you can make your space more interesting. Even if I put this bookshelf back here and I didn’t have these things on the side, it would be a blank, bland wall.
So you can enhance the color of your background without having to paint. You can either fill it in with pictures or photos of the type of stuff that you want. Honestly, you could take a picture frame and put a blank square of color in it and put a number of those back here and it’s going to be better than just a blank bland beige or white wall.
Lighting Is Your Friend
And then obviously the lighting helps with the color too. You can turn a blank bland wall if you have a strong enough light, a light that’s colored blue or pink or purple – You can completely color your wall behind you and add some interest without having to paint or do anything like that.
Those are some creative ways that you can kind of enhance what’s going on behind you without having to go through a lot of trouble painting, getting all kinds of furniture and stuff like that. Something I’ve done in the past is I went to Home Depot and for one of the first sets I did, I went and I bought fake wood paneling.
It was $60 or something like that. And it made it look like I had a wood wall behind me and I put some shelves in it and I hung some lights down kind of without shades or anything was just cool old timey lightbulbs. There’s all kinds of creative things that you can do to spice up your space, but also make it yours.
Now the reason I took that stuff down is because it looked faded at night. It looked kind of junkie. It didn’t make me super happy about my space. It was great for video because the camera only got that space. So it looked like the whole place looked like that.
You Should Feel Your Space Is Your Own
But I wasn’t, it didn’t feel right to me. A couple other things I did was to mount lights on wall stands, so it keeps my office from having to have light stands all over the place that I’m having to walk around. They’re completely up and out of the way too.
Those are a couple other things that you could do, maybe not right away, but as you work on getting your space a little more interesting and then of course I’ve got some books back.
Books are great, they make the space more interesting. They fill the space with color. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it, but it’s just trying to add interest to the space behind you in the form of color, in the form of things, books, whatever photos, fake photos, you know, real photos, anything to add some color and interest is going to help you out a lot.
Make sure you feel like the space is your own and it’s going to be completely unique, a green screen with a photo behind is achievable by anybody else who could go out and buy that same photo and that’s not super unique. Make the space yours, tie it into who you are and what you like to do. If you can get creative with it, have fun doing it, or just have somebody that can help you get creative and kind of do some neat things with it.
DIY OR HIRE A PRO
That’s also fun and personalizes it as well, so let me know what questions you have. Thanks for reading everybody. I love any comments. Give me some ideas. What have you done? What do you want to do? Do you have any other creative things that you can do that you’ve done in your own space or that you would like to do?
I’d love to hear about it in the comments. And if you have any questions about any of the stuff in the space or what I did or how I did it, I would love to answer those in the comments.
As always check out Clipscribe.Com if you want to take your videos, you want to make them look like this with subtitles and headlines?
Check us out. And other than that, I look forward to see you on another video.