July 18, 2025 • 22 mins
✨ Episode Overview:
In this heartfelt and information-packed solo episode, Helen kicks things off with a meaningful story sparked by a letter and a stack of old cards—reminders of the deep, lasting connections she’s built through her content and community. She then dives into two of her most-used (unsponsored!) products that make her content-creating life easier, and shifts into a hands-on mini-masterclass: tips for getting the most out of your phone’s camera to improve your content instantly.
🛠️ Helen’s Unsponsored Product Picks:
- Dyson Airwrap
- Daily staple for Helen
- Works great on thick hair
- Comes with multiple attachments (round brush, curlers, etc.)
- Honest review: No complaints—except clean your filter regularly!
- VRURC Power Bank
- A content creator must-have
- Charges iPhone 4–5 times
- Built-in cords for multiple devices
- Heavy and bulky—but totally worth it
- Perfect for full-day shoots without access to power
📱 Phone Content Tips You Probably Aren’t Using (But Should Be):
- Clean Your Lens
Smudgy lenses = blurry content. Simple but essential. - Turn on Do Not Disturb While Filming
Interruptions can ruin your footage. Don’t forget to turn it off afterward. - Use Gridlines for Better Framing
Help your eye compose more balanced, level shots. - Zoom with Your Feet
Don’t pinch to zoom—walk closer to preserve quality. (And don’t ever Zoom if someone else hands you their phone!) - Lock Exposure and Focus (AE/AF Lock)
- Tap and hold before recording
- Great for consistent lighting (especially for split screens or stop-motion)
- Slide up or down to adjust brightness
- Camera Settings Refresher
- 30 fps = best for sharp video
- 24 fps = filmic look
- 4K = high detail (but watch your storage!)
- Know when to toggle off HDR (high dynamic range)
- Cinematic Mode
- Great for film-style depth
- Limited zoom, but beautiful focus blur for storytelling shots
- Use the 0.5 Wide Angle Lens
- Capture more of your environment
- Especially helpful when shooting yourself with back camera
- Tap to Focus on What Matters
- Want your product in focus? Tap it on screen
- Switch focus between objects mid-recording for dynamic storytelling
🎧 Studio Spotlight:
🎙️ July Theme: Podcasting 101
- Studio members are diving into a podcasting series!
- Lesson Part 1 is now live in the Studio.
- More parts coming soon, including:
- How to podcast without fancy gear
- How to scale up when you're ready
- Behind-the-scenes tips Helen uses herself
- Weekly themes continue as usual—content creation tips, community calls, and more!
🌀 Weekly Challenge:
This week’s tutorial lesson focused on playing with speed changes—recording at different speeds and editing speed shifts post-recording.
🔗 Links & Mentions:
- Want to join The Socialize Studio and access podcasting tutorials + challenges?
➡️ https://socialize-studio.mn.co - Missed the newsletter on mobile camera tips?
➡️ Check your inbox or studio dashboard!
❤️ Closing Thoughts:
Thanks for being here. If you learned a new tip—or just enjoyed the vibes—drop a comment or reply to the news
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Helen (00:00):
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. I am
here with some unsponsored bycontent to kick us off. And this
one comes with a little bit of astory attached because I was
cleaning out a drawer and Ifound some cards and a letter
and the cards and a lot of thecards were from my social media
followers when I had cancer. AndI just kind of flipped through
(00:21):
them and it just brought backit's not like it brings me back.
Sometimes I forget that evenhappened to me and I don't even
like to talk about it because Ifeel like when I do, because I
don't want to talk about it, butbecause I don't want to feel
like it was that significanteven though it was. I don't want
to feel like it defines me. So II have moved on, and I don't
look back a lot. But it was avery significant time period,
(00:44):
and for many people who know me,they do remember it so well.
And, anyway, I received a letterfrom this woman, Lindsay.
I'm gonna just use her firstname. She's followed me for a
long time. On Instagram when Iused to do in the pandemic, I
used to do baking rafflesbecause I was doing baking
content. So on Sunday nights onInstagram, I would go live, and
(01:07):
sometimes one of my kids wouldbe there with me and we'd have a
raffle and we pick the winnersso that I wasn't eating all the
baked goods that I was bakingduring the pandemic when I was
making these videos. So I wouldthen ship the baked goods.
