Filming techniques
Course 2 · Ch 4
Filming Techniques
Framing, the rule of thirds, b-roll, movement, and talking head vs screen recording
Technical quality gets you in the door. Filming technique is what keeps viewers watching. A well-framed, well-composed shot with purposeful cuts feels professional even on modest gear. This chapter covers the visual language of YouTube — how to frame yourself, what b-roll is and why it matters, how to add movement without a gimbal, and how to approach the two most common creator formats: talking head and screen recording.
Shot Types — The Building Blocks
Every video is assembled from a vocabulary of shots. Knowing the names and knowing when to use them are two different things — this section covers both.
Wide / Establishing
Shows the full environment. Used at the start of a scene to orient the viewer. Rarely used mid-video on YouTube.
Medium
Waist or chest up. The standard YouTube talking-head shot. Shows body language and gestures. Feels natural and connected.
Medium Close-Up
Chest and shoulders to top of head. Creates intimacy. Great for emphasis, reaction shots, or when you want to feel closer to the viewer.
Close-Up
Face fills the frame. Used for emotional moments, emphasis, or reaction. Too much close-up feels intense — use sparingly.
Over the Shoulder
Camera behind one person, looking at another. Great for interviews, tutorials showing a product, or two-person conversations.
Insert / Detail
A close shot of hands, a screen, a product, or any relevant detail. The workhorse of b-roll. Cuts away from talking head to show what's being discussed.
Framing — The Rule of Thirds
Divide the frame into a 3×3 grid. Place your subject on one of the two vertical lines — usually the left third — with empty space on the other side. Your eyes should land near one of the four intersection points.
Eye line: Keep your eyes on the upper horizontal third — roughly one-third from the top of the frame. Not centred, not at the top.
Looking room: Face toward the empty space. Facing the edge of the frame feels claustrophobic and wrong; space in front of your face feels natural.
The centred exception: Centred framing works for content that is deliberately intense, authoritative, or cinematic — motivational videos, monologues, documentary-style pieces. It's a deliberate stylistic choice, not a default.
Camera height matters as much as position
Camera below eye level looks up at you (makes you look dominant — useful for authority content). Camera above eye level looks down (diminishes you — almost always unflattering). Camera at eye level or just slightly above is the default for most creators. Mount your webcam or camera on an arm so it looks straight into your eyes, not up your nose.
The Talking Head — Setting Up Your Shot
The talking-head format — camera on you, speaking directly to the viewer — is the backbone of most YouTube content. It builds trust, personality, and connection. Here's how to set it up well.
- Distance from camera. For a medium shot (chest to top of head), sit roughly 1–1.5 metres from the lens. Too close feels confrontational; too far feels disconnected and makes audio harder to capture cleanly.
- Camera at eye level. Your lens should be exactly at eye height. Tape a mark on the wall if it helps. Every centimetre below eye level looks up your nostrils; every centimetre above feels like the camera is watching over you.
- Leave headroom — but not too much. Leave roughly one finger-width of space between the top of your head and the top of the frame. Too much space looks unprofessional; cutting off the top of the head looks careless.
- Position on the rule-of-thirds line. Frame yourself on the left or right vertical third. If you're talking directly to camera, centred works — but thirds creates more visual interest.
- Check your background. No lamps growing out of your head, no cluttered mess, no bright window blowing out behind you. A clean background with depth — slight blur (shallow depth of field) or intentional decor — looks professional. More on backgrounds below.
- Look at the lens, not the screen. Mark the lens with a small sticker dot. If you're reading from a prompter app, keep the text window close to the camera so your eye direction stays natural.
Backgrounds — what works and what doesn't
| Background type | Effect | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Bookshelf (books visible) | Implies knowledge, warmth, personality | Works very well — classic creator background |
| Blurred natural room | Depth, warmth, lived-in feel | Great with a fast lens and shallow depth of field |
| Clean wall / single colour | Minimal, focused, clean | Works if lit with a colour accent — plain grey wall is flat |
| Green screen | Flexible virtual backgrounds | Needs good lighting and keying. Can look cheap if rushed. |
| Cluttered mess | Distracting, unprofessional | Viewers notice. Five minutes of tidying beats any lens. |
| Bright window directly behind | Creates silhouette, blows out background | Block it or move. This is the most common beginner mistake. |
Screen Recording — Tutorials, Coding & Demos
If your content is software, code, design, or any on-screen workflow, screen recording is your primary format. The technical bar is low — the content and pacing bar is high.
Screen recording setup
Resolution: record at your native resolution
If your monitor is 1080p, record at 1080p. If 4K, record at 4K and export at 1080p — you get a crisper result when downscaling. Never upscale a low-res recording.
Mouse highlights and click indicators
Enable click highlighting in OBS, Camtasia, or Screenflow. Viewers cannot follow a cursor that darts across the screen invisibly. A subtle circle or colour flash on clicks is essential for tutorials.
OBS: add a colour source filter on the mouse cursor via a plugin. Camtasia has this built in.
Font size: bigger than you think
What looks readable at full resolution on your monitor looks tiny on a phone screen. Zoom in, increase font sizes in your IDE or browser before recording. Accessibility is not optional.
Separate audio from screen capture
Record your microphone and system audio as separate tracks in OBS or Audacity. If a notification sound interrupts the recording, you can cut just the system audio channel without losing your voice track.
