Two things have happened since
I started my studio tour series: one, I've received a lot more
requests for tips and tricks for making or improving
home studios, and two, we're all spending a lot more
time producing content at home. So today, I've gathered
together some of your favourite photo/video YouTubers
to get their tips on improving your studio
and your production. Let's get undone. [offbeat music] ♪ Gerald Undone ♪ ♪ He's crazy ♪ What's happening, everybody?
I'm Gerald Undone and bears. Beets.
Battlestar Galactica. So, in my opinion,
one of the simplest ways you can improve
your productivity and the looks of your studio and shots
is to stay organized. For me, a sloppy workspace
leads to sloppy ideas and sloppy execution. This means putting things
in places that make sense and where you can find them
quickly when you need them. And for the things that
stay out, keep them tidy, keep your cables managed,
and your equipment secured. Something that can really
come in handy in this pursuit are clamps.
You can get an eight-pack of clamps like these
for as little as 10 to 15 dollars,
and they're infinitely useful. The same goes
for Velcro cable ties. Velcro is definitely
an unsung hero of a good studio. What is up, people? Dunna here
from the channel Dunna Did It, and I have a little studio hack
that I absolutely love, and it has to do with something that
we deal with pretty regularly. -And that, of course, is Velcro.
-[Velcro ripping] Turns out, it's not just
for old people's sneakers. You can pick up strips of Velcro
that have adhesive on the back of them, and you can stick
them to all sorts of things! You can use them to tuck
away cables, you can use them to secure a power bar to the
side of your desk, maybe stick your solid-state drive
to the back of your laptop. One of the things that I really
love about this type of Velcro is that it's a lot
stronger than, let's say,
something like gaff tape. I can't count the amount
of times that I've tried to gaff tape something up, and it keeps
falling down over and over. A couple of pieces of Velcro?
No problem. You can pick them up
in little squares like this, or you can get a big ol'
roll of it and use it by just cutting it down
as you need it. And the best part is,
you can just take those things off and put them back on
whenever you need to. Also, you got to admit,
Velcro is oddly satisfying. [Velcro ripping] -Alright!
-[Gerald] You know, going back to my clamps,
it was actually Dunna who showed me that clamps
make for clever and versatile little headphone hangers,
like this. Anyway, so you've got
your studio all organized, but have you given any thought
to the wall behind you? Because you should. I'm Becki from Becki and Chris,
and today my tip-- or studio hack,
if you will-- is to pick a background colour that is
a different tone than your skin. You watch our channel,
you'll notice that most of our backgrounds are either black
or really, really bright white, and that is because
my skin looks... not good on a lot of other
colours, so I choose colours or tones that are
completely opposite my skin. So when I choose
a white background, I'm choosing a white
that's a cooler white, that has
blue undertones in it, not yellow because my skin
against a cream wall just-- it blends in. You can't even
see my face. It's just, like, lips and eyeballs,
and just, like, flat. Or I'll choose a black
or a grey neutral because I prefer neutrals.
So, if you are making over your studio space
or you're picking a little corner in your house
to paint for a background, consider choosing a colour
that you like that matches your brand or a different tone
than your skin. Trust me,
you'll thank me later. Trying to colour-correct
skin tones when your skin matches the wall is,
like, impossible. Also, if you are painting,
make sure you choose a flat
or a matte paint. Eggshell, or semi-gloss,
or even satin paint will reflect the light a little bit more,
and you'll see shine on the wall, so flat paint,
matte paint will cut down on the reflection, especially
if you're using lights. Make sure you get
a good quality paint. This is not sponsored,
but I always recommend Benjamin Moore Regal Select
in matte finish. It's wipeable, and I just
find it goes on like butter. I have not used any other
matte paint, so I cannot vouch for any other brand,
but that is my favourite. I hope
that tip was helpful! And, uh, thanks, Gerald,
for including me in your video. That wall colour thing is
so true and such a great point. I've been in that situation many
times with cream-coloured walls, where you try and adjust your
skin tone, and your wall turns green. Or you lower
the saturation of your face, and all of a sudden, you're
in a black-and-white movie. Love that tip. OK, so at this
point, I was gonna show you some tips from Tommy Calloway,
but I got an email telling me that he dead-dropped the footage
on a flash drive as part of his new safety protocols, and he
just sent me the coordinates, so I gotta go get that now.
Give me about 15 minutes. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ Luckily, I was able to
retrieve it using stock footage. Which is convenient
because this video is sponsored by Storyblocks.