It was so much fun and it wassuch a special time because I
made core connections. And thisis so important in building a
community because Lindsay and Ihave known each other and have
(01:31):
never met in real life untilabout a few months ago when I
presented at a conference, Imean, at a entrepreneur luncheon
in Connecticut, and she came toit. And I was like, oh my god.
It was like for the first timemeeting a a longtime friend. So
my point is that therelationships that we make on
social media are not surface.
(01:52):
In a lot of cases, they'redeeper than when than some of
our current relationships. It'sjust the way that works out. And
I don't know why that is. It'sbecause it's a very, tightly
curated connection when you'relike minded, where a lot of
times in real life, you don'treally know that much about
another person until you slowlyget to know them, or you're
(02:13):
friends forever, and so you havea given. Even if you are not
similar in a lot of ways, youhave a history.
But in this case, you'rebuilding a new friendship with
someone who probably does thinkmore like you, and that's how
you've come together. So mypoint of the the of all of this
is not wasn't really to talkabout that, but she wrote me a
(02:33):
letter and she said, I justwanna thank you for some of the
things that you have influencedin my life. And she listed some
products. And so I thought, ohmy god. This is the perfect time
to bring up one.
And it's one of my things I useevery day, and I'm gonna bring
it up because she wrote, I havea few things to thank you for. I
either now own or I do becauseof you. One of them is a Dyson
(02:56):
Airwrap. I cannot imagine mylife without it. Thank you.
And I'm laughing because I douse this every single day. I own
two of them, so I don't have tobring them back and forth when
I'm away for the weekend at thebeach. I bring I have one down
there. So I have reallycommitted to the Dyson brand and
I love how it works. Andhonestly, let me give you a
little demo.
(03:17):
You flip this thing. I dry myhair so fast and it works like a
charm. It comes with all theattachments, you know, you got
the round brush, you got thecurly brushes, the whole thing.
It is I, wherever I go on anytrip, even if I'm traveling only
in a carry on, this is apriority. It comes with me.
(03:37):
I would give up a pair of shoes,whatever I have to give up if I
can bring this. Of course, ifI'm going to Europe, I can't
because it doesn't work with thepower over there. But the point
is, it's something I use everyday. It makes my life so much
easier. I have very thick hairfor those of you I might have
talked about this before onother on other episodes, but my
hair is so thick it takesforever to dry.
So even if I try and let it drynaturally, hours later I still
(04:01):
have wet hair underneath and Idon't like how it feels. Because
this is one thick, I mean, I'mblessed that I got my hair back
so well after my cancer, losingmy hair and having to shave my
head. But literally my hair isas thick, if not thicker than it
was before. So, the drying ofthe hair is such a long process
because I don't like the feelingof wet hair underneath
(04:23):
especially. So I love my Dyson.
If you don't have one, you'remissing out. Literally missing
out. And if especially if youhave curly hair and you wanna
straighten it, it's super quickfor that. It has all the
attachments. It's got all thethings.
And I I am a fan. The otherthing I wanna talk about that I
will say on I don't haveanything bad to say about the
(04:45):
Dyson, by the way. I can't eventhink of because I like to give
you the honest review. I've havenothing bad to say except one
time I thought it broke and itturned out it was just the
filter needed to be cleaned,which is this little thing here
and I didn't even know. So Ithought, oh gosh, my Dyson died,
but it didn't.
It just it just needed a littlevacation for me to clean it. So
that's that. The other thing isanother item I use every single
(05:06):
day. Oh my god. And this one isthe content creator's necessity,
especially for someone like mewho goes on these all day shoots
for a brand, and I'm shootingand I'm shooting and I'm
shooting, and then eventually, Ieven delete some videos, but I
need I run out of battery, and Ican't always be plugged in
because I'm on a set.
(05:26):
I'm in the middle of, like,locations where we don't have
power necessarily. I have thispower pack. Now the reason why I
wanna talk about it is becauseit's not your everyday power
pack. Look how thick it is. Thisthing will charge my phone fully
from start to finish.
I wanna say four or five times.It goes like gangbusters. The
(05:47):
brand, I don't even know. Whatis it called? It's spelled v r u
r c.