Clean your desktop before recording
Close unnecessary tabs, hide your taskbar, turn on Do Not Disturb. Notification popups mid-recording either require a re-take or a messy edit. Embarrassing files in the file picker are forever.
Picture-in-picture (PiP) face cam
Adding a small camera feed of your face in the corner significantly increases retention and personal connection — even on screen-recording content. Use OBS scene layout with screen capture + webcam overlay.
Position PiP bottom-left or bottom-right where it doesn't cover UI elements.
B-Roll — The Cut That Saves Everything
A-roll is the main footage — you talking to camera. B-roll is supplementary footage cut over the top: your hands typing, a product close-up, a screen recording, stock footage, or cutaway shots. B-roll does three things:
- Covers jump cuts when you've edited out sections of speech
- Illustrates what you're talking about rather than just describing it
- Gives the viewer's eyes somewhere to go — a visual break from your face
B-roll ideas by content type
Tech / coding
- Hands on keyboard
- Terminal output scrolling
- Screen close-ups of code
- Phone showing an app
- Cable/hardware detail shots
Education / explainer
- Writing on whiteboard / paper
- Diagrams being drawn
- Relevant book pages
- Stock footage (Pexels, Pixabay)
- Screen recordings of examples
Vlog / lifestyle
- Environment establishing shots
- Walking footage
- Detail shots (coffee, hands, feet)
- Faces of people spoken to
- Products / items referenced
Review / product
- Product rotating on surface
- Ports, buttons, details
- Packaging unboxing
- In-use shots (holding, wearing)
- Comparison next to rival product
Free stock footage
- Pexels.com/videos
- Pixabay.com
- Mixkit.co
- Coverr.co
- YouTube's own audio library
The b-roll trap: using it to hide a weak script
B-roll is a tool, not a mask. Covering 90% of a video with stock footage and talking-head audio is not storytelling — it's a slideshow with voiceover. The best b-roll is purposeful: it shows something the audience couldn't otherwise see, or proves a point visually. Use it to enhance, not to hide.
Camera Movement — When and How
Movement adds energy and cinematic feel — but only when it's controlled and motivated. Random camera shake looks amateurish; smooth, purposeful movement looks professional.
Static tripod shot
The default for talking-head and tutorial content. Rock solid, no distraction. You don't always need movement — and for educational content, stillness is often better.
Use a fluid head tripod so you can tilt and pan smoothly when needed.
Slow push-in (digital or physical)
Very slowly moving the camera closer during a speech adds subtle emphasis. Used heavily in documentary-style YouTube. Can be done in post (digital zoom crop) if you shot in 4K — but loses sharpness.
Gimbal (3-axis stabiliser)
A motorised stabiliser that eliminates shake while walking. DJI OM6 (phone) and DJI RS3 (mirrorless) are the standard choices. Transforms vlogging footage from shaky to cinematic.
Requires practice to walk smoothly. Bend your knees slightly — it absorbs footstep vibration.
In-body stabilisation (IBIS)
Many modern mirrorless cameras have IBIS — sensor-shift stabilisation that compensates for shake. Combine with optical stabilisation (OIS) in the lens for near-gimbal smoothness when walking slowly.
Turn off IBIS when the camera is on a tripod — it can create a subtle floating wobble.
Handheld (intentional)
Slight handheld movement can add energy and authenticity — especially for vlogs, documentary-style content, or moments of action. Never for static talking-head work — it reads as "couldn't afford a tripod."
Cut instead of zoom
Don't zoom in slowly to emphasise a point — cut to a closer shot. Digital zoom on most cameras is a crop and loses quality. If you must zoom, use optical zoom before recording starts, not mid-shot.
Common Filming Mistakes
- Camera below eye level. You end up looking up your nostrils. Raise the camera to eye level every time.
- Too much headroom. Large gap above the head looks like the subject is sinking. One finger-width of headroom is the rule.
- Lens flare from lights in shot. A light source in frame hitting the lens directly creates unwanted flare. Raise or reposition your key light so it's just out of frame.
- Talking-head only — no b-roll. Watching a single shot of someone talking for 10 minutes is hard. Every 20–30 seconds of talking head should have a cutaway to cover the edit and give the eye a break.
- Overusing jump cuts. Cutting every second creates anxiety and fatigue. Use b-roll, hold a shot for a beat before cutting, let sentences breathe.
- Forgetting to check the background. A lamp growing out of your head, a random pile of clothes, or a door left open looking into a dark hallway — all noticed by viewers, never by the creator.
- Recording portrait (9:16) for YouTube. YouTube is 16:9 landscape. Rotate the phone.
- Mid-sentence cuts. Cut at the end of a thought, not mid-word. It sounds obvious but is easy to miss when editing quickly.
Chapter 4 Quick Reference
- Standard talking-head shot: Medium (chest to head), camera at eye level, slight rule-of-thirds offset
- Headroom: One finger-width above the head — no more, no less
- Looking room: Face toward the empty part of the frame
- Eye line: Upper third of frame, not centred vertically
- Screen recording: Native resolution, click indicators on, DND mode, font sizes large
- PiP face cam: Adds retention and connection even on screen-only content
- B-roll cadence: Every 20–30 seconds of talking head — add a cutaway
- Free b-roll stock: Pexels, Pixabay, Mixkit, Coverr
- Movement: Gimbal for walking; IBIS off on tripod; cut instead of zoom
- Background window behind you: Block it or move — always
- Record landscape (16:9): Rotate the phone