Introduction While over at my friend Chris’s for Thanksgiving this year, I decided to finally put together a few videos. To be precise, videos of me teaching essential, simple breathing and meditation techniques that I’ve learned and mastered in the past years. And, the way I envision, learning meditation should be straightforward and easy to follow. It should be fun, engaging and rewarding without being mysterious and diffuse. I’ve always been fascinated with yoga and meditation. I’ve been practising on and off since the age of 14 and so I finally became a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga 2 years ago. What I always loved about Kundalini Yoga specifically was that it can be done by anyone with the most basic set of instructions. Especially the breathing and meditation techniques. All you really, really need is a – relatively quiet – place to sit and a few minutes to spare. Furthermore, most of the meditations are perfectly put into written words. This way, the instructions are clear and easy to follow. This makes shooting simple video a good choice and deriving an audio track to listen to without the video as well. My goal is to present and instruct one meditation per video per day. A regular meditation can be introduced, instructed and explained in about 10 minutes or less. The following are learnings of me creating quality educational video using my MacBook Air and a basic set of tools and techniques. - The good news Let’s start with the good news: It works! My first learning is that with even the most basic set of tools it is possible to create great looking, engaging content and very little cost. If you’re willing to put in an hour or so setting up, playing with and optimizing your “studio” (Which in my case wound up being my bedroom because it had the best acoustics) you will be able to create professionally looking content quickly. I learned the basic 3-lights setup from a video I found on YouTube. All my “equipment” (3 lights, 3 bulbs, a web-cam and microphone from Amazon) cost less than $300. Learning #1: Content is everything Naturally, no technology and set up can help me if I have nothing to say. I have learned that at the beginning, before shooting anything, it’s always a good idea to write a few lines down. What am I trying to convey here? What’s my message? How do I pull the viewer in? My recommendation: Write at least something! A little script. A rough outline. Of the 3 main points you’ll make in your video is better than nothing. This can fit on a piece of paper. Then, rehearse it a bit. I’ve found that actually saying the key sentences out loud at least once helped me later when I was “on the air”, in front of the camera. Rehearsing the overall flow of your thought will help you create a nice flow. Once you’ve got the flow down even just a bit, you’ll be able to add your personality into the mix. I did my rehearsal while showering which I can recommend. Capturing audio is hard (but possible) Okay, I’ll admit it. I thought audio was easy. Turns out it requires a lot of testing and adjusting to get it right. I’m not an audio engineer, but I was able to figure out that shooting video in an open room with lots of flat surfaces results in echos all over the place. I had the whole 3-light set up ready to go. I had this little battery-driven clip-on mic plugged in. Quickly I noticed how off my voice sounded and how it bounced around the room. Change of plans. I packed everything into my bedroom (which is relatively small but has many nice sound-buffering stuff in it, like the mattress and my coat and t-shirts). What a difference a room makes! Now, the sound of my voice came in crisp and just the way I wanted it. There still is this weird ambient white noise that probably correlates to the cheap build of my mic. My recommendation: Test the audio in the room you want to shoot in. Hear if it sounds the way you want it to. Check for white noise. If you can’t get rid of the white noise, add a soft soundtrack later at 7% volume. I’ve done this in my videos using japanese flutes. Any ambient soundscape will work wonders. Shooting video is hard The video was sort of the easiest part. Of course, you’ll need 3 lights to create the classic 3 point light set up. Two lights are facing at eye-level you at more or less a 50-90 degree angle. The third light is propped up behind you either shooting against the wall neutralizing shadows or against your back to make you ‘pop’. All lights should shine through some sort of diffusing paper to avoid hard shadows. A simple background works best I find. Any decently painted wall works. My recommendation: Buy three lights and their fixtures at Home Depot and play around with the set up. Have the camera stand back far enough so one can see your torso and upper arms. Try to avoid the “Talking Head”. Vary your composition by placing yourself left or right of center. Standing in front of a camera is hard Holy mother of “UMMMM…”. I really had no idea how often I would say “and umm….” just to fill in blanks while I was thinking. In fact, I noticed I would use the “ummms” to create unnecessary pauses to make myself appear more thoughtful. Yeah… that won’t work. I think the main reason was that I hadn’t been before a camera before for that long. I definitely wasn’t relaxed yet. And so my overall performance didn’t flow yet. Or excite me as the viewer. Something had to change. After sleeping over it for a night, I decided to give it much more intention and attention. This worked really well, especially in combination with having written down a few cornerstones of content. My recommendation: It’s simple. Don’t overthink it. Be yourself. Have fun! Know what you want to say and think about that one person you want to say it to. Stay engaged. Be excited about whatever you’re giving to the world. It’s your gift and you should be proud of it. If you’re not excited and proud of what you have to share, how can someone else be? Anyways, this is just a first collection of findings. I’m looking forward to sharing more as I learn more.