Many of us are communicating on a daily basis via Zoom or Facebook Live or other video apps, and trying to present a professional appearance while working from home. In many cases, we can’t purchase equipment that might make these video calls look sharper. Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to be sharing some ways to make your home videos – the videos you are making on your computers and phones to stay in touch with your clients and audience – look as professional as possible using the stuff you already have around the house.

I couldn’t think of a better first pro tip to cover than mise en scène. I know, I know. You’re so sick of thinking about mise en scène all the time. Just this once though, indulge me, and watch the video.

To summarize and reiterate, here are a few basic things to consider.

1. Mise en scène, at least as far as video production goes, generally refers to everything you see in the shot. For the sake of your home video production, I’ve focused primarily on framing and background.

2. When framing yourself, make sure we can see the parts we need to see.

If, for example,  you are primarily speaking directly to the audience, then frame your face in the shot. Make sure we can see your whole face – and not a whole lot more!

If, for example, you are demonstrating how to draw a picture, make sure we can see you draw, and what you’re drawing. Mo Willems has been doing quite a lot of this if you’d like a great example.

3. Pay attention to what’s going on behind you.

Make sure what we can see of your house is clean, or clean enough. If your place is as messy as mine, put a wall or backdrop behind you. Try to choose a backdrop that offers some contrast to your hair/dress color, so you don’t fade into it.

Try to eliminate distracting people or animals. If that’s possible.

If you can’t find a non distracting background in your house, you can use a digital one. Just be sure you are well lit, or you may fade away into the green screen like a mirage

4. Here’s an article about mise en scene, cause I know you want to read more about it!

In movies, as in corporate video production, the director will think about all the little details of what makes up the shot. For your videos, that you are, in many cases, live streaming through a phone or computer, the main goal is to make sure we, the audience, can see what we need to see, and that we are not distracted by all the things you really don’t want us to see.

Stay tuned for more pro video tips to come. I promise the rest of them will focus more on what I’ve learned over the last 20 years of running a video production company and a little less on fancy fil school terms I picked up at NYU.

About Jessica Robinson and Capture Video, Inc.: Jessica earned her BFA in Film and TV Production from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She worked in the feature film industry in NYC, finishing that career path as 2nd 2nd Assistant Director on the Ed Harris directed, Academy Award winning movie, Pollock. Jessica started Capture Video, Inc. in March of 2000 and has since produced training and promotional videos, videos recorded or shown at galas, and more recently videos to be used in phone apps for such clients as Capital One Bank, Clark Construction, Space Adventures, and the Special Olympics, to name a few.

Jessica founded the storytelling organization Better Said Than Done in 2011, producing 2 monthly live storytelling shows, and instruction storytelling for such organizations as The World Bank and The Brookings Institution.