V r u r c. I got it on Amazon.Why do I like this one so much?
I don't even care that it'sheavy. I don't care that it's
thick.
It takes up a lot of space. I donot care. This is a staple for
me. It has the cord right in it.So I can pop the cord out and I
(06:09):
don't have to worry aboutattaching a cord.
It has the cord for even has thecord for an iPad in here and a
the phone, I mean some of thecamera cord, camera things. So
it's got all the cords attached.So I can charge my new
headphones because I got theheadphone cord here. This is it.
People, if you don't have one ofthese, you're missing out.
(06:32):
It has saved me multiple times,especially when I was on I
remember being on the Olympicsshoot when I was out in
California, and I was recordingthe Olympians for Ole. I I was
nowhere near power. We were outon this this Olympic track for
the entire day. I also have hadto charge my phone again and
again, like, four times withthis, and I still had so it
shows you the percentage whenyou plug it in and charge it.
(06:53):
Works like a charm.
It also I like this feature thatyou can pop the cord out and
just put it in, but to behonest, this is loose now, it's
not even working. So I have touse I plug it into my I use my
computer cord to charge it.Literally, I take like, here's
my computer cord. This plugs inand then it starts charging. So
it's really like it has theoptions even if it does get a
(07:14):
little funky with that oneattachment.
I I'm kind of bummed I mightorder another one because when
this gets loose, I use it a lot.I'm always if I'm at a hotel and
I'm at a shoot, just plug itinto the hotel and I don't have
to worry. But it still workseven though that's broken.
That's how good this thing is. Ilove it.
The end. On we go. The topic fortoday I think I'm going crazy
(07:36):
today. The topic for today isn'tI I didn't really wanna call it
like how to make your contentbetter, but it's all these tips
and things that we can use inour phone that I think a lot of
people don't take advantage of.So it's like how to make your
content better by fullymaximizing what you're using
your phone for and what you'redoing with your phone.
(07:56):
Okay? So let's talk about thatbecause I think it's like it's
even though they seem likeobscure things, they're so
important for certain types ofcontent. And more than the
newsletter, what I could giveyou in the newsletter was more
broad strokes. I'm gonna get alittle more in the weeds here.
So first off, I get I am soguilty of this all the time, not
cleaning my lens.
(08:17):
And I'm trying because sometimeswhen you use the front camera,
sometimes you here's where I'mrubbing it. But front camera,
back camera, for those of youwho are just listening. Sorry,
you're gonna have to watch forthat one. I'm not gonna say it.
So I'm rubbing I'm alwayscleaning my lens back, front,
back, front.
And Julie will always say, yourlens needs cleaning. So this is
definitely a thing. Okay?Oopsie. Hold on.
(08:37):
Pause please. Okay. Had to getthe door because Jonathan has
arrived. We are hosting himovernight. Alright.
On we go. So cleaning the lens.Turning on your phone to do not
disturb. This is so crucial ifyou are shooting like I am for
brands, and then suddenly you'refilming and you're getting a
phone call in the midst and youryour film your filming will get
(08:59):
disrupted. It'll stop recording.
So at least mine does. So youdon't want that to happen, but
of course, gotta remember toturn the do not disturb off when
you're done so you don't missany important calls. Okay. The
next thing is to, think aboutframing your content, and I have
a very steady like, I can seestraight line really well. Like,
(09:20):
if I am shooting something andthe horizon line's in it, I will
see right away when it's off bya millimeter.
But a lot of people don't havethat trained eye to do that, so
it's helpful to turn on gridlines. And you can do that in
your phone. You can turn on gridlines so that you can see and
you can frame better so you canhave a sense of that. And that's
a key thing. The other thing iszooming is, you know, this is
(09:43):
like the millennial, maybe themillennial and gen z annoyance
is when they give their phone totheir parents to take a picture
and the parent zooms in.
You will see a lot of hilariousTikToks about this and probably
hilarious Instagram reels wherethe mom is fired because she
started to do the pinch zoomthing or the dad is fired
(10:06):
because he was Zooming. And it'sthey don't like it. Okay,
people? So if you're taking aphoto for someone, don't take it
upon yourself to Zoom in. Icannot stand when people do it
to me.
