How to Film Yourself Outside

In this video, we're gonna go through five different things that you need to think about when you're outside filming and you wanna shoot one of your videos. So if you're shooting like your A-roll, where you're just talking to camera, these five things are gonna help you get a good-looking shot in any location. All right, let's get into it. A lot of the content that I produce, I'll go outside, I'll go on a hike, or I'll be out traveling and shooting a video, and in those moments, I need to be able to make this happen without making it a huge process to set up everything. And so I don't bring a ton of extra lighting, I don't bring a ton of extra gear to do these types of A-roll videos when I'm away from my office. And so there's five things that we'll go through that's really gonna help you when you wanna shoot and you're in the outdoors. Now, number one is lighting. So when I'm working outside, the key things that I'm looking for is sun position. So if the sun's in the sky and it's right overhead, well, it's not gonna look that good. You're gonna have these weird shadows on your face, it's just not gonna be that flattering. I typically try to shoot my A-roll closer to sunrise or sunset if possible so the sun is lower in the sky. This allows you to be able to put yourself in a position where you could have the sun kind of lighting you like this light is, kind of at a 45 degree angle, or you could even do more of a side light and be able to create more definition with your face so that it's not just fully in black if the sun's behind you, or fully in the sun if the sun's right in front of you, or right up above where the shadows are going down and you have these big raccoon eyes. Ideally, when you're working with the sun, you just want it a little bit lower in the sky and you wanna put it at a 45 or kind of a side light and that's gonna give you the best look to be able to just create some interest in your shot. Now, if you want more beauty lighting, well, you're gonna wanna keep it at a 45 degree angle like this light here so that you have a nice fill on your face and also you wanna think of your background. So whenever you're shooting outside, the key is finding an interesting background that's gonna compliment whatever you're shooting. You don't wanna just put yourself up against a brick wall, rather find some area that has depth so that you could use this location to your advantage and really play around compositions to make it interesting so that your A-roll has more flare than just you against a wall somewhere. Now, if you're shooting in more of a cloudy situation, well, it's gonna work to your advantage because clouds typically have nice soft light so it's gonna make everything look better on camera. And one thing to note though, when it is cloudy, the sun still does have a position somewhere in the sky and it might be brighter over here versus over here. And so when you're shooting in cloud, you still wanna think about where the sun is and where the brightest part of the sky is and angle yourself towards that brighter part of the sky. It's just gonna make for a better looking shot because you'll have more contrast rather than just a completely flat face. Now, the other thing that you could do is find shade because you don't have all these hard shadows that are casted from direct sunlight. Rather, you could position yourself to the opening where the sun is and be able to use that as a key light as if it's like a big giant key light. So we got the shaded spot. And you can see as soon as you get out of that sunlight, look how harsh that is. As soon as you get in the shade with the sun coming in from the sides, it just has such a better look. Much better look. You could also use reflections off buildings or anything that's brighter in the place that you're at to be able to act as that big key light that you use in your studio. But one word of caution when it comes to reflective light, if the building, say, is yellow or red, well, it's gonna reflect that color back on you as well. Now, the second thing that's important is your audio. There's two ways that I do audio when I'm out away from my office. The first is a shotgun microphone. I just use a shotgun microphone on top of my camera, and I typically put a windscreen on that because I don't wanna hear any wind sounds or any breeze, so I just wanna have it as clean as possible. So if I'm shooting with this kind of a framing on a wider lens, then I'll use a shotgun microphone. However, I also do videos where I step away from camera. And for those, I'll use the DJI mic. And that's just a little wireless mic that goes right here on my chest. I'll either put it on my backpack or I'll put it on my shirt or even under my shirt, and that allows me to step away from camera. So whenever I'm more than an arm's stretch away, I'll use the DJI mic so that I can get anywhere I want and be able to use any different lenses that I want. When I was recently in India shooting a documentary, there was a lot of moments where I wanted to get away from camera to be able to show the scene that we're in but still be able to have these conversations on camera that you would be able to hear and be able to be a part of. And so a lot of those situations, we're using a DJI mic just so that we can get away from camera. So use