And this counts as one of my tips because right now, it's
incredibly challenging to get a lot of the supplementary shots
you might need to finish your project, especially
when working from home. But even in normal
circumstances, it can often be budgetarily
or logistically unfeasible to acquire
those ideal shots. Well, Storyblocks has
you covered with an impressive collection of stock footage
covering a wide range of subjects with unlimited
downloads and 4K video. They're also amply supplied
with backgrounds, overlays, and After Effects templates,
and the interface is easy to use and navigate,
and the clips are royalty-free for both personal
and commercial use, so you can use them as much
as you want, wherever you want. So if you think you could take
advantage of a fantastic library of quality stock footage
and effects, check out Storyblocks using the link
in the description below. Alright, now let's see
what Tommy put on this thing. I always use my own
quick-release plates, regardless of what system
I'm attaching my cameras too. Tripods, gimbals, sliders. I use the little
Manfrotto RC323, or 232, I don't remember which one
it is, but I buy these things basically in bulk and attach
them to everything that I get, because, I mean,
having to switch between different quick-release plates
with different things is really, you know,
time-consuming and irritating. Everyone should have a grey card
because white balance. But two,
if you put it on a light stand, if you're using a manual
focus lens, you can use this little target to manually
focus from behind the camera and then walk over in front
of the camera and do your shot. And if you use the white balance
card as your stand-in, you know that you have a good shot of
a grey card for white balance. And my last tip for making
life easier around my studio is wall-mount all the lights,
and whatever you can't put on the wall,
stick it on wheels. You clear up a ton of floor
space, and it's just so much easier to reorganize and get set
up when everything's on wheels. Yeah, that's probably
my favourite tip: put everything on the walls,
and if you can't get it on the walls,
put it on wheels. That walls and wheels thing
definitely plays into the concept
of staying organized, but I really like the
white balance stand-in idea. That's pretty useful
if you're shooting by yourself. And speaking of white balance,
if you learn how to do it correctly,
then you can do some pretty great stuff with
lighting on the cheap. So I think one of the
easiest ways to make my studio look a little bit more
interesting on the cheap is... I use practicals everywhere. That's a practical. An ordinary incandescent bulb
is a great way to add a little bit of interesting
depth to your shot. The one behind me on the wall,
this is kind of, like, adding a little bit
of dimension, but also information about me,
about my character. You know,
there's things on the wall, it looks
kind of utilitarian and... There's--
like, these are my tools, and "What kind
of tools is he using?" Right? It kind of tells
a little bit about me. So if you have an extra light,
like, you know, an Aputure MC or a Yongnuo LED,
you can motivate the practical. You can make it into
a rim light, or an edge light, and make it-- make you pop out
from the background even more. So now we put it over there,
and it kind of looks like it's motivating
that practical. But if we move it
on this side, it'll look like
it's motivating that practical. Right, and so now,
there's like this nice, orange glow
around me. It's-- it makes it look
a little bit more dimensional. Right? So practicals...
that's kind of their job. Their job is to hide extra
lights, but sometimes, you know, if the room is, you know,
not as big as this room, the practical is gonna
be giving you the light, and that's OK too!
Incandescent bulbs are actually pretty
colour-accurate. As long as your
white balance is set, you're not gonna have all these
crazy spikes of green or magenta that kind of plague
cheaper LEDs. So, incandescent bulbs
are pretty awesome... if you know how
to use them right. OK, so we've got an
organized space, nice walls, and dynamic lighting,
but what about sound? One of the biggest changes
you can make to your studio that your audience
will appreciate is taking care
of their ears. A lot of us are working
in spaces that are not acoustically treated,
and I think that one of the biggest things
you can do is acoustically
treat your space. Now, it doesn't have to
be anything super expensive. You can,
I mean, if you're all-in, you can go get some custom
bass traps for your space. That's gonna be the number one
thing you could do. But if you don't have
the money for that, and I understand
if you don't, sound blankets can be
a great choice as well. My number one studio tip
is going to be sound blankets. I use tons of them.
For around 30 to 50 bucks, you can pick up
an 80 x 80 inch. They don't look as fancy
as Gerald Undone's sound panels, but they do the trick,
and you can store them easily. I've put them on rolling stands
so I can move them around. [slightly echoey] So to give you
an idea of what this actually sounds like,
I'm in an area of the studio that has no tiles,
or no blankets, nothing at all,
just a normal office room. And now I'm gonna walk toward
the area where I normally sit. By the way, I'm just
using the built-in microphone on the GH5 to even let you
know how great this is without -a special microphone.
