Most smaller communities don’t have their local TV broadcasting service. This media is declining anyway, so it may even not be considered anymore.
Most people are watching YouTube and other Internet media at home.
And this is actually an opportunity for small communities – use YouTube, this free and most popular internet service – actually a social network! – as your community’s broadcasting service. In the post-crisis times, it can be full of useful news and communities can come together via this video network.
Setting this up is not difficult at all, most younger people can upload videos directly from their phones, from their yard. So, you can:
- organise some centrally produced program by community leaders and
- invite people to contribute a lot of stories and video material (so-called crowd-sourcing).
Even for that content, you don’t need any expensive equipment (100€ max) although investing around 500€ will later sound like a good idea.
What do you need for a good recording? Basically a script and taking care of lighting, sound, camera, editing.
Script
Even if videos can be divided into two categories – (a) planned, structured content and (b) spontaneous contributions – they both come up better if there are some plan and structure about them. But for the first, serious type some kind of a script is a must.
You don’t necessarily need to write your text word by word, it can be just the main points – and the important/special words. It is important that you have a structure and all things you want to tell listed.
Make sure you rehearse it a couple of times. Even if the plan is to sound relaxed and spontaneous you will manage to keep your cool much better if you don’t have to look for ways to express yourself under the stress. You may feel good about your improvisation abilities but I assure you the public will be less so.
Lighting
Lighting is important obviously but even more so because people that are not used to video recording don’t know the type of lighting that is needed. Basically, the light has to come straight to your face, and a lot of it. Ideally, that should be a ring light of some sort. Some desktop versions can be inexpensive.
Alternatively you should use a couple of lamps from two sides (some 60°) between them, with light source as diffused as possible, remember the umbrellas? 🙂
Apart from this basic tip you just start doing it and you’ll obviously improve with time. There are many video recording lighting tips out there, too.
Sound
Sound is not critical, but in a subtle way much more important than you may believe. And when trying to be a serious speaker online the difference between a good mic close to your mouth and a generic recording with a laptop or phone in a non-soundproof room can drive your audience away. This is why most you-tubers have those clearly visible and big mics.
You can try to record with your phone or cameras mic with a reasonably sound-proof room. Otherwise spend some 40€ for a YouTube mic.
Recording
Recording of the actual video can be done with a YouTube camera or with a good phone, on a tripod. Today’s phones have excellent video recording capabilities, especially with good lighting, so try that first. It is also a good start because it may have some good sound recording capabilities with sound reduction and most importantly … it allows for direct YouTube upload.
Editing
You will probably make some mistakes during the actual recording and you may want to cut them out or edit some other elements of your video. There are many software tools (OpenShot and similar) for that on PCs and Macs and there are some for mobile phones. If you happen to record with the phone the later are the right choice as they may save you a lot of time you would lose with transferring large video files.
And now …
for Setting your YouTube channel, check the first videos on this list…
Most importantly, you probably will be afraid of people laughing at you, and they will be. But remember, you will learn and this will a great contribution to your community. And one or more members of the community will become passionate about recording and publishing material… just start doing it.
Community participation
Inviting your community to participate is still quite easy with YouTube. Just ask the audience from your community to post their self-made videos to YouTube or any other service and reply to your video with a link to their video.
The best authors of such content you can promote as authors on your channel and then they can publish videos directly to the community channel.
