- Today, I'm gonna show you
a 20 dollar Walmart hack that you can use in order to transform any yucky, gross light source into a beautiful cocoon of light. Ready? Here versus here. Hi. (upbeat music) Hey, love, I'm Gia Goodrich,
the Beauty Photographer, and welcome back to my channel that's all about helping you beauty babes level up with your photography and video, so your documentation of your work is just as strong as the
amazing work that you create. Today, we are jumping right in, I'm going to show you a hack,
if you only have one light, how to make it soft and beautiful. The problem with a lot of light sources is that they're small and hard. Anytime the light source
is small and hard, you're gonna get really intense shadows, and you're gonna get all the
texture popping through, right? ♪ Ew ♪ - If you think about, like,
the afternoon 12 o'clock sun, moments like that, when it's just like aggressive, harsh light,
that is not something that's synonymous with beauty, and definitely is not gonna bring out your really amazing work
or work on your clients. So what we want to do is soften that light or in photo land we
call diffuse that light. But it's basically
scattering those light rays across the surface, so
that the entire surface becomes one wall of beautiful light. Which is exactly what I have here. Now, if you think about an overcast day, that's exactly what's happened to the sun. The little, teeny light source of the sun, which is teeny to us, because it's like a bajillion miles away, is scattered across this
soft, beautiful cloudscape. And because all those rays are being bent bent bent bent bent, by the time it hits our face, it's filing in all the shadows and really soft and beautiful. So that type of diffusion or softening is something that you can do. You can create a modifier that will basically change
the quality of light from something that is
harsh, gross (moans) to something that's
beautiful, soft, and oh. We like her. We want her. We need her. Okay, that was just like
a Patrick Ta reference 'cause his new line,
Major Glow, is ridiculous and I'm excited about it. - Bam. - Oh, cute. - So if you're ready to dig in, we are gonna leave here
and head over to Walmart. Yay, I'm excited. We are going to go to Walmart, because I know no matter where you live, there is a Walmart, there is a Walmart. Don't get in an accident, Gia. - [Narrator] One minute, 37 seconds later. (horn beeping) - Oh. In life, lighting, more often than not, is a challenge, because when people are designing light they're thinking about intensity and not about quality. When you're trying to
make light beautiful, whether it's for a selfie
or for your videos, we really want soft and diffused. Soft and diffused, just repeat it. Soft and diffused, okay. Let's go over the plan. First, get shower curtain, because that is like the most magic diffusion panel situation. And then, we are going to find frames. And I don't know if they're
gonna be picture frames. I'm just gonna like, you know, when people like put
their hand on the land and then it talks back to them and they're like yes. - I have a fifth sense. - That's what I'm gonna do. I really love Walmart, like
I feel a little bit guilty. There's like something about it for me that is like so much fun, where it's like - Only a dolla, a dolla, a dolla. - A dolla. And that's what I feel like with Walmart. That it's like oh my gosh
4.99 for a turtle neck, what? Oh, that was where I probably
should have gone, huh? (screams) Crisis averted. On the up side, I don't think
anyone will notice us filming. So there we go. Jess you're gonna gt us in trouble. Okay, so bath is where we need to be. Excuse me. Okay. So now we're in the right section. Shower curtains. Now the one thing is that we're looking for like medium
weight shower curtains, but this one says clear. So if you look at it, I can see right through it. So that's not gonna
actually diffuse any light. But, what you want to find is, here we go, so if you look at frosty now, you can see my fingers through it, but see how there's like that little bit of layer in between. That layer actually scatters the light. And that's what we want; that's the scattering of
light is the diffusion, where it's just like (exhales), beautiful. Okay so I'm gonna get two. That'll be 4.96. Doesn't that price feel good? So now that we have this,
this is the material. We need the frame. I was thinking kind of
like a picture frame, but that might be more
on the expensive side. My goal is to keep it under 20 bucks. ♪ I want you right here, but
you're all across the globe. ♪ ♪ Never coming back, even
though you're on your phone. ♪ ♪ Wishful thinking gets the best of me. ♪ ♪ Hoping that it's still you and me. ♪ - Oh, oh, oh, wait, okay. Do these go together? Can't you fit them together? We're just gonna do a little bit of recon. (bell dings) I don't know how that happened. Okay, hold on. (exhales) Oh, snap. Okay, okay, okay. So we just need four of these then. - [Jess] Do you need four? - To build a frame, Jess,
use your imagination. Like boom, to diffuse the light. - [Jess] Oh okay. - Okay. Like that's a good size right? Oh, but I could just nest 'em, hey, hi. - Hello, how are ya? - Okay, so this is happening. So then this one. So this is 1.57 times two. 3 ish dollars. Then this is four times
two, which is eight. Okay, so that's like exactly 20 dollars. - Spend and invest your money wisely. ♪ Exactly 20 dollars, am
I good or am I good. ♪ I feel like we're good. Oh my gosh, I love the -- oh I thought this was the workout section. But I really do love
like the workout section, just looking at it, no
need to workout myself. ♪ Come on and shake that
cute little booty of yours. ♪ ♪ Let's go. ♪ (scanner beeping) (scanner beeping) 18. (card reader beeping) That was easy. Now we're headed back to the studio to make some scrims. (laughs) ♪ Back to the studio. ♪ Turn the alarm off. - [Jess] Run. Okay, so the two things we need now that we have the
materials to do our frame and we have the diffusion fabric, or like the soft, sparkly, glowy fabric is we need tape, or some
