Talking head videos: camera, background and captions

A talking head video is one person speaking straight to the camera, framed from roughly the chest up. To make one look professional you need five things in place: the camera at eye level, soft light falling on your face from the front, a microphone close to you, a calm background that says something about you, and captions people can read with the sound off. None of it requires expensive kit. A recent phone, a window and a clip on microphone will do.

Camera: height, distance and framing

Put the lens at the height of your eyes. A camera below you looks up your nose and feels confrontational; one far above you makes you look small. Stack books under a laptop or use a cheap tripod for a phone. Use the phone's main rear camera rather than the selfie camera when you can, since it is usually the better one, and turn on the grid so you can line yourself up.

• Eyes on the top third line. Leave a little space above your head, not a lot.
• Chest up for most videos. Closer, shoulders up, feels intimate; wider, waist up, leaves room for hand gestures.
• Look into the lens, not at the screen. A small sticker next to the lens helps you remember.
• Lock exposure and focus by long pressing on your face in the camera app, so the picture doesn't pulse when you move.

If one recording has to serve several platforms, film in vertical with your head in the upper middle and keep your gestures close to your body. A vertical frame can be set on a wider background for YouTube far more gracefully than a widescreen shot can be cropped down to a phone. The full list is in social media video sizes.

Light: face the window

1. 1

   Face a window

   Daylight from in front of you, slightly to one side, is the most flattering light most people own. Never sit with the window behind you.

2. 2

   Turn off overhead lights

   Ceiling lights cast shadows under the eyes and mix colour temperatures with the daylight.

3. 3

   Fill the dark side

   A white wall, a sheet of card or a pale curtain on the side away from the window softens the shadow.

4. 4

   Add a lamp only if needed

   On dark days, one soft light where the window would be does the same job. Keep it diffused, never a bare bulb.

Sound: closer beats better

Viewers forgive a soft picture long before they forgive muddy sound. The single biggest improvement is distance: a microphone a hand's width from your mouth hears your voice and very little of the room. A clip on microphone attached to your collar is the easiest way to get there. Record somewhere with soft furnishings, and listen to the first ten seconds of every session on headphones before you carry on.

Choosing a talking head video background

The background takes up more of the frame than you do, so it shapes the impression as much as your words. You have two good options: a real space with depth, or a designed frame around your footage.

A designed frame is often the easier route for social video. Film anywhere tidy, then place the footage on a branded background with a headline above it and captions below. Your colours fill the edges of the frame, the topic is readable before you speak, and every video in the series looks related. Reels backgrounds has ideas for calm grounds that sit well behind a speaker.

Captions for talking head videos

Captions do more work on a talking head video than on any other kind, because the words are the whole content. Plenty of people scroll with the sound off, and captions help anyone watching in a second language or with hearing loss. A few rules keep them readable.

Edit the automatic transcript. Speech recognition gets names, brands and numbers wrong, and a wrong word in a caption looks careless. Video captions goes deeper on style and placement.

Talking head video ideas that suit the format

• One question, answered. The question your customers ask most, answered in under a minute.
• A mistake and the fix. Something you see clients get wrong, and what to do instead.
• A myth in your field. State it, explain why it's wrong, give the true version.
• A quick opinion on news in your industry, while it is still news.
• Behind the decision. Why you priced, built or changed something the way you did. Behind the scenes content has more angles.

Putting it together in Gradiently

With Pro, you can record your camera, with your microphone, straight into a Gradiently design, review the take, then trim it on the timeline, add captions and music, and download the captions as SRT or VTT for YouTube. The footage sits on a Mark, a background that is yours alone once claimed, with the headline set in it and type that stays readable wherever the gradient moves. For the editing itself, see video editing for beginners; for recording your screen alongside, see screen recording.