Elevating Your YouTube Presence Through FameBit-Inspired Sponsorships

How to Find YouTube Sponsorships by Using FameBit

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

FameBit is one of the leading influencer marketing platforms.

Creators use FameBit to earn money by creating branded content. Businesses use FameBit to find the perfect video creators – or ‘digital influencers’ – to help with their marketing campaigns.

Until your channel is huge it is difficult to make a significant amount of money through ad revenue on YouTube. Creating branded content is one way in which YouTubers with small or mid-sized channels can generate income.

Finding sponsorships and negotiating with brands can be tricky. So can integrating products and brand messages in your videos without making your audience feel like you have ‘sold out’. This guide will help.

You must have at least 5,000 subscribers to join FameBit.

How Much Money Can You Make

How much money you can make on FameBit will depend on the deals you can negotiate with brands, and those deals will depend on how many subscribers you have and how many views you usually receive .

When calculating your fee, FameBit suggests thinking of it in terms of ‘cost per view’ (CPV). Most creators on FameBit charge between $0.05 and $0.10 per view. If you charge $0.05 per view and you get an average of 10,000 views per video then you would charge a brand $500 for your services.

How much you should charge per view depends on your genre and the nature of your audience. If you often mention products you like in videos and your subscribers have come to trust your recommendations, then it makes sense for you to charge more per view than a creator whose audience will be less receptive to product placement.

For example, if you do makeup tutorials then viewers will be used to hearing about your favorites. This makes your 10 000 views more valuable than 10 000 views on a ranting vlog channel whose subscribers are not tuning in to hear about products.

How to Make Money With FameBit

Finding Sponsorships

Brands post details about their upcoming campaigns, and the types of creators they are interested in working with, on FameBit.

While you are browsing through the available campaigns, think of the types of brands you would be excited to work with as well as which ones make sense for your channel.

If you host a lifestyle vlog about staying healthy, for example, and there is an opportunity to work with a brand that sells a type of healthy snack then it is your responsibility to look into the company and the product before you sign on to work with them. Is the snack healthy, and do you enjoy it?

Ideally, you will want to find brands that share your values and which are selling products you feel good about recommending to your subscribers.

Once you find a few campaigns you are interested in creating videos for, it’s time to write your proposals and negotiate with your potential sponsors.

Negotiating with Sponsors

When you want to be part of a campaign a brand has posted, you send them a proposal.

Be creative and detailed in the proposals you write. The best brands will value you for our ideas and creativity, and this will give you an edge over creators who put less effort into their pitches. You also want to be detailed because you do not want to risk having a disagreement with the brand based on them misunderstanding what you were going to do.

Sometimes brands will have very specific things they want you to do or say in the video you make for them. It is your job to find ways of doing and saying these things that still feel natural within the context of your videos. On YouTube, even when you are representing a brand, you need to be authentically you.

If you feel like the things a brand wants from you will make your video come across as a tacky commercial and offend your loyal subscribers, and you cannot see a creative way around this, bring it up before you agree to work with them. Explain what you think should happen instead. If they are not willing to compromise, do not agree to work with them. Find a more reasonable brand to partner with.

If you offend your subscribers and they stop watching you then your channel will become less valuable to other potential sponsors. In the long run, there is no upside to agreeing to do a video that makes no sense for your channel.

Remember that even brands that like your ideas and get excited about your proposals will not be able to work with you if you do not meet their requirements in terms of subscribers and average views. There are a lot of campaigns on FameBit which are open to small or mid-sized channels, but there will always be minimum requirements. It makes no sense for a brand to pay you to make a video nobody will see, even if it is an amazing video. Sad, but true.

How to Avoid Alienating Your Audience

Some of your subscribers will resent any branded content you create and there is no way around that. These subscribers will be in the minority – most people understand that accepting sponsorship from brands helps their favorite YouTubers continue making great videos – but it is unavoidable that there will be a few.

Most of your subscribers will not be bothered by the idea of you partnering with a brand, so long as you go about it in the right way.

Firstly; be honest about your sponsorship. Do not pretend to be giving an objective opinion on a product when the company who makes it is paying you. Your viewers will know and they will be offended.

Secondly; incorporate the brand’s message or product into your videos in ways that feel natural. Do not stray too far from your usual video style. Ultimately every video you make, even branded content, is for your viewers. Make the kind of video they expect from you and mention the product or service you have agreed to in a place where it makes sense/is on topic.

You want the branding in your videos to be subtle, but you never want to hide that it is there.

So long as you are honest and the more commercial elements of your video are not distracting, the vast majority of your subscribers – the ones you have built a real relationship with – will not mind.