If I hand someone my phone bythe way, I'll hand someone my
phone and I press record becauseI want them to be filming the
video of me walking into thespot that I'm gonna film, they
(10:26):
take it upon themselves to stopthe video and start it again.
Like, no. I started the video.Just hold the phone. Okay.
I'm being mean. But I'm justsaying, like, if you're taking a
picture for someone or if you'retaking a shot for someone and
they ask you to do it, if theygive the phone to you a certain
way and they ask you to do takea photo, don't take it upon
(10:49):
yourself to do a zoom in. Youare better off walking closer if
they and if they want you towalk closer. But even for your
own content, if you wanna zoomin, I do a lot of pop zooming
because I like it. I like the,like, zooming in and out.
But a lot of people don't likeit. And as a style, I like it as
a style. But when I am gonna getI don't zoom in with my fingers
(11:12):
to get closer to an object. Itypically will walk closer and
then get my framing and then dopop zooming in and out as a
style. But my widest frame isusually where I put myself and
position myself.
Okay. So the story here is zoomwith your feet, meaning move
closer to your object. But ifyou like the style of zooming,
of course, you can feel free todo that. It just does make your
(11:33):
content more grainy. Okay.
Whoo. The next one is to adjustyour camera settings, and these
are a few things here to thinkabout. I have done a whole we
did a whole podcast and a wholenewsletter about what your
camera settings should be foroptimum usage, but optimum, I
guess, the look. So you wanna beat 30 frames per second most
(11:55):
likely for a sharper look. Ifyou want a filmic look, 24
frames per second will give youthat.
And if you want really highquality, like if you wanna be at
a concert, it's where you canzoom the hell in after. The fact
when you're home and you'reediting and you wanna do a zoom
in, shooting at four k will giveyou a lot more image to work
(12:15):
with. It's just that it takes upso much memory on your phone
that you really have to have anbig storage and you have to be
aware that you don't wanna shootthe whole all your videos like
that, and you also wanna makesure you turn those settings off
when you're done so that you'renot killing the storage on your
phone by these a lot of a lotof, four k videos. If you turn
(12:36):
off the little thing that saysHDR, high definition r. What
does r stand for?
HDR. Well, if you turn that off,I forget what it stands for.
I'll look it up. Hold on. Let'sfind out what it stands for.
One second. What does HDR standfor? High dynamic range. Let's
(13:09):
see. Let's see.
(14:00):
Let's see. Well, I'm not evengoing to talk about that. The
(14:52):
next one is using the autoexposure auto focus lock. And a
lot of people don't even knowabout this, but if you're
recording a video and evenbefore you record, like if
you're in video mode about torecord, if you press and hold on
the screen, a a e sorry, theletters come up. Camille, I'm
not Oh my god.
(15:12):
The letters come up a e slash af. And that means auto exposure
and auto focus will lock. Sothat's when you don't if you're
shooting something and you'regonna do a split screen and you
don't want the lighting even tochange the slightest or the
exposure because you'll see aline down the middle, especially
if I was against thisbackground, if I was shooting a
(15:34):
character here and a characterhere and I was shooting two
shots, I would press and hold onmy screen and lock the exposure
so that the lighting doesn'tchange that much. It's really,
really helpful, particularly forsplit screens, I will tell you,
or stop motion when you don'twant the scene to appear in any
way different at all. So that'swhen you wanna use auto
(15:56):
exposure.
Also, you press and hold on it,if you're in a dark scene, a
dark place, you can brighten bysliding your finger up, and you
can darken. If it's too bright,you can slide your finger down
on the when when the screen islocked. And so play around with
that feature. If you don't knowabout it, drop me a comment or
respond to the newsletter andtell me, I'll do a little I'll
(16:17):
do a tutorial about it. Okay.
That's that one. Camera modes.Think about trying cinematic
mode for certain videos. Youcan't zoom in when you're
shooting in cinematic modeusually, although now the camera
seems to have, some people havethe feature to zoom in. So I'm
gonna see if I have it on mine.
When I go onto camera mode and Igo onto cinematic, I can zoom
(16:38):
in, but it's limited. It won'tlet me pinch and zoom. It just
goes from one x to three x. Soyou can be closer by tapping the
button, but you can't do amanual zoom in cinematic mode.
