How do I Make My Videos Look as Good as This????

To me it seems like a soft light above the camera not far away from her, thus the bright (overblown) forehead.

You can achieve that with a wide aperture (1.8/2.4) and a strong lamp with a diffusing material (white of course) in front of it.

VideoNewbie said:

this is where my screenname really applies lol.

"wide aperture" meaning...?

could i just use a standard living room lamp pointed in my direction with a piece of white paper covering the head of the lamp?

Click to expand...

Aperture is the width if the opening of the hole that lets the light through the lens onto the file /CCD/CMOS chip to capture the image.
The more open it is (the lower the number, also called F-stop), the more light falls onto the film or sensor, the less light you need to light the scene, but you get less depth of field.



You can use a standard lamp, best would be one with an arm to adjust it better, and a big piece of paper (thin and light to let enough light through), sandwichpaper is used too. A strong light bulb is needed 80 to 120W, but they get hot, and thus the probability of the paper catching fire is proportionally higher, so use a big sheet 20 to 50cm away from the lamp (light bulb).
Don't cover the lamp, as the heat has to go somewhere.

Maybe try to get a daylight lightbulb if they are available in your area, as normal household lightbulbs give quite a yellow/orange light (which you might remedy with an appropriate manual white balance).