Custom Videos with Awesome Video Editor

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

FameBit is one of the leading influencer marketing platforms.

Creators use FameBit to earn money by creating branded content. Businesses use FameBit to find the perfect video creators – or ‘digital influencers’ – to help with their marketing campaigns.

Until your channel is huge it is difficult to make a significant amount of money through ad revenue on YouTube. Creating branded content is one way in which YouTubers with small or mid-sized channels can generate income.

Finding sponsorships and negotiating with brands can be tricky. So can integrating products and brand messages in your videos without making your audience feel like you have ‘sold out’. This guide will help.

You must have at least 5,000 subscribers to join FameBit.

How Much Money Can You Make

How much money you can make on FameBit will depend on the deals you can negotiate with brands, and those deals will depend on how many subscribers you have and how many views you usually receive .

When calculating your fee, FameBit suggests thinking of it in terms of ‘cost per view’ (CPV). Most creators on FameBit charge between $0.05 and $0.10 per view. If you charge $0.05 per view and you get an average of 10,000 views per video then you would charge a brand $500 for your services.

How much you should charge per view depends on your genre and the nature of your audience. If you often mention products you like in videos and your subscribers have come to trust your recommendations, then it makes sense for you to charge more per view than a creator whose audience will be less receptive to product placement.

For example, if you do makeup tutorials then viewers will be used to hearing about your favorites. This makes your 10 000 views more valuable than 10 000 views on a ranting vlog channel whose subscribers are not tuning in to hear about products.

How to Make Money With FameBit

Finding Sponsorships

Brands post details about their upcoming campaigns, and the types of creators they are interested in working with, on FameBit.

While you are browsing through the available campaigns, think of the types of brands you would be excited to work with as well as which ones make sense for your channel.

If you host a lifestyle vlog about staying healthy, for example, and there is an opportunity to work with a brand that sells a type of healthy snack then it is your responsibility to look into the company and the product before you sign on to work with them. Is the snack healthy, and do you enjoy it?

Ideally, you will want to find brands that share your values and which are selling products you feel good about recommending to your subscribers.

Once you find a few campaigns you are interested in creating videos for, it’s time to write your proposals and negotiate with your potential sponsors.

Negotiating with Sponsors

When you want to be part of a campaign a brand has posted, you send them a proposal.

Be creative and detailed in the proposals you write. The best brands will value you for our ideas and creativity, and this will give you an edge over creators who put less effort into their pitches. You also want to be detailed because you do not want to risk having a disagreement with the brand based on them misunderstanding what you were going to do.

Sometimes brands will have very specific things they want you to do or say in the video you make for them. It is your job to find ways of doing and saying these things that still feel natural within the context of your videos. On YouTube, even when you are representing a brand, you need to be authentically you.

If you feel like the things a brand wants from you will make your video come across as a tacky commercial and offend your loyal subscribers, and you cannot see a creative way around this, bring it up before you agree to work with them. Explain what you think should happen instead. If they are not willing to compromise, do not agree to work with them. Find a more reasonable brand to partner with.

If you offend your subscribers and they stop watching you then your channel will become less valuable to other potential sponsors. In the long run, there is no upside to agreeing to do a video that makes no sense for your channel.

Remember that even brands that like your ideas and get excited about your proposals will not be able to work with you if you do not meet their requirements in terms of subscribers and average views. There are a lot of campaigns on FameBit which are open to small or mid-sized channels, but there will always be minimum requirements. It makes no sense for a brand to pay you to make a video nobody will see, even if it is an amazing video. Sad, but true.

How to Avoid Alienating Your Audience

Some of your subscribers will resent any branded content you create and there is no way around that. These subscribers will be in the minority – most people understand that accepting sponsorship from brands helps their favorite YouTubers continue making great videos – but it is unavoidable that there will be a few.

Most of your subscribers will not be bothered by the idea of you partnering with a brand, so long as you go about it in the right way.

Firstly; be honest about your sponsorship. Do not pretend to be giving an objective opinion on a product when the company who makes it is paying you. Your viewers will know and they will be offended.

Secondly; incorporate the brand’s message or product into your videos in ways that feel natural. Do not stray too far from your usual video style. Ultimately every video you make, even branded content, is for your viewers. Make the kind of video they expect from you and mention the product or service you have agreed to in a place where it makes sense/is on topic.

You want the branding in your videos to be subtle, but you never want to hide that it is there.

So long as you are honest and the more commercial elements of your video are not distracting, the vast majority of your subscribers – the ones you have built a real relationship with – will not mind.

