Your biggest fear

This is Part Two of my free Web Video Mini Course.

Chances are, if you are afraid to get in front of the camera, it’s because your biggest fear is that your wrinkles and imperfections will show up!

Okay, maybe this is just a girl thing, but maybe not.

Well I’ve got a secret to tell you….. Lean in.

Web video uses a lot of compression to get those videos playing smoothly on your blogs and online courses.

AND…. video compression is your friend. When videos are compressed, some of the image quality is sacrificed to make the files smaller, which results in speedier playback on the web. This results in some loss of visible quality in your video. This is what is known as lossy compression. In some cases that’s not a good thing, but for us it is! Why?

Compression softens your wrinkles just enough so that they don’t really show.

So even though your wrinkles look scary when you view your videos straight out of the camera, by the time you edit and export them to something that the web can play, they are compressed so much, that your wrinkles almost completely disappear!

Say goodbye to your biggest fear!

We also tend to view our videos much larger than our students do. In my online courses the playback window is about 850 pixels wide. That’s about one third the size of HD video, which is 1280 pixels wide.

Here’s an example of my wrinkles in a video straight out of the camera, and one that has been edited, exported and compressed when going to YouTube.

You can see how much softer the final video is. YouTube compresses quite a bit! A similar thing will happen when people view the videos in your online courses.

And here’s what the video above looked like straight out of the camera.

It’s sharp and the colour is a bit different too.

Compression will make your skin look smoother and most of your wrinkles will magically disappear. So you see, no need to get all worried about this stuff!

Extra Tips!

• Wear some makeup to even out the tonality of your skin. (FYI – I don’t do this.)
• Powder your nose! That goes for MEN too. If you shoot your videos late in the day, your skin will be more oily and shiny. That’s just natural. (I powder my face and ears for every video session, no matter what time of day.)
• Cover up your skin with clothing or scarves – especially if your neck bothers you.
• Lighting also plays a big part in how you look on camera. And you’re going to learn more about that later in this lesson.

Technical info about the video above

• I shot it with the Logitech C920 webcam using Quicktime Player on my iMac. No adjustments to the colour or brightness were made when shooting.
• I used the Blue Yeti Mic. I sat the mic about 2 feet from me. Ideally it should be closer, but seems to work okay.
• I only did one take. I got lucky. Yes, I cough briefly during the video. I just left that in there to show you that it’s not about PERFECTION!
• I used a light because was kind of dark outside on recording day.
• I trimmed the ends of the clip in Quicktime.
• I exported from Quicktime at 720p – which is the original video size. This is all you need to do for YouTube and online courses.
• BUT – I also edited it in Camtasia for Mac – which is optional. I did this because I wanted to add a title slide and raise the volume a bit — due to the mic being a bit farther away.
• No colour or brightness corrections were made in editing. The changes you see are only the result of exporting and compression.

Are you ready to conquer your biggest fear?

Check out all the blog posts in this mini course:

1. Making Connections
2. Your Biggest Fear
3. How to Look Younger on YouTube – without getting plastic surgery
4. Webcam Setup and Capture tips using  Quicktime Player
5. Lighting Tips for Webcam Videos
6. Zoom your webcam or get close?
7. Get better colour from your webcam
8. Basic Video Edits using QuickTime
9. Create Screen Capture Videos
10. Insider tips for recording full screen video