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Vertical Video Setup for Instagram Reels, TikTok & YouTube Shorts
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May 27, 2024
In this video tutorial, viewers will learn the optimal setup for creating vertical videos suitable for platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. The guide covers essential tips and techniques for shooting, editing, and formatting videos to maximize engagement on these platforms. Aimed at content creators and social media marketers, the tutorial provides practical advice on camera settings, composition, editing tools, and best practices for creating visually appealing vertical videos that are optimized for mobile viewing.
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0:00
If you want to record vertical videos for Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube shorts, I don't want your videos to look or sound like this
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I want your videos to look and sound more like this. There's basically four things you need to record amazing videos for Instagram, Reels, TikTok, or YouTube shorts
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And that's we're going to get into in today's video. Let's get started. So the first thing you need to record amazing videos is obviously a camera or a cell phone
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In my case, I'm using an iPhone 12 mini, but don't let the cell phone you have hold you back from recording videos
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The first videos on our YouTube channel I was recording with my iPhone 6S
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My business partner, Lauda records all of our videos for Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube
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shorts, that some of which have hundreds of thousands of view with our iPhone 10
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Some of my other colleagues have old Samsung phones. The thing is, your cell phone is the least important of the four things that we're going
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to talk about today. You can start recording videos with what you have, and over time, improve the gear
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So the second thing you need to record amazing videos is some type of stabilization
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So if I take my phone, like you saw in the intro, and my cameras, moving all around like this and I'm talking, trying to convey a message, it's much harder for the
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viewer to pay attention to what you're saying if the camera bounce in all over the place and it
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seems like you're an earthquake or something like that. So what I end up using most of the time
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is my trusty switch pod. This is amazing because I can add my phone to it like so, tighten it
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down, sets down on a table like this and isn't the perfect height. The other thing is the legs
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rotate like this so you could do something as in a vlog where you can hold the camera out further
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pretty comfortable and when you want to set it back down that's all you have to do right there
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The other thing that's really important that I'm using right now. The switch pot is only up to here
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This stand or mount for your phone is great because what you can do here, I need to move it up a little bit
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But this thing, this rotate so I can essentially turn it like this if I wanted to be recording
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horizontal videos for say YouTube. The other great thing with this mount is this cold shoe
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So this allows you to connect something like this microphone, maybe you saw earlier
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And this is something that allows you to have much better audio. If you need a small light source, I don't have the mount for this light right now
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but there's a way for you to connect a light to this as well
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If you need some extra light because maybe you shooting in some type of low light nighttime something like that So having the mount like this I think it costs on Amazon I going to put information to everything I talk about down below in the description If you don invest in say a switch pod an amount like this let me show you a free way to do it
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So something like this. So I have a stack of books, coffee mug, something you probably have at home
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somewhere. So we can do now. Set it up like so. No cost to you. And can record
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stable shots. The one thing you're not going to be able to do here is connect your microphone
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because my phone is set down on something so I can't reach the connection right now. You could
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shoot kind of upside down like this, and then you can reach the lightning port on my iPhone and
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record videos. But, you know, that's one of the reasons why I do like that, the mouth that I showed
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you. So if you're like, hey, I don't want to record video sitting down like you are right now. Okay
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I've got you cover there too. Maybe a selfie stick. You could have set up like this. You could
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add this mount on top of it and you have something much taller that you can stand up and record
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in front of. Another option is a more normal tripod. Here's what I'm using to record right now
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and so this goes much taller so I could stand up and record using this tripod. But the important
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thing is here is just find some way to set your phone down and record a steady shot. Another
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great way to stabilize your shot and very low cost is by using a pop socket like this. So if you have a phone case
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pop socket on it, you can use something like a coffee mug, set your phone like this, or you can
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check out how loud on my business partner does it by putting her phone on top of her laptop like so
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So the next thing that's really important is the audio. So using my iPhone, if it's this close
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the audio is going to be pretty good. Obviously, a phone is used for making calls, at least it used
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to be, and the audio is going to be fairly solid if this is the distance. If your phone
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is this far away, the audio quality isn't going to be quite as good
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So what I recommend doing is investing in a microphone. So it doesn't have to be something super expensive
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You don't have to use a wireless microphone like I'm using currently
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So let me show you two options. So this is a small shotgun mic from Movo
