But think of it this way: why would film studios develop entire custom-designed buildings if they could just always record outside? Why do soundstages exist? Without training in videography, it can be a bit difficult to understand why the space you record in is so important. Laptop cameras in particular are usually designed for the sole purpose of allowing the laptop manufacturer to claim that their laptops have webcams in them, not to actually produce high quality video.įortunately, there are two sets of things you can do to improve your audio and video, and both are quite easy: optimize your recording space and invest in hardware upgrades. Putting yourself at the mercy of the light and audio situation of wherever you happen to sit down plus using a laptop webcam is a formula for video you’re not happy with.

Sit down in an office chair with a laptop on a table in front of you wherever seems convenient.īlasphemy! To make matters worse, your camera/microphone solution is probably something like this:.

If you’re already having audio-video problems, I’m guessing you probably have this sort of startup process for online synchronous teaching:

If your students and colleagues just see you as a blur, you might as well not show yourself at all, and they can’t hear you, you might as well communicate solely through email. If you’re moving to a primarily Zoom, YouTube Live, or Twitch teaching or videoconferencing solution, this is something you should spend at least a few minutes thinking about. Having said that, one area that people find very frustrating to deal with but is relatively easy to fix is audio and video quality.

Don’t try, because you’ll just end up driving yourself into a wound up ball of anxiety. You really don’t need to fake the kind of production values and planning that come out the work done with that sort of lead time. Most full-time online instructors put six months to a year of effort into their online courses before they run an online course for the first time.

Most pressure by teachers, instructors, professors, and trainers to develop and release high-quality online materials instantaneously in this age of self-isolation is self-imposed.

How to reduce background noise on mic