Filming At Home

Remote recording is now a normal part of production, and the gap between a home setup that looks considered and one that looks improvised comes down to about five decisions — none of which cost much.

Face a window, not a ceiling

Overhead room lighting is the single most recognisable signature of a home video: it drops shadows under the eyes and flattens everything else. Turning to face a window, with the light slightly to one side, fixes more than any camera upgrade will.

The room behind you is part of the frame

A background does not need to be interesting; it needs to be intentional. Depth helps — two or three metres between the subject and the wall lets the background fall softly out of focus and stops the shot reading flat.

Sound is half the picture

Viewers forgive a soft image and abandon bad audio. A clip-on microphone costs less than a lens filter and removes the room's reflections, the laptop fan and most of the street outside.

Record more than you think you need

• Thirty seconds of room tone, for the edit
• A second take of every line that mattered
• Cutaways of hands, screens and the workspace
• The same framing for every session, so cuts match