Camera angles and other tips for recording solo performance (now with bad videos!)

thecolourbox

Hi all

A creative festival I was due to play at later this month is going online, via videos on Facebook/YouTube. Some people might do live stream but most of us will be doing prerecorded videos - which is good because I'll be recording the audio on the computer and video on camera, then will merge the two together. 

I've been trying to practice playing/singing to camera and watching back, trying to get a good angle where you can see me and I can be comfortable and it's been...Amusing. I have found that singing looking directly into the camera is very uncomfortable, and apparently I pull quite odd faces in an attempt to show some facial variety and not look like I'm going to cry. 

So, people who have filmed this sort of thing, what are your tips? Any goods suggestions for complimentary angles? I'll be playing three songs on guitar and three on a keyboard so would be good to show a bit of that on the video. It'll be in my living room I think as I've nowhere else to record audio that looks acceptable

I'll be watching some videos on YouTube, live and music videos, but any tips would be appreciated

Thanks

ESBlonde

Try a few angles with your tripod. Those of us with erm...less hair ,might not think from above is good, but it can sometimes work quite well. If your editing software/skills are up to speed you can add in the occasional bit of mobile phone footage from a different angle for some variety. Remember to clap at the start to help sync sound and vision, then chop that all off in the final edit. Also think about what is in shot, an airing horse covered in your smalls only appeals to a certain selcct audience!

HCDavies

One of the most Iconic videos made was Robert Palmers Addicted to Love. That had 3 camera positions near, far and middle. Would that be worth a try. Most of us have many cameras available these days. Use the best quality one closest, least for the far shots. 

soma1975

Some tips from a top cinematographer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NY8wWo_VBs

merlin

Just no solo guitar crotch shots, please. 

thecolourbox

Thanks fellas for the tips and help. I've more or less done them now, but decided quite early on that actually the video was going to be the hardest bit so I didn't put too much effort into trying to make it look decent, in fact the video qualities are terrible. I used my camera phone for the guitar videos and my compact camera on the piano videos. Surprisingly the phone camera was less bad quality.

As you can see from the following two examples, having my camera angle and facial angle slightly off kilter was my general plan, so I was looking past them (not least because the words to the guitar songs were displayed to the right of the camera...)



And