-[clearer, more focused audio] So, now I'm in a spot where
I normally sit to film videos. This is what it sounds like
with blankets. Checking one, two. [echoey]
Check one, two, three. [focused] Check one, two, three. [echoey]
Check one, two, three. [focused] So, that was
the built-in microphone. Throw a decent
microphone into the mix, -and things just sound amazing.
-The first question that'll come up: "well, can't I
just use furniture pads?" Of course.
You can use any blanket you have available to you
or that you can afford. However, there are some
advantages to sound blankets. Number one, these are black
on one side, white on the other, so you can use them also
for your lighting design. But more importantly, they are
much denser than furniture pads. Furniture pads and moving pads
are made to be lightweight and yet protect your furniture.
These are much, much heavier. You can put them up on C-stands if you can't
leave them up permanently, but they will make a world
of difference in your studio and make it much easier
on the ears of your audience. I'm not sure if you've ever had
one of those "Aha!" moments, and you're thinking
to yourself, like, "Why wasn't I
doing this before?" Or, "Why didn't
I think of this?" Now, I'm gonna preface
by saying that this is not my idea,
and I actually took it from Caleb Pike
from DSLR Video Shooter. He actually came up
with this thing, and it saved me
a ton of time. It's actually this
contraption that you see here. It's basically
this RØDE microphone arm attached to
a moving light stand. It's brilliant,
but the idea is that whenever
you're checking your frame, and the freaking
microphone is in frame, you can easily-- I mean,
I know this has happened before, and I apologize if the, uh, audio changed because
it's a lot closer to my mouth, but you can just look at
your frame and then... boop! It's out of frame! It's that
simple! I know, I know. Boom! Of course, even if you go
all out on sound treatment like I tried to here,
it's not going to stop your neighbours or the outside
world from ruining your shoot. So, to maintain your sanity
in those situations, it's a good idea to develop
a flexible workflow. Mmm. I know, right?
It's as if I work for this guy! Like, what do you want next?
Do you want me to fold your laundry for you,
Mr. Ger-- Having a flexible workflow
is very important because sometimes, the plans
you make will not go as planned. For example, my upstairs
neighbour is an actor/singer. The guy over there
is a perfectionist musician, he practices a song
all day long, for days, and then he perfects-
he makes it perfect! A costume designer over there,
you never know. You never know. Plumber, leaf blowers,
this and that. And some days-- you may not notice about me,
but I'm a very emotional person. I like flowers,
poetry, and [bleep]. So, sometimes, some days,
you don't want to do this. You know, some days
you just want to be quiet. So having a flexible
workflow means, if I can't do this,
I'll work on my script. If I cannot work on my script,
if it is ready, for example, I can work on the beauty shots. Because it is much better
to have something in hand than waste the entire day. Like,
for example, this. Hey, moms,
you're still there? Our last tip comes from
a creator who refuses to send his footage in 24fps, even though this entire
project is in 24p. But he does have some
great advice about the ongoing quest to improve your studio
and finished product. My tip is, always be iterating,
always be innovating on your current
studio space. You don't necessarily
always have to buy new gear. You don't always have to buy
new tech or cameras... Some of us have a harder time
of that than others... but just take what you have
and always try to find new ways to make it better. Like, this
shot that you see right here is a shot that I use all the
time for, like, my talking-head videos, but all of the stuff
built around it has changed, like, three or four times
in just like the last two weeks, ‘cause I'm always trying
to gain efficiency. And you gotta do that.
You get-- take your current studio spot,
take all of these other tips that people
are giving you today, and iterate on them just
a little bit at a time, and then you can mould it into
a better solution for working in a smaller space,
or working in any kind of space. There you go. And I think that's
a perfect note to end on. If you asked any of the
creators featured here today, or even look back at
the previous work. Links to all their channels
in the description below. It's clear that this process
takes a long time. Like anything that involves
self-improvement, it's a marathon,
not a sprint. Don't go crazy trying to perfect
everything the first time, and don't let the pursuit
of that perfection stop you from getting
your work out there. Because if there's one thing
I can guarantee you, it's that no matter how hard
you work to do everything right, even if you think
you absolutely nailed it, in a few months, you're
gonna look back on that work, think it was terrible, and start
the process all over again. And that's probably
a good thing. But I do hope this video
helped save you some trial and error and maybe a bit
of frustration along the way. Anyway, I hope that--
I hit all my cords, ‘cause I have
the jankiest setup right now. You'll look
a little bit more... pizzazzo!
That's not a word. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪