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This is one of my favorite beginner microphones. It around And it connects right here to the cold shoe I need to loosen the mount slide my phone up slightly
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and connect like so. And so how does this audio sound right now
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So this is a much more directional mic, so it should be picking up my voice pretty well
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and kind of rejecting the noise that's happening around me. And given this directional, if it's further away
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the audio should still be pretty good. So this is a good option. good option where you can have the microphone a little bit further away, audio is still pretty
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pretty solid. Another great option that I'm going to show you now is a lab microphone. So lab microphones
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are good and bad depending on what you want to record. For me sometimes having a chord like this
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that kind of gets all knotted up. The great thing with this is this is only $20. The other option was
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40. And with this microphone, let's plug it in. So the great thing is the microphone, obviously you'd run it
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through your shirt normally. So how's the audio with the lab microphone right now? So this is
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obviously really, really close to my mouth. Should be picking up really solid audio. And so it doesn't
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matter where the camera is. Nothing has to be pointed directly at me. I could go behind the camera
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The audio from my voice is going to be the same. So I can move it like this. The one thing
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if you're using a lab microphone is just to remember that this is connected to you because
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sometimes you'll walk off and the camera or phone just get pulled on and knocked over. But as you can hear
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Audio is pretty good for 20 bucks. So those are two options for improving the audio for your videos
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So the next thing that's obviously really important is the lighting. So if you saw the earlier shot where I had the sun behind me coming through the window
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obviously the shot didn't look amazing. So the light behind me was much brighter and you couldn't see my face that well
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What I'm going to show you now is here's my normal setup for recording videos
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So this is a large light from aperture. The light's not that big, but this dome right here is almost
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almost a meter in diameter, like 30 some inches. So the thing with this that's amazing is the light is really, really soft
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And so to give you a comparison, this is a much smaller light source
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This is, you know, less than a centimeter. That is a meter
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And so if I use this, you can see how bright in one spot it is, how much of a shadow is it
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cause And you can even see any detail on my face because it so bright Obviously if you need this in a certain situation but the larger the light source the better One kind of bonus tip you see this wall as white
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So the thing is, if I were to use this flashlight, but if I were to bounce it off the wall
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and it comes back, that's going to look much softer. So what you want to try to figure out is how can I have a fairly large light source and
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the light's going to look much, much better. The other thing is you want the light to be in front of you, not behind you, how we
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We usually record, let me get this out of the way actually, is not with the light right in front
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like with a ring light. Those are probably my least favorite things because it gives this reared circle in your eye and your face looks very flat because the light is right in front of you
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With the light to the side, 45 degrees and up 45 degrees, you can see that it adds kind of some
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shadow to this side of my face and it's a more cinematic look. The light's in front of me
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but at kind of a 45 degree angle and a 45 degree angle. That's how we normally end up recording
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But here's what it looks like if you want to record using natural light. So you can very easily record amazing videos using natural sunlight like I'm doing right now
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There's two things I want you to keep in mind though. The first of which face the light source like we talked about earlier
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You can see the sun coming in through the window and evenly lighting up my face
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If I turn around now you can see it's too bright outside and there's a shadow, my face is too dark, it doesn't look as good
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So face the light source and the second thing to keep in mind is don't record in direct sunlight
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If we go outside, I'll show you what that looks like. So here's why you don't want to be recording in direct, recording in direct sunlight. There's way too much light on this side of my face. Look at how
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white my nose is right now from the bright sunlight and there's a ton of shadows. So this isn't
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a great look. It's much better to record in the shade where you have an evening lit face that
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looks amazing in your videos. So those are the four things you need to create amazing videos for
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Instagram Reels, TikTok or YouTube shorts. Your phone, no need to invest anything there
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something to stabilize your shot, a stack of books, a switch pod, just something to hold
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the phone steady. Having good audio is really, really important so you could use
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use one of the two microphones from Movo that I showed you, or just make sure you have your phone
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really, really close. The last thing is having good lighting. So you can have a huge light source
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like this, or just using natural sunlight works perfectly fine. If you have those four things
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and some creativity, you can create amazing vertical videos. If you want to learn how to create
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YouTube shorts, check out the video right here. If you want to learn how to create Instagram Reels
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check out the video below. Hope to see you in those and future videos. Bye-bye
#Voice & Video Chat