Lights – What your Content is missing 

written by Vicente Lochschmidt,

co-creator of Elevate Networking. 

A few years ago I went to Seoul, South Korea and walked along the Cheonggyecheon river, a picturesque stream of water that flows in the center of the city. In what was a perfect way to capture the feel of the culture, my friend and I stumbled upon the filming of what looked like a K-drama. Two good-looking actors were acting out a dramatic scene on a bridge and looking very forlorn and very in love. Something viewers won’t see on their TV screens afterwards though is the huge crew just centimeters off-camera, with heaps of sound and lighting equipment. The director, sound engineer, make-up crew and technicians all working and buzzing around the scene, not to mention a few extra assistants making sure that no pedestrians accidentally walk into the scene or snap any pictures.

For what may look like a simple scene there is a huge amount of behind-the-scenes gear and prep to make it look professional.

While some social media pages will go all the way with this level of production, most are just one-man teams. With the advent of social media we’re seeing how people are applying similar concepts and standards to their own personal reels, making their content look much more professional with better equipment, including lighting. Making your content look professional reflects onto your personal brand so getting production value on point is key. As amazing as your product or services can be, having cheap-looking content can give a wrong first impression of your offer. If your audio sounds “echo-y” or you’ve got a heavy shadow on your face in your content, it’ll already put your potential customer at unease wondering how good what you’re offering actually is.

Lika showing the key steps to looking good on camera:

1 – Great lighting equipment

2 – Enviable genetics

They say that good special effects in movies are those that you don’t notice, and lighting is very similar; you won’t notice it until it’s not well done or something feels off in a scene.

For our own reels we use a variety of equipment but one of the most used ones is a softbox umbrella light from Andoer. It’s height-adjustable, collapsible, has 4 built-in lighting settings and is all done with literally one switch. 

If you’re wondering why the light has this form factor, the softbox light design ensures that the light is dispersed evenly over the whole scene, giving everything an equal focus. You can see this effect for yourself by putting a sheet of regular A4 paper over a lamp and seeing how the light becomes much more even. If you really wanted to up your game you could even add a reflective sheet into the mix to also even out the shadows.

The whole light is made up of only two parts

Setting up the light is very simple and because of its compact form factor, moving around the stand is very easy. You also have full control of the height, letting you go all the way up to 2 meters in height.

Fastening the light to the stand is just as simple as it looks

After the setup, it’s time to use the light and this is where the light outdoes itself in its simplicity. To turn the light on or off, and to switch between the 4 different lighting settings is all done with just one switch. Using the switch alternates between the 4 different lighting settings, with every second switch turning the light off again. Not having an app in this case might actually be a boon for some as it greatly simplifies the whole process and makes it very user-friendly.

The same scene lit 4 different ways with the Andoer Light

The light has 4 light settings, dim and cool, dim and warm, bright and cool, bright and warm.

As a last note, notice how much of an effect proper lighting can have on your content with the screenshots from reels below from the lovely Lika. If you’re looking to give your content that consistently professional look without having to depend on the time of day or season, a single professional light could be a game-changer.