Thursday, June 07, 2012

Three point lighting for video capture

I have the need to capture the talking heads in a video conference session. I need to capture each talking heads video stream and save it to disk. I need each stream captured and saved so it can be archived for later viewing, and the ability to slice up the video into smaller segments. The video will be taken from interviews using online video conferencing software. The challenge comes where the video conferencing software doesn't allow capture of individual streams, in general they just make the whole conference (with all talking heads) available as a single video. And because we need to have solid recording of each talking head for later use in a variety of online learning situations we need a remedy for this situation. Keep in mind, that in general, the video conferences will be with two or three people all in different geographic locations. The solution is to use the video conferencing software as we would normally with two adjustments to the environment;
  1. Create a good studio environment from a lighting perspective.

  2. There is no shortage of good images and video on how to set up a three point lighting system. these two below are a couple of my favorites. Keep in mind the interviewer is going to be replaced by the laptop hosting the video conference.



  3. Include a separate video camera to the mix. Or replace the interviewer with the laptop hosting the video conference.

  4. This is where things vary most from the traditional interview setup. The interviewer is replaced by the laptop hosting the video conference. This will allow you to capture the video in a good quality with good sound. And it will provide it in a format that will allow you to separate the audio from the video and slice up the video so it can be re-used in different learning contexts and situations. Essentially providing a long tail to your video resources.