sort of binding mechanism, and probably scissors. So I, 'cause I'm a photographer, have really fancy tape, you don't need fancy tape. Duct tape will do. Where is it? Yes, this is called gaff tape and if you're ever in a situation where you were like taping down cords, or anything like that, this is awesome. 'Cause it's actually like a type of fabric and it doesn't leave a sticky residue. So we're gonna use that. I think this is gonna take
like five minutes literally. (screams) I think we will double layer it. The thing to think about when it comes to lighting like this is intensity and when you are doing this, when you're spreading the light out and making it soft, you lose
the intensity of the light. And so you have to be aware that if the light starts
off and it's super bright, then you'll have some room
to diffuse it like this and spread it out and make it beautiful, and still have light hitting you. But it will cut down the
amount of light significantly. But it makes it soft so,
that is well worth it. So these are 28 by 48 inch
heavy duty curtain rods for -- what? (rods expanding) That's cool. I've laid this out and I'm gonna look at-- These are the long ends and these are gonna be
the two shorter ends. Boom, boom, boom. The next thing I'm gonna do
is stretch everything out and then I'm gonna cut it
leaving like an inch and a half on either side. ♪ She's just gettin' wasted now. ♪ ♪ Not sure if I'll make it out. ♪ ♪ I do not want to give
you more of my life. ♪ - It's not even straight, I don't care, but it just felt so good, okay. (upbeat music) (screams) Alright, so now what I'm gonna do first, is I'm gonna tape the frame together. Feel free to use duct
tape or electrical tape. And I'm just gonna wrap it across. ♪ If we never say goodbye. ♪ ♪ We been through our convo
tryin' find where it went wrong. ♪ ♪ Baby I'll be fine, if you
text me one last time. ♪ ♪ Wishful thinking ♪ ♪ gets the worst of me. ♪
- Okay. ♪ Hoping that it's still you and me. ♪ - Uh oh, look at that (laughs). Oh my gosh. (exhales) Structural integrity,
Gia, structural integrity. Wow, wow. Wow, wow. It's fine. I am just going to wrap it around and then tape it there. (upbeat music) Then, the important thing
is to make this taut. (upbeat music) It's gonna be good. Oh my gosh, it was only cutting one layer. I'm melting, I'm melting. (upbeat music) I'm so not good at this, but if I can do it, so can you. Almost done. And voila, but let's actually
like look at this in action. This could really seriously come in handy. Let's be exaggerating and use my light to really demonstrate the power of this DIY light softening device. Okay, so what I'm actually gonna do is take off my parabellic situation. We have this light and if you turn it on. Okay, ready? If we look at me here, I have my key light, that I usually use, but it's bare bold, pretty harsh. And you can see it's, ya know, it's not the most beautiful
and glamorous, right? You might have like an
intense fashion moment, but other than that,
it's pretty unforgiving. So, now we're gonna throw
that diffusion panel in front so you can see the
difference that it makes just throwing that in. Okay this. That's bright. So, all I'm doing is,
these are little A-clamps that you can get at any
sort of hardware stores. They're called alligator clamps, but we call 'em A-clamps for short, 'cause we don't have time
to say that full word. Oh. Now, we have the light source behind, which is that hard, punchy light, but basically having this a
little bit in front of the light is spreading the light
all the way across here. So all the different angles of light are going (lazers shooting) through here. And all of those are
creating wrap and glow. So by the time the light hits me, it's gonna be soft and
beautiful and gorgeous. So, let's look at it now. Now if we look at the
difference in quality of light, it's beautiful and soft
and diffused and glowy. The big thing that did also change is the intensity of light. So we had to change our
exposure in the camera and so that's something if
you have an automatic camera, it will automatically do. But, now the quality of
light is so much nicer and especially if we bring
in some fill over to the side to create a nice wrapping wall of glow. It would be pretty bangin'. So, did it have the most
structural integrity? No. Is it cool to hang? Yes. Will it absolutely work in a pinch? Uh-huh. And if it's something that is stopping you from getting going on your channel, doing what you wanna do, this is a great way to figure it out. Now, you can use a structural frame that's probably a little more intense. You could even make plywood
or something like that to make the frame really solid. But, this is an easy, cheap, effective way to get that soft, beautiful light. Now the last thing I'm gonna do is add bounces to the side. ♪ I don't need ya and your
style, and your style. ♪ ♪ I don't need to hang
around ya, hang around ya. ♪ (screams) - There we go. Now I'm just gonna A-clamp
that other reflector. Okay, if you haven't already, I have a video for you to check out that's all about breaking down
beauty guru lighting setup and creating this wall of glow. So now I have my diffused
or softened light and I've created this wall of glow by reflecting the light
from here, here, and here. Now let's take a look
at what it looks like. So see how it just likes cocoons you and creates a really nice bounce and beautiful lighting scenario. If you like this video,
give it a thumbs up, and leave me a comment, because I wanna know
on a difficulty rating of 1 to 5 where you thought
this little project sat. Do you think it was easy peasy? Or something that was a
little too challenging to put together? (laughter) - [Jess] Oh my gosh. ♪ Creeptastic ♪ (laughter) It's like a horror movie all
of a sudden coming through. (creaking) (screams) (upbeat music) There you go, Jess does
not like being on camera, but nobody cares.
- (mumbles) especially with--. - Hi, nice to meet you, you're cute. Yeah, okay, we're fine,
so let me try that again. (exhales) Traffic. How do we do this? That'll be 49.99. Where is like the builder part, like the part where builders would be. We're fine, right? Probably, okay, so. Get these babies together. I'm already tired and over it. (upbeat music)