the microphones that make sense for the situation that you're in. If you just wanna use something like a wireless mic the whole time and not even think about a shotgun mic, you could do that or you could switch between shotgun and wireless depending on where you are in position to your camera. Now, the third thing that you think about is your camera and your lens. So when I'm shooting A-roll and I wanna do kind of vlog style where I'm holding the camera, well, my favorite lens is a 20mm for vlog style content. I don't personally like the look of the 16mm so I found the focal length that I like is a 20mm. And so I'll use the 20mm if I'm ever hand-holding the camera doing vlogs or if I'm just talking to camera and I put the camera on a tripod. It's a good distance to be able to use that shotgun microphone and not have to worry about a wireless mic because even though a wireless mic is good, there is still instances where it might not work perfectly. So having a shotgun mic makes it just super easy to shoot and you don't even really have to think about much when you're doing this kind of vlog style content. However, if I'm getting away from camera and I wanna have a wider shot or I just wanna show a different style of composition, I might use something like a 35 or even a 50mm and in those situations, I'm gonna use the wireless mic to be able to capture my audio. And also having that lens is gonna give you a completely different feel. If you're doing A-roll where you're just talking to camera like this, putting it on a 50 is gonna look really nice, especially if you're shooting wide open and you have a shallow depth of field. Now, you could also close down your aperture and see what's going on in the background depending on the type of content you're producing. So if you're talking about a location, it might not be good to make it super shallow and out of focus, it actually might be really good to see what's going on back there because of the content that you're producing. And that brings me to the fourth thing that you need to think about when you're outside office and that is how you're shooting. So as I've said earlier, I do some vlog and I do some on tripod. You wanna make sure that you're not just hand-holding the camera and vlogging everything because that doesn't necessarily always look the best. You wanna put the camera on a tripod when possible and start playing around more with compositions and seeing what's in the background. That's why I like to use wireless mics, get away from camera and use some longer lenses because it's gonna give a different feel than just always having a wide lens and walking around and vlogging. A lot of times, if it's just a tip video, say I'm doing 10 tips for drone flying, well, instead of doing all vlog or all on a tripod, I'll mix it up. So I might do one tip on a tripod, the next tip I'll walk around and vlog, next tip I'll do on a tripod with a different background, different lens, that way it breaks up the video and it has just more of an interesting visual style than all being one style. So something to think about is breaking up that visual narrative and playing around with some vlog style and also some on the tripod just because when you're outside the office, it is fun to be able to move around, put the camera in different locations and also change up how the camera is moving in relation to you. And the last thing to think about is your color profile when you're out filming. Whenever I'm here in my office, I just typically use Cinetone. That's just a color profile that Sony has built into a lot of their cameras and it just has a clean look out of camera. This is a Cinetone and the reason that I use just a standard look here in my office is that, well, I control all of the lighting. So if something's too bright in the background, well, I can dim it so that it works for this and that way I don't really have to do any color grading or add a LUT when I'm here in my office. However, when I go outside, I'm always shooting in log and the reason for that is I wanna be able to control my highlights and my shadows and be able to create a look out of the scene that I'm filming in. If I use just a standard profile, a lot of times the sky is gonna get blown out. You can't do anything with it. It's just not gonna look that good. Personally, when I'm shooting outside the office, I'm outdoors, there's bright sun, there's clouds, I'm always shooting in S-log and then from there, I'm either adding a LUT onto that footage or I go through and make a color grade for that specific video shot in that location. And color grading really comes down to the kind of look that you want out of your footage and you can really change it up depending on the style of content that you're producing. If you wanna learn more about color grading, I'll put a course down below in the description that goes through all of the color grading tools that you can use and how you can create your own creative color grade when you're out filming. If you wanna learn more about shooting outdoor content in nature, well, make sure you check out this video right here. It goes through 26 different tips on how to shoot outdoor style content and a lot of this will be really helpful if you just wanna flip on the camera and hit record wherever you're at. All right, I'll see you over there.