- If you want to look
good in Zoom and on video, lighting is key. And if you've seen this
video from me right here, you'll know that I recommend
a big giant window. But what if you don't
actually have natural light or you live in a small
New York City apartment where the light never touches your skin? Or maybe you have to make calls at night. Well, never fear, this video is for you. I have a cheap and
beautiful lighting solution that will make you sparkle to the gods all for just under $100. So you can go from drab to fab. Yeah. And if we're just meeting, hi, I'm Gina. I'm a photographer and educator, and my favorite thing in
life is empowering people to feel like they are
a bad ass showing up, doing all the things,
taking up all the space, and contributing meaningfully. And in this world, it
means doing so on video. So I love teaching people tips and tricks to level up their video quality. And I have to say, I
am so glad you found me here on this little corner of YouTube, and I have a favor to
ask before we get going. Any engagement you can offer on this video really help support me and my channel and helps videos get seen. So if you can like this video, comment, or even share it with a
friend, that would be the best. I will love you forever
and like you for always. Okay, I'll see you in Zoom. As you can see, this is why
I recommend natural light. Look at how beautiful this looks. And then, this is a little power trick, is that I have this little
piece of reflective material. It's just a little board
from a craft store. You could also get some
tin foil on some cardboard, pop it in here, and boom, little bit of highlight from the bottom, big, beautiful window,
looking looking good. But today is not about the
big, beautiful window light, it's about what to do
if you don't have that. So let's take it away. I'm gonna be using V-Flats, which are something we
use in photography a lot. They're basically giant foam board pieces that are black on one
side, white on the other. I'm gonna use this to block my window. (percussive music) In photography we use these all the time. What's so cool is that before you used to have to try to
transport these big things when you needed them anywhere. But this company called
V-Flat World have made them so they break down like
that so you can really like transport them. So I'm gonna put this
in front of my window. (upbeat music) Wow, that was a mission and a half. You can see all of that grain. And especially if you
look in the transitions like around my eyes, the
way we can think of that, is that it's like the
equivalent of straining to see something. When we see grain show up, It means that the exposure or the amount of light in the frame is outside of the sweet
spot for your webcam. This is really just
not doing me any favors at all whatsoever. Even with my really high quality camera. If you look right up here, you can see like my
forehead and hair dancing. Which means there's even grain happening in this super high quality camera. And this lighting is just, ugh. I'm gonna show you my
favorite lighting set up but first I need to teach you a little something about light so you know what it is we're looking for. A lot of you have asked
me what light should I buy and the truth is there are many different types
of lights that you can buy that will probably be pretty good, but in order to get
really beautiful light, really, there are lots of options as long as it is a SAIL light. What's a SAIL light? Well, it's an acronym that I made up that stands for Soft, Angled
from above, In front and Large. As long as that light source has those four things going for it, odds are it's going to be a pretty great light source for you. This is why when people ask
about the little laptop lights or ring light or things like that, a lot of times I say no, and it's not that you can't
have those lights work for you. It's just more that those
lights are not going to fill in the shadows and look as
flattering as a SAIL light, which brings me to the
point of this video. My favorite DIY beautiful, gorgeous light that we're borrowing from
the movie industry today. In film, it's been used for decades. And it's often referred to
as either a globe light, a balloon light or a China ball. One quick note chiming in from the future. That last term, isn't one
I think we should be using. Hollywood has a very nasty history of being culturally insensitive, taking advantage and cultural stereotyping and a lot of Eurocentric
prejudice behavior that's not really cool and I think that name is a part of it. In this case, we're going to call it the Gia Ball. (laughs) Should we call it that? Okay. Yeah, I think so. She had a ball and once I show it to you, you're going to laugh and
be like, Oh my gosh, duh, it's a giant paper lantern
with photography bulbs in it. And then this swag pendant cord. In this case I have two. So you can see me in other
places in my apartment, right? Mm, not really great light, but watch as I walk towards this. Oh, it's really beautiful. And the reason being is that it's soft, it's angled from above, it's in front of me. And it is a large light source. And I'm going to show
you how to set this up. Now, the lantern itself comes folded up and you just unfold it. Then it comes with this
little extension rod to stretch it out. And you put that through very easy. When it comes to these lanterns,
the bigger, the better. The one that I have linked
below is the size that I have, which is a 36 inch. The larger it is the softer the
light source is going to be. So I have a link to this one directly, let's set this aside and
then all we have to do is take this swag pendant light. Now I looked for some for a while. And what I love is that
this one itself is, ooh, that's a bad light there, is that this one itself is corded. It's really soft and beautiful. And then it has its little switcher there and it just plugs into any light bulb. However, this is where
we really soup it up is getting a light bulb specifically that's going to be daylight balanced and is for photo and video. It's linked below, but these just have a
little bit more output and a little bit more surface area that the light is spreading through. So we screw it in. So it's easy as screwing
in a light bulb, dad jokes. Hey, how about this? Comment down below with
your favorite dad joke and my favorite one I'll
put in the next video. So we have this, then all we do is thread it through and what's cool about this is it has a little loop here that will allow us to thread
it through quite nicely and I'm just hanging it so
that it's about halfway through right in the middle. And voila, we have our pendant light. What this comes with is a little swag kit so you can actually hang
it how it's supposed to be, from the ceiling. Now I would love to do that, but I keep moving around for what I do. So I actually have mine on a C stand. So we're going to put it back on that. This is my C stand. We use them for photography. Again, this is 100% not necessary, but what I like about this combination is that it allows me to
really move around with it. This is just a stable base. And then this is the arm that
comes out with the clamp, thread it over and let's put it here. Boom, boom, boom. See how beautiful this is? Now, I'm not on the right side of it. But if I come back here, you
can see the part of my face. That's the bite. It's just so cool. The one thing I'll say is it
is fragile because it's paper. So you have to be a little
bit careful with it, but in your home, you can have this and have
it be lit so beautifully. Let's look at the difference
now with the same frame, but adding this to the mix. Even back in Zoom using this webcam, it looks so much better. And if I have my power bounce, boom. Now look before, after. But my friends, I know that is not enough for us. We want to even kick it even more notches. We want to have more squirrels. This is so annoying that I saw that I didn't loop it properly. Okay, you want to see
something that annoys me? Doesn't rig it correctly. That should go over there. Okay, so we're going to add another layer. Now, the one thing I'm going to do is, 'cause I actually have three, so I'm excited to see the power of three, which I haven't even tested yet myself. I bought two more of those cords. I've three bulbs in total. What I'm going to do is a
little braiding situation. So let's take a look. Yes. Okay. So this is perfect. This is a little box that it came in and they have different colors. You definitely wouldn't have to get white, but I like white because
it's just like nice. And between my gear and everything, everything else is so dark. So it's nice to have something
that's a little lighter. This is a little swag kit that comes with two of these hangers and a clip. So you can really hang
it from the ceiling. We put you in. So now we have three. So I'm going to take this one down and braid them together. This should be fine, right? I feel like a juggling act
having these three together, but the idea is I want
them to be kind of just hanging all out in the same spot and then get to breeding. Oh my gosh, this is a
little more challenging. (light flute music) As what often happens with ADHD, I did some of it and then was over it. So we braided a little bit, and then the rest is just
going to be hanging down because that is way too much. Now I'm just going to
put these three in here. There we go. Woo. Excited to look up at
this souped up G of all, and we'll have this power bounce. So that's one, two, three. I love it. Okay. Let's look in the webcam. So we have one, two, three. What I like about this is
that it is big, it's bright, it's just up top out of my eye line so that it's not like really
straining on the eyes. When people sit in front of a window, which again is like
really beautiful light. A lot of times the
brightness of that light can be quite straining, and because this light
is at a 45 degree angle most of where I'm looking
is outside of that. But also if I want to tone
it down, I definitely can. I'm really, really excited about this! Winning. What I love about this light
is that it's a SAIL light. It's beautiful, and it looks reasonable, like it's supposed to be there
when you're not on Zoom call and somebody just walks into your space. And that is what's so nice because so much of the photography, video lighting gear or
whatever is just so intrusive and looks like it doesn't belong there. So that's my favorite video light. And before we go, I
just want to remind you that this kind of leveling up your video and showing up with beautiful light and all that kind of stuff, it's for you. It's not for other people because I know that we
all get in our heads and we start thinking about, oh, we're going to be judged,
whatever, but let me tell you, if somebody is judging you, they need to get on the
self awareness train and their opinions are
none of your business. You are awesome. You are amazing. And if you want to play around with light, play around with wardrobe, play around with whatever so that you feel more confident, there's no reason why
you shouldn't do that, but you should do it for you, but don't feel like you need
to show up a certain way for anybody else. Now, I know you might be rolling
your eyes cause it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's true. We all get wrapped up in what
other people think of us. But at the end of the day, we all know that that's not
where our focus should be. It should be on who we are and what value we can bring to the world. And that has nothing to
do with the way you look or the lighting that you
have or anything like that. So go out there and shine with
your beautiful amazingness. And if you like this video, leave a comment below and let me know, because I love hearing from you. And it really supports me at my channel. And press subscribe to join this rapidly growing amazing
family we have here on YouTube. Lastly, just want to say, I hope you go out into
this week and sparkle with all of your amazing
youness you have to offer. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. I did it! This video has been like
four weeks in the making, but it's done. You're welcome. (jaunty electronic music)
