 Hey everybody, JR Fisher here. And in this video series, I'm gonna talk about the pros and cons of using your phone for YouTube videos and how you can best use your phone to make great videos. Now, in this series, I'm gonna show you how to use your phone to make some awesome videos and the pros and cons of doing it. But it can be done and it can be done and you can make some awesome videos. You can actually make great videos if you do it right and you make a few minor changes that some people don't do. Now, I've sold millions of dollars of products online, both physical and digital products and I wanna share with you some of these tricks and secrets that I've come across using an iPhone to make stunning videos without the cost of fancy cameras and bulky equipment. Now, this instruction is made in a series of videos so you're gonna wanna watch all three of them to get all of the training. Comment and let me know what kind of phone do you have, what are you using? I use an iPhone, maybe you have a different type of phone and what type of videos are you making with your phone? I'd love to hear in the comments. You're gonna wanna stay to the very end because I'm gonna give you access to my e-commerce course absolutely free. So, watch out at the end and I'll give you the link for that. Now, you may not have the cash for the fancy cameras and expensive lighting and green screens but with a little bit of planning I can show you how you can make some really great videos with nothing more than your smartphone. So, let's jump right in and get started. Step number one is lighting. Now, I told you you didn't have to spend a lot of money on lighting, right? You don't, it's not necessary. Your iPhone really has a great camera but it can't really correct for lighting so what you need to do is correct for where you do the video and the time of day you do the video. It can't make up for lack of light. You do wanna keep that in mind so you wanna have a well-lit area probably overlit from what you would normally think it is. Now, here's an example of an area that's really too dark to make a good video. It's not gonna come out good. You should experiment a little bit with your phone before you make your video and upload it for lighting and maybe move to a different area if the lighting doesn't look quite right. If you notice, the first video has proper lighting, right? And the second one, not so much. Okay, so this video doesn't really have enough lighting but if I add a couple lights to it or I do it in a different time of day this is what it looks like. As you can see, that lighting's a whole lot better. It makes a huge difference. It's almost impossible to have too much lighting so keep that in mind. If it seems too bright on your face you probably got it just about right. Now, since we're talking about lighting one of the best places to do filming is outside. It's natural lighting but you wanna make sure that you don't do it midday. Midday the sun's gonna be overhead and it's gonna cast a lot of shadows that you don't want. Late afternoon is a good time or early morning is a good time for you to shoot your video so you wanna try to do it during those periods of time. Step two has to do with sound. Sound is super, super important. You've gotta have good sound. Now, you can do a video that has kinda poor video quality but if it has poor sound, people will not sit through it so you do have to have good sound. A lot of people ask me if they need an external microphone. You can see I'm using one right here. You don't need one if you're close enough to the camera. Now, if you're using something like a selfie stick, something along those lines, you're probably gonna be close enough to your camera. I want you to think of your camera microphone as a thermometer. It doesn't reach out and grab sound and bring it in. All it does is record sound that is right there with it. So, same thing with the thermometer. It records the temperature that is right there at the thermometer, not 10 or 15 or 20 feet away. So, if you start to move away from your camera, you're gonna need an external microphone. Now, if you're gonna use an external microphone, you're gonna need a cord that can change that sound for your phone. These vary from phone to phone. On my iPhone 7, I have to use this cord right here but you're gonna wanna check with your manufacturer to find out what cord's gonna work for an external microphone. Most phones won't work if you just plug a microphone into it. So, you wanna check this out before you spend any money on that. Make sure you match up the phone with the right cord and what happens is with this cord, it actually has to split the sound which is different from any other attachments on your phone. So, make sure you check this out and don't buy anything until you're sure you got the right one. There's several different models of microphone you can get from very inexpensive to super expensive. I would recommend not getting the real expensive ones yet. You just don't need them. The cheapest ones I found on Amazon are gonna be the corded ones. Now, the problem with a corded microphone, it is cheap but the problem is that that cord's gonna get in your way and it's gonna limit your movement. So, if you don't wanna have that issue, you're gonna wanna go more with a cordless microphone, something like this. Now, the cordless microphone we use is called a Sinehauser, very expensive. You can get it on Amazon. It basically only has two parts. You're gonna have the receiver which is gonna be plugged into your particular phone and then you're gonna have the transmitter and that's gonna be put on your lapel and I would recommend that when you put it on your lapel or your dress or whatever you're doing, you get it as close to your mouth as possible. It'll give you a whole lot better sound for that. Now, if you don't wanna mess with that, you can use something like this. This is a Rode microphone and you can also get this on Amazon and I'll leave a link down there for that. Now, this microphone generally comes with a little stand that sits on the desk. The problem with the stand is it's only at one height. You're gonna have to lean down and you're not always gonna have it at your mouth. Now, I bought this bracket right here, right this arm and I can adjust it for wherever I'm at and that way I can get the best reception for this particular microphone. Not that expensive, you can get it on Amazon and you can use this for your videos if you've got some distance. If you don't wanna invest in a microphone, you don't have to do it. You just have to realize that you're gonna want that camera really close to you so that you can get good sound. Okay, so we've covered the sound and the lighting. Let's move on to the next video. Don't forget down in the description you can get free access to my course. There's a link down there. All you gotta do is click it and download the free course. It has a value of $97, you get it for free. That's a great deal. Don't forget also to subscribe to my channel. Hit that little bell right there too. If you click the bell, you will get notifications when I do new videos and I want you to comment. What kind of lighting have you used in the past? What type of sound have you used in the past? What results did you get? Did you get good results? I'd love to hear about it. Put it in the comments below. Don't forget, smash that like button right there and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching my video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right there so you can be notified every time I do a new video. Also, click on one of those videos there. Keep watching on my channel.