Playbook: Making High Quality Videos

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Having high quality videos will increase your legitimacy and views. Everyone can make high quality videos, you just need to be intentional about it. Don't settle for mediocrity.

Here are some examples from TKS:

  1. Eliza - CRISPR 101: Everything You Need To Know About CRISPR
  2. Sigil: Object Detection With YOLO
  3. Ruhani: Wirelessly Transferring Energy Using a Tesla Coil
  4. Zara Syed: How Self-Driving Cars Tell Road Signs Apart - CNNs for Classification
  5. Michael Trinh: How To Outsmart Aging
  6. Nazra Nousad: Components of A Self-Driving Car
  7. Gracelyn Shi: Are your genetic variants neutral or negative?

Expert examples:

To create awesome videos, you need 5 things:

  1. Great content - do your research and add value to the viewer.
  2. Great lighting - this is so key to great image quality; figure out how to get good lighting.
  3. Great sound - get a cheap mic on Amazon or something, it's worth it. Or try your headphone mic, see if it's good quality audio.
  4. Engaging personality - show your personality and engage people with your passion and unique style. Remember, this is not a school presentation!
  5. Engaging visuals - have images on the screen and graphics to help people visualize what you're talking about.

Ps. You can use your phone camera, just make sure you use the back camera (not front).

Common Mistakes

  • Bad framing (too far or close to the camera).
  • Bad positioning of your face.
  • Low quality audio.
  • Low quality lighting (tip: standing in front of a window is great for lighting).
  • No cuts (fast paced youtube videos are good, doing it all in one take is boring).
  • No visuals.

Resources:

#highstandards

This section was made with ♥️ by Gaby Floratos from TKS Las Vegas.

Even if you don't have a professional studio, you can still make high quality looking videos with little to no equipment for little to no cost. You just might have to get creative.

PRO TIP: If you don't have a camera at home, see if your school has a video production/photography class. Ask the teacher if you can borrow some equipment to film a video. Otherwise, use your phone.

To make a legit video, you need 5 things:

  1. Great Content
  2. Great Lighting
  3. Great Sound
  4. Engaging Personality
  5. Engaging Visuals

Below are resources for you to learn about making a high quality video, but the content and personality is up to you. There's no step-by-step guide for that! You should use your own creativity and uniqueness for that part.

🎥 Filming

BEFORE you even press record, send a picture of your shot for feedback so you don't shoot an entire video and THEN find out that your background was really messy and have to reshoot the whole thing

Filming Checklist:

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Lighting
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Framing
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Audio

🎞 Shot Breakdowns

These are a few screenshots from Youtube videos. I broke down how to shoot shots like them with no equipment.

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If you have a lot of natural light
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If you have a little natural light
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If you have no natural light

💻 Editing

There are a lot of different kinds software out there, but these are the best and most accessible. Most have discounts for students.

I linked the basics of each so you can figure out which software works the best for your skills and budget.

Editing Programs

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Premiere Pro
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After Effects
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Final Cut Pro
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iMovie

Editing is hard to give advice on since it depends so heavily on your subject matter, setting, and (especially) YOUR PERSONALITY.

You want your video edited in a way that is authentic to you. Below are some different styles of editing for you to use as references.

Reference videos:

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Professional, Info-centric
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Clean, Modern
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Trendy, a e s t h e t i c

More Resources

Here are some high-quality videos to check out if you want to learn more about video production and editing.

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Pre Production
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Post Production

TLDR:

Pre Production Checklist

  • Find the best camera you can
  • Figure out a three point lighting set up
  • Don't use the on-camera mic for audio. Use a phone or handheld recorder as close to you as possible without getting into frame
  • Talk good. If you can't, watch a tutorial on on-camera confidence
  • Send an audio tester and picture of your shot for feedback BEFORE you film so you dont have to scrap a whole video

Post Production Checklist

  • Use high resolution images for graphics (Unsplash)
  • Edit out things like mess ups and long breaths BUT cut to a different shot after the cut so it looks smoother
  • Make sure your background music is not distracting and is significantly quieter than your voice
  • If your shot has weird color then watch a Youtube video on color grading and fix it