Custom Videos with Awesome Video Editor

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

FameBit is one of the leading influencer marketing platforms.

Creators use FameBit to earn money by creating branded content. Businesses use FameBit to find the perfect video creators – or ‘digital influencers’ – to help with their marketing campaigns.

Until your channel is huge it is difficult to make a significant amount of money through ad revenue on YouTube. Creating branded content is one way in which YouTubers with small or mid-sized channels can generate income.

Finding sponsorships and negotiating with brands can be tricky. So can integrating products and brand messages in your videos without making your audience feel like you have ‘sold out’. This guide will help.

You must have at least 5,000 subscribers to join FameBit.

How Much Money Can You Make

How much money you can make on FameBit will depend on the deals you can negotiate with brands, and those deals will depend on how many subscribers you have and how many views you usually receive .

When calculating your fee, FameBit suggests thinking of it in terms of ‘cost per view’ (CPV). Most creators on FameBit charge between $0.05 and $0.10 per view. If you charge $0.05 per view and you get an average of 10,000 views per video then you would charge a brand $500 for your services.

How much you should charge per view depends on your genre and the nature of your audience. If you often mention products you like in videos and your subscribers have come to trust your recommendations, then it makes sense for you to charge more per view than a creator whose audience will be less receptive to product placement.

For example, if you do makeup tutorials then viewers will be used to hearing about your favorites. This makes your 10 000 views more valuable than 10 000 views on a ranting vlog channel whose subscribers are not tuning in to hear about products.

How to Make Money With FameBit

Finding Sponsorships

Brands post details about their upcoming campaigns, and the types of creators they are interested in working with, on FameBit.

While you are browsing through the available campaigns, think of the types of brands you would be excited to work with as well as which ones make sense for your channel.

If you host a lifestyle vlog about staying healthy, for example, and there is an opportunity to work with a brand that sells a type of healthy snack then it is your responsibility to look into the company and the product before you sign on to work with them. Is the snack healthy, and do you enjoy it?

Ideally, you will want to find brands that share your values and which are selling products you feel good about recommending to your subscribers.

Once you find a few campaigns you are interested in creating videos for, it’s time to write your proposals and negotiate with your potential sponsors.

Negotiating with Sponsors

When you want to be part of a campaign a brand has posted, you send them a proposal.

Be creative and detailed in the proposals you write. The best brands will value you for our ideas and creativity, and this will give you an edge over creators who put less effort into their pitches. You also want to be detailed because you do not want to risk having a disagreement with the brand based on them misunderstanding what you were going to do.

Sometimes brands will have very specific things they want you to do or say in the video you make for them. It is your job to find ways of doing and saying these things that still feel natural within the context of your videos. On YouTube, even when you are representing a brand, you need to be authentically you.

If you feel like the things a brand wants from you will make your video come across as a tacky commercial and offend your loyal subscribers, and you cannot see a creative way around this, bring it up before you agree to work with them. Explain what you think should happen instead. If they are not willing to compromise, do not agree to work with them. Find a more reasonable brand to partner with.

If you offend your subscribers and they stop watching you then your channel will become less valuable to other potential sponsors. In the long run, there is no upside to agreeing to do a video that makes no sense for your channel.

Remember that even brands that like your ideas and get excited about your proposals will not be able to work with you if you do not meet their requirements in terms of subscribers and average views. There are a lot of campaigns on FameBit which are open to small or mid-sized channels, but there will always be minimum requirements. It makes no sense for a brand to pay you to make a video nobody will see, even if it is an amazing video. Sad, but true.

How to Avoid Alienating Your Audience

Some of your subscribers will resent any branded content you create and there is no way around that. These subscribers will be in the minority – most people understand that accepting sponsorship from brands helps their favorite YouTubers continue making great videos – but it is unavoidable that there will be a few.

Most of your subscribers will not be bothered by the idea of you partnering with a brand, so long as you go about it in the right way.

Firstly; be honest about your sponsorship. Do not pretend to be giving an objective opinion on a product when the company who makes it is paying you. Your viewers will know and they will be offended.

Secondly; incorporate the brand’s message or product into your videos in ways that feel natural. Do not stray too far from your usual video style. Ultimately every video you make, even branded content, is for your viewers. Make the kind of video they expect from you and mention the product or service you have agreed to in a place where it makes sense/is on topic.

You want the branding in your videos to be subtle, but you never want to hide that it is there.

So long as you are honest and the more commercial elements of your video are not distracting, the vast majority of your subscribers – the ones you have built a real relationship with – will not mind.

Custom Videos with Awesome Video Editor

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

FameBit is one of the leading influencer marketing platforms.

