Camera and lighting setup
Every angle earns a stated job, and one of them exists because the piece deserves it.
The short version
Is this for you? For angles with no stated job and footage the grade cannot save. Each angle here has to earn its place, which matters most on a piece that will be cut; a single locked-off shot needs far less of this.
What leaves your plate. Every angle given a job agreed before the day, one of them allowed to exist purely because the piece deserves it, the capture format asked for upstream, and the light aimed at a named subject rather than the whole room.
What starts working. Footage that cuts together as one room, holds its colour across an afternoon, and leaves the grade and the tracking somewhere to work.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Where a camera plan stops being where the tripods fit
Every angle has a job, agreed before the day
The piano room, worked out in full: an overhead so a viewer can see exactly which black key a diminished chord lands on, a front angle for the teaching and the eye contact, and a side angle whose job is the artistic choice. Three positions, three stated reasons, and the third reason is allowed to be that the piece deserves it.
The capture format is asked for upstream
A log picture profile with the bit depth to grade, rather than a locked-in standard look, so the grade has somewhere to go and a colour decision is still available weeks later. The overhead shot recorded higher than the delivery size, so fingers can be tracked and punched into without going soft; where the delivery is itself 4K, the detail angle has to go higher still, or the punch-in is planned at the lens, because room to crop is bought at the camera or not at all. Both of those are post-production decisions, taken before the shoot, by the people who will have to work with the result.
Daylight gets help before it needs rescuing
A room with good natural light is a gift that changes by the hour. Sun moves, clouds arrive, and a lesson filmed across an afternoon drifts from flat to blown out with no warning in the room. Artificial sources are added to hold the level steady, which keeps the grade consistent and keeps three hours of footage cuttable as one scene.
The light has a subject, and it is named
On a piano angle the keys are lit deliberately, because the keys are the reason anybody is watching that shot. One camera is designated the reference and every other angle is matched to it, so a three-camera lesson feels like one room. Where that reference sits is a colour decision made with a light stand, hours before anybody reaches for a slider.
One room, three jobs
| Overhead | the hands, 4K, so it can be tracked and punched into |
|---|---|
| Front | talking head, the teaching, the eye contact |
| Side | the artistic choice, and it is allowed to be one |
| Capture format | log, so the grade has somewhere to go |
| Reference | one angle holds the truth, the others are matched to it |
Decisions taken before anybody presses record
Cameras
Resolution and format chosen against what post has to do with the shot. Frame rate agreed once and kept. Angles placed so cutting between them never crosses the subject or repeats a distance, which is a thing the editor will thank the shoot for and nobody in the room will notice on the day.
Light
Enough control that a scene holds its exposure and colour for as long as it takes to record, with the subject genuinely separated from the background, which is a different thing from being visible against it. Continuity matters more than sophistication here: one modest setup that stays identical across a series beats a beautiful one that changes between videos.
How this arrives when the shoot is not ours
Remote setup sessions by video call, a written checklist for the crew, and a review of the first files that come back. Recommendations get confirmed against real footage before anybody assumes they worked, and where something is still wrong it is said plainly while there is another shoot day to fix it in.
If an angle cannot say what it is for, it is not a camera position, it is a spare camera.
Every angle here carries a stated job, and one is allowed to be that the piece deserves it.
What changes for you
Footage that cuts together as one room, holds its colour across an afternoon, and gives the grade and the tracking somewhere to work. All decided in advance, by people who knew what the edit would need.
Related: Shoot planning · Colour grading · Tracking and punch-ins · Multi-camera editing
Most fixes here cost nothing on the day of the shoot and everything after it. The audit reads recent videos for what should have been decided before recording, and puts the list in writing.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →