Thank you everyone for your help, but I ended up finding something perfect for what I needed! Phone Holder Bed Gooseneck Mount - Lamicall Flexible Arm 360 Mount Clip Bracket Clamp Stand for Cell Phone XS Max XR X 8 7 6 Plus 5 4, S10 S9 S8 S7 S6, Overall Length 33.4In(Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLF1KMB/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_MN35XDED422TE7VCXN6V?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Phone Holder Bed Gooseneck Mount - Lamicall Flexible Arm 360 Mount Clip Bracket Clamp Stand for Cell Phone XS Max XR X 8 7 6 Plus 5 4, S10 S9 S8 S7 S6, Overall Length 33.4In(Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLF1KMB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Z0PJ4HQ4XBR2QSHAXAR8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
We attached this to our chairs and watched our favorite movies and sports teams with our little guy. Helped give us that home comfort while staying hands free
I don't use a phone mount but an Lamicall goose neck adjustable mount. I clamp it to a table or ledge and adjust it from there.Lamicall mount
What position is she when she wants to use it?
Can it be placed in a stand on the table? Something like this:
Phone Holder Bed Gooseneck Mount - Lamicall Flexible Arm 360 Mount Clip Bracket Clamp Stand for Cell Phone 11 Pro XS Max XR X 8 7 6 Plus 5 4, Samsung S10 S9 S8 S7 S6, Overall Length 33.4In(Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLF1KMB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VkiiFbHY51SMA
Or does she want something that would actually go in her hand
I found this a couple years back...... your arms will thank me later
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https://www.amazon.com/Phone-Holder-Bed-Gooseneck-Mount/dp/B07PLF1KMB
this one it clips onto the cart next to my glider
Deal link: Amazon
Deal link: Amazon
I got this desk holder and it's very flexible, then I just use my phone.
One of the secrets of getting good photos in general is to take a lot of photos of your subject. From different angles, in different poses, in different lighting, in different settings with different backgrounds. Even a professional photographer takes mostly crap photos. For every great photo you see from a pro photographer, there are at least 10 shitty ones. People with less experience in photography have an even lower ratio of success.
So don’t take one or two photos of yourself and get discouraged. Keep in mind that the vast majority of your photos will be shit. Just keep taking photos and adjusting things as you go until you find a couple you like. Over time you’ll get better.
Use a tripod, something that will hold your phone so you can set the camera timer and take pics more easily. It’s hard to get sexy photos of yourself while the phone is in your hand. And you can use the front facing camera so that you can see yourself so you know how you fit in the photo frame, although that means the photos will be lower resolution than with the rear camera and you won’t be able to use the flash.
A couple options include something like this, where you can clamp it onto a tripod or table or bedpost, etc. and get some really interesting and unusual angles: https://www.amazon.com/Phone-Holder-Bed-Gooseneck-Mount/dp/B07PLF1KMB/
Or this, that will just hold your phone in a simpler way: https://www.amazon.com/MeFoto-SideKick360-Smartphone-Tripod-Adapter/dp/B00THFXE7K
One of the best ways to get good photos is to find a friend to come over and take nude photos of you. I’ve done this with great success. I have a friend who has the hots for me, and he gladly came over to help out. He told me how to pose, and I did it while he took pics. I’d review the pics and tell him what changes to make in order to get what I wanted.
Also, you can edit the photos before you send them to your bf. Crop them, use filters, make them brighter or darker, etc.
Hey, I'm working on creating video essays myself, so I feel you on this topic. It was always my intent from the start for my videos to visually feature me speaking to viewers. But I've found that actually recording videos like this has been harder and required more equipment than I initially imagined.
These have been some of the challenges I've ran into:
- The space with your best visual background may not be your best space acoustically, and echos from the room can be audible. There is a real trade-off here between a visually stimulating background which I think is of understated important to making your videos pleasant to watch, vs having a boring background with good clear echo-free sound. A prominent echo could make your videos annoying to listen to and seem amateurish.
- You probably don't already have a good lighting setup in your normal home to really light your face well. You'll get much better looking video the better lit you are, and studio lighting tends to be much different than home lighting. Without good lighting, your face could be grainy due to your camera needing to use a high ISO and if your face isn't lit up very well, it will again seem amateurish.
- You will probably struggle to read your whole essay smoothly without blemishes, and you will no longer be able to seamlessly tie audio from multiple takes together to create a perfect finished product. In video, these edits will become jump cuts. It's kind of your individual judgement how many jump cuts you're willing to accept, most famous youtubers seem to have at least a few, but if you use a lot it could become gratuitous to some viewers.
- Reading off an off-camera script looks terrible, more-so than I expected. Your script could be right next to the camera lens, but if you look at it and not the camera it will still be very noticeable and very disengaging. If you look straight at the camera (which you really need to), you either need to memorize your script, or switch to ad-libing it with a few notes, or use a teleprompter. Memorizing the script will be a huge challenge considering you are dealing with an essay, and trying to make a video this way could wind up introducing a lot of jump cuts. Ad-libing it with bullet points seems like it would defeat the point of an essay video which I feel involves carefully crafted prose, and also cause there to be many jump cuts. Teleprompters have their own challenges: they aren't cheap, it seems like a distinct and non-trivial skill you need to develop to use one, and you can still be caught moving your eyes left-to-right across the prompter which ruins things. Plus a lot of people on here may criticize you for using one (even though they're an uncontroversial and ubiquitous industry standard in actual TV?? people can be awful)
And this is what I ended up getting for equipment:
- Gooseneck phone holder https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PLF1KMB/ this works great, couldn't ask for better. I can't actually see the phone screen with my setup, so I actually end up using screen mirroring to the TV so I look at the TV to see what the phone camera is capturing.
- Ordered (yet to receive) a remote shutter for my phone https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084VTFS4X/ after trying to use my setup without one, this is going to be huge for my quality of life and it's literally just $7
- Ordered (yet to receive) this studio lighting https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W8Z8NZ5/ What's critical is that the CRI (color rendering index, the 'complete-ness' of the color) is 96+ and not left unstated. Any CRI 90 and up will be good for your needs. A ring light, kinda like for doing makeup, could be cheaper though and perfect for you.
- For that last issue, I did order (and have yet to receive) an inexpensive but not quite rock bottom teleprompter that utilizes the two smartphones I happen to have (thank god i didn't get rid of my old phone). Here is what I settled on: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CVSMSPT/ Here's to seeing how using it goes...
- Finally, baffles to put around a microphone are a gimmick, and although I ended up with one, I later discovered they only insulate a mic from sound around 1-2khz, and actual speech in the 100-300hz range will actually be reflected off the baffle causing comb filtering. https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/how-effective-are-portable-vocal-booths
PM me your channel! I'd love to see what another video essayist is doing. Also !givelambda for bringing up this topic.
You can check out something like this if you continue to need to use your cell phone:
Deal link: Amazon
^^Note: ^^The ^^deal ^^may ^^have ^^expired ^^by ^^the ^^time ^^you ^^see ^^this ^^post.
Created something very similar using a desk clamp phone holder that has a long gooseneck and a clip that resembles a hair clip from Amazon
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07PLF1KMB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WUfpFbDYFAFYK
I'm using my main phone (Galaxy S10+) to record and its attached to this product on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLF1KMB/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_CxqIEbAC0M7QR The camera just floats right over my hands, it's very convenient !