Creators use FameBit to earn money by creating branded content. Businesses use FameBit to find the perfect video creators – or ‘digital influencers’ – to help with their marketing campaigns.

Until your channel is huge it is difficult to make a significant amount of money through ad revenue on YouTube. Creating branded content is one way in which YouTubers with small or mid-sized channels can generate income.

Finding sponsorships and negotiating with brands can be tricky. So can integrating products and brand messages in your videos without making your audience feel like you have ‘sold out’. This guide will help.

You must have at least 5,000 subscribers to join FameBit.

How Much Money Can You Make

How much money you can make on FameBit will depend on the deals you can negotiate with brands, and those deals will depend on how many subscribers you have and how many views you usually receive .

When calculating your fee, FameBit suggests thinking of it in terms of ‘cost per view’ (CPV). Most creators on FameBit charge between $0.05 and $0.10 per view. If you charge $0.05 per view and you get an average of 10,000 views per video then you would charge a brand $500 for your services.

How much you should charge per view depends on your genre and the nature of your audience. If you often mention products you like in videos and your subscribers have come to trust your recommendations, then it makes sense for you to charge more per view than a creator whose audience will be less receptive to product placement.

For example, if you do makeup tutorials then viewers will be used to hearing about your favorites. This makes your 10 000 views more valuable than 10 000 views on a ranting vlog channel whose subscribers are not tuning in to hear about products.

How to Make Money With FameBit

Finding Sponsorships

Brands post details about their upcoming campaigns, and the types of creators they are interested in working with, on FameBit.

While you are browsing through the available campaigns, think of the types of brands you would be excited to work with as well as which ones make sense for your channel.

If you host a lifestyle vlog about staying healthy, for example, and there is an opportunity to work with a brand that sells a type of healthy snack then it is your responsibility to look into the company and the product before you sign on to work with them. Is the snack healthy, and do you enjoy it?

Ideally, you will want to find brands that share your values and which are selling products you feel good about recommending to your subscribers.

Once you find a few campaigns you are interested in creating videos for, it’s time to write your proposals and negotiate with your potential sponsors.

Negotiating with Sponsors

When you want to be part of a campaign a brand has posted, you send them a proposal.

Be creative and detailed in the proposals you write. The best brands will value you for our ideas and creativity, and this will give you an edge over creators who put less effort into their pitches. You also want to be detailed because you do not want to risk having a disagreement with the brand based on them misunderstanding what you were going to do.

Sometimes brands will have very specific things they want you to do or say in the video you make for them. It is your job to find ways of doing and saying these things that still feel natural within the context of your videos. On YouTube, even when you are representing a brand, you need to be authentically you.

If you feel like the things a brand wants from you will make your video come across as a tacky commercial and offend your loyal subscribers, and you cannot see a creative way around this, bring it up before you agree to work with them. Explain what you think should happen instead. If they are not willing to compromise, do not agree to work with them. Find a more reasonable brand to partner with.

If you offend your subscribers and they stop watching you then your channel will become less valuable to other potential sponsors. In the long run, there is no upside to agreeing to do a video that makes no sense for your channel.

Remember that even brands that like your ideas and get excited about your proposals will not be able to work with you if you do not meet their requirements in terms of subscribers and average views. There are a lot of campaigns on FameBit which are open to small or mid-sized channels, but there will always be minimum requirements. It makes no sense for a brand to pay you to make a video nobody will see, even if it is an amazing video. Sad, but true.

How to Avoid Alienating Your Audience

Some of your subscribers will resent any branded content you create and there is no way around that. These subscribers will be in the minority – most people understand that accepting sponsorship from brands helps their favorite YouTubers continue making great videos – but it is unavoidable that there will be a few.

Most of your subscribers will not be bothered by the idea of you partnering with a brand, so long as you go about it in the right way.

Firstly; be honest about your sponsorship. Do not pretend to be giving an objective opinion on a product when the company who makes it is paying you. Your viewers will know and they will be offended.

Secondly; incorporate the brand’s message or product into your videos in ways that feel natural. Do not stray too far from your usual video style. Ultimately every video you make, even branded content, is for your viewers. Make the kind of video they expect from you and mention the product or service you have agreed to in a place where it makes sense/is on topic.

You want the branding in your videos to be subtle, but you never want to hide that it is there.

So long as you are honest and the more commercial elements of your video are not distracting, the vast majority of your subscribers – the ones you have built a real relationship with – will not mind.

Custom Videos with Awesome Video Editor

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Beam It Up: A Step-By-Step Approach to YouTube Video Luminance

How To Light Your YouTube Video

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.


Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett