Shooting (properly) for YouTube

JumboBeef

JumboBeef

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Hello.

After a 7 year gap, I'm back! Anyway...

I'm looking to shoot some YouTube videos. They are cooking based, in a professional kitchen. I can't/won't do cheap and nasty (using a phone to hosepipe around with horrible audio). I used to work as a broadcast cameraman. However I do need to keep costs down.

I was thinking:

Two cameras. One locked off wide shot across the kitchen island. The other, to one side hand held to get to VOX and close ups/cut aways. First camera would have an FX mic, the presenter would wear a mic connected to second camera.

Simple lighting, can't afford real 3 or 4 point lighting. Bounce something?

Editing: timecode or sync, not my area. Software? Need new laptop.

Any suggestions, ideas, things to avoid please.

Total budget £3-4k.
 
I would have a look at the Blackmagic pocket 4K you can get 2 for about £2400 with media and they come with the full version of Davinci Resolve for the editing. You can adapt these to the lens mount of your choice with with Viltrox adapters at £25- 80 each depending on the mount.

The camera has very good internal audio and so you can record ambient to one channel and the voice to the other in the same camera. A rodelink wireless mic is about £260 for voice and Rode NT5 for the ambient about £145. If you connect both of these into the static cam it will save you a lot of time syncing this up. You can then record scratch audio to the mobile camera, the software should then be able to sync the 2 sets of footage fairly simply. You can run the cameras on timecode but would need a TC generator at about £220 and probably isn't neccesary.

A couple of used tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lenses will cost you about £150 ea. and give you great results.

These camera a very good in low light so you should be able to use ambient light but supplement it with a couple of bi colour LED lamps to allow you to fill as required, say £250. That leaves you about £500 for cables, support etc.

You could save a quiet a bit on the cameras by going for something like used GH4's but the audio isn't great so you would then have to think about recording the audio to a stand alone device. You could also go with 1 Blackmagic cam and say a GH4 as the B cam but you are going to have to spend a lot more time in post matching the footage, but if you want to have a good youtube channel you want to spend your time creating content not spending hours on post.
 
On thing I would avoid at first is spending loads on equipment. The reason I say this is because I do You Tube videos and You Tube is hard work especially getting videos noticed, views and ranked. I would maybe try with budget equipment that gives you good audio and video and see how it goes and then if your channel kicks off then upgrade.

Audio I use a Zoom H1 but any other recorder will work with a lapel microphone and then sync in audio. Even thou I have Rode mic on my video camera I still think sync audio with lavalier mic gives me better audio, also doesn't pick up back ground noise like my Rode mic. Also with sync sound easier when editing for different cameras.

Software I use Sony Vegas 13 which is a few years old now, but loads out there. It's finding one that is easy to use and edit with.

Good luck with it, and don't let it stress you You Tube as can be a bit*h sometimes hehe.
 
JumboBeef said:
Hello.

After a 7 year gap, I'm back! Anyway...

I'm looking to shoot some YouTube videos. They are cooking based, in a professional kitchen. I can't/won't do cheap and nasty (using a phone to hosepipe around with horrible audio). I used to work as a broadcast cameraman. However I do need to keep costs down.

I was thinking:

Two cameras. One locked off wide shot across the kitchen island. The other, to one side hand held to get to VOX and close ups/cut aways. First camera would have an FX mic, the presenter would wear a mic connected to second camera.

Simple lighting, can't afford real 3 or 4 point lighting. Bounce something?

Editing: timecode or sync, not my area. Software? Need new laptop.

Any suggestions, ideas, things to avoid please.

Total budget £3-4k.
Click to expand...

For editing, as long as you have good sound from both software can synch it up or use simply use a clap. Premiere Pro has multicam editing for sure.
 
If you have a reasonable phone it will work fine as starter.
You can also add sound afterwards and edit it using a free program like Audacity.
I use VideoPad Editor and you can use it free - it has a large amount of capabilities including putting single photos into a video.
 
Doug de Muro has 3.79 million subs and is one of the biggest car reviewers on YouTube. Certainly until recently he used a tripod and an iPhone 7.

Its not all about gear, the content has to be good too
 
Food filming is actually part of my full time job.
Camera wise. I use 2 Panssonic GH5's, One G9 nad sometimes a GoPro.
Mics. At the moment we're not supposed to go near people so I have been booming any sound so with that I use a Sennheiser NTG2 which goes into Tascam DR-60DmkII which has the agbility to record automatically at 2 different levels (0db and -12db is my default) just in case something gets loud you've not lost your clip. This then feeds into a GH5. A simple option is record into your phone with a little lappel mic or look into the Rode Wirelss Go which I use for my Youtube stuff.

Lighting. Kino-flo lights. 4 spots and one Diva panel. These are moved depending on the style of the shoot and rarely do i use all of them. Simple LED panels will do you fine, use the ceiling to bounce light and you should get a nice soft bounce.

As newbie1 said. Clap is all you need unless you want to visualy mark takes. A cheap clapperboard will do the job.

Black Magic has a free copy of Davinci Resolve you can use to get you started. Very good app and at the moment I find it a lot more stable than Premiere pro.

You'll find as you go along what you really need and don't need. It's how you work will dictate what gear you want to use. Just make sure cameras are running same frame rates and white balance though :)

Shout if you need more help
 
JumboBeef said:
Hello.

After a 7 year gap, I'm back! Anyway...

I'm looking to shoot some YouTube videos. They are cooking based, in a professional kitchen. I can't/won't do cheap and nasty (using a phone to hosepipe around with horrible audio). I used to work as a broadcast cameraman. However I do need to keep costs down.

I was thinking:

Two cameras. One locked off wide shot across the kitchen island. The other, to one side hand held to get to VOX and close ups/cut aways. First camera would have an FX mic, the presenter would wear a mic connected to second camera.

Simple lighting, can't afford real 3 or 4 point lighting. Bounce something?

Editing: timecode or sync, not my area. Software? Need new laptop.

Any suggestions, ideas, things to avoid please.

Total budget £3-4k.
Click to expand...


A DJI Pocket 2 might be worth considering for the mobile shots to compliment the setup. The gimbal stabilisation really is silky smooth and its small profile would make it very easy to work around a busy kitchen. It's meant to have greatly improved audio as well with four directional mics built in.
 
Sync with a clap? Edit on Premiere, unless you have Mac in which case final cut is reasonable. I know that production are using bagged radio mics which have been cleaned 72hrs in advance before being left for the 'talent' to put on themselves with instruction from sound recordists. Graeme (Uptherighttree) would be able to advise whether the sound from the boom mic might be at risk of having cooking/sizzling sounds drowning out the voice, although that might be more a case of positioning the mic so as to keep the sound from counter level off-axis.
I've only ever done one cookery shoot many years ago and that was an on-stage show (James Martin) in the Crucible, so a bit different really. That was with radio mics on the two presenters and a separate mic for cooking sounds. A locked off overhead cam is quite nice but not in a position where the lens can get steamed up!
 
Watching this thread with interest as I also want to set up aYouTube channel for my hobby machining.

Most of the very big YouTubers in this area seem to use a combination of an SLR & GoPro with proper sound delivered through a seperate mic.
 
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