Izzy Video tutorials make it easy to learn video.

I like to convert my living room into a studio for shooting video. Is it a little inconvenient having to move everything around? Yes, I suppose it is. But it works for me for several reasons:

1. I don’t have to drive anywhere. Even if it takes 45 minutes to set up the studio, that’s not much longer than it would take for me to drive to a studio somewhere else. And my living room is certainly a lot more accessible to me.
2. My living room is quiet. The floor is covered with carpet. This helps deaden potential sound problems.
3. I can shoot almost any time I want. If we’re planning on shooting on a Tuesday, but then we push it to Wednesday because we’re not ready yet, I don’t have to worry about rescheduling a rented studio.
4. I can hit the refrigerator between takes. :-)

If I had an extra room that I could set up and leave as a studio all the time, I probably would, but this periodic studio setup just isn’t that difficult, so I don’t mind doing it.

In this week’s video, I’ll show you the whole transformation as I convert my living room into a studio, and then I’ll stop periodically to explain certain items, pieces of gear, and my motivations behind some of the decisions I’ve made.

This is similar to a video I did in the past, but I’ve made changes since then, so I thought an update would be appropriate.

Do you have a studio in your home? I’d love to hear what you do. Please feel free to tell me about it in the comments for this post.

This video is available to members only. To learn how you can gain access to this video as well as all the past videos, please visit the membership information page.

When you start to dig into video, eventually you begin looking to purchase some artificial lights. This can be quite a decision for a couple reasons: 1) They’re very expensive, and 2) There are many, many options.

In this week’s video tutorial, I review several different types of lights, giving my thoughts on each. I show you an example of the kind of tungsten light I use for key and fill lights. I also show you popular fluorescent lights, an HMI light, and even an LED light. LED lights are all the rage right now, but I’ve got a couple problems with them, which you’ll see in this video.

This video is available to Izzy Video member only.

Want to know how to speed up video compression? The week’s members-only tutorial is for those of you who: 1) Use Compressor to transcode videos, and 2) Have more than one core in your computer’s processor.

Many of the recent Macs have more than one processor on their motherboard. This means that you have a lot of potential processing power at your disposal, but not everyone knows how to take full advantage of it. When you do a lot of video compression, it helps to save some time, and in this week’s tutorial, I show you step-by-step how to set up your Mac to maximize video compression using Compressor. This can dramatically speed up the time it takes to transcode video.

It also shows you iStat Menu, an interesting tool you can use to monitor the processors.

This week’s video is only available to members, but I’ll release another free one next week.

Thanks for watching!

One of the big challenges of working with an HD video camera is ensuring the image is in focus. Unfortunately you can’t just rely on the LCD for this, because the actual resolution of the recorded image is much higher than the resolution of the LCD screen. It’s quite possible that the image on the LCD appears to be in focus when the recorded image is blurry.

Luckily HD video cameras have autofocus. The camera automatically focuses the image, and it usually does an excellent job. However there are times when the autofocus doesn’t work:

1. When the subject isn’t in the center of the frame. – Sometimes you want the subject of the image to be off to the left or right of the frame. The problem here is that autofocus adjusts according to what it sees in the center of the frame. If the object in the center is closer or further than the main subject, then the camera will adjust the focus for that object, often leaving the main subject blurry.
2. When somebody or something passes through the frame between the camera and the subject. – I demonstrate this problem in the video, but it’s something that happens a lot. Let’s say you’re at the zoo shooting video of your children with the animals. As people walk through the frame, the camera will autofocus on the people walking by, and then refocus on the children. This gets distracting. It’s a much better image if the people in the foreground remain blurry as they walk through the frame.

In this week’s tutorial I demonstrate several different ways to ensure you have a focused image:

1. Use autofocus when appropriate.
2. Use manual focus when appropriate.
3. Use the ‘focus assist’ function available on many cameras.
4. Zoom in, focus the image, and then zoom out to frame the image, making sure you don’t adjust the aperture.
5. Use the “peaking” function available on many new cameras.

Another thing you can do (and I didn’t include this in the video) is use an externally attached monitor with a bigger image. This can help ensure you’re always in focus.

Few things are as frustrating as shooting some great footage and then later when you’re editing it, discovering that it’s out of focus. It’s inconvenient and frustrating, and if you’re doing commercial work, it’s expensive.

I hope this week’s tutorial helps you make sure you get a focused image.

This video is available to members only. If you’d like to see this video in HD resolution, as well as gain access to the large archive of video tutorials, you can learn about an Izzy Video Membership.