It just is a setting that makesyour videos look more filmic.
So if you're filming ahorizontal video, a landscape,
if you're trying to emulate amovie or something on your with
(17:01):
your camera, cinematic mode isyour friend. So try it out. It's
not it's kind of a cool thing.The other one is the back
camera, the point five, usingthat wide angle lens and using
your back camera so that you canget make sure you're not missing
yourself in a scene and you canget the whole scene behind you.
It does show a lot of arm likethis, but you can always crop
that in after the fact.
(17:21):
So it's a good setting to playaround with and it's, there's a
lot of trends that use that set,that setting. So think about
that. Also, think a lot ofpeople don't know that if you
are filming something and forexample, let's say you're
filming and you want to filmthese flowers, but it's focusing
on my face. If you are holdingyour phone and you tap on the
(17:41):
screen where the flowers are, itwill it will focus then on the
flowers. My face would go out offocus, but the flowers would
come into focus.
So you can tap around on yourscreen and choose what you want
in focus. Now I had somebody doone a point of view challenge in
the studio, and she'd held upwhat was it? Oh, her essential
(18:05):
oil. So she had a littleessential oil in her hand. Let's
pretend this is it.
This is a Dyson thing just justfor clarity. So you hold up
this, she's got the pretend it'sessential oil and she was
filming. What was happening, hercamera was focusing on the
background and the landscape andnot the actual product in her
hands. So I told her she couldhave tapped on the screen and
(18:28):
brought the product into focusand then the background would
have been more out of focus. Andthen she could have traveled a
bit and then tapped on thebackground and brought that into
focus.
So you can switch the focus backand forth by literally tapping
on the screen. So here is I'mI'm not gonna be able to
demonstrate this easily, but ifthis was here oh, let me just do
it with the flowers. So rightnow, let me get a little wider.
(18:53):
It's me and the flowers. So Icould get this to focus if I tap
on the screen.
I could get this to focus on theflowers versus focus on me. If I
tap back and forth, the focuswould would shift depending on
what in the room you're tappingon. So even with me looking
right now in the distance, I canfocus on the little brush that I
have sitting here, the Dysonbrush, but if I don't want it to
(19:17):
focus on that, I can tap behindit and I can have it focus on
the table in the distance. Okay?So tapping on an area of your
screen will bring that item intofocus.
And I actually do not think alot of people are aware of that.
I think we all depend on ourcameras to auto focus and it
will auto focus on the thingthat's most likely in the center
of the screen. So it does thatkind of automatically, but if
(19:38):
you're really particular and youwant to have it focus on
something and then switch thefocus to something else, so if
you're holding something up andyou want it to be focused on
this and then you wanna switchit to the scene in the
background, you can tap thescreen where the brush is. You
can tap the screen where thebackground is, and it'll shift
the focus. Okay?
Try it out and get back to me.Let me know if you learned
(20:00):
something. I always like you tolearn something. Even if it's
just a little tip, it's worthcoming for. I appreciate you
being here.
Alrighty. I'm gonna start towrap it up because Jonathan has
arrived, we're going to a gametonight, and then we're going to
see the New York Liberty play. Ihopefully can dance with the
mascot, Ellie the elephant. I'mdying to do that. But anyway, in
(20:21):
the studio this week, we areworking on podcasting.
So if you do have this month isthe whole theme of the month is
podcasting. Each week in thestudio, we're going to have a
theme moving forward. And thismonth, since I was halfway into
it in July already, it'spodcasting month. And that does
not mean we do nothing butpodcasting. That means our
special additional lesson of themonth is about that topic.
(20:44):
So we're still doing contenttips. We have weekly meetings.
We had a great meeting today. Itwas so much fun. We talked about
all the things we we actuallytalked a little bit about AI and
how to use that to help yourcontent.
So we're always hitting all thetopics, but I'm hardcore
focusing on a lesson series forpeople who want to podcast and
DIY and do their own podcast. Sothat is a lot of fun. And lesson
(21:07):
number one, part one was justreleased this morning, and I'll
be working on part two andprobably part three because I
want you to be all set with thetools you need if you want to do
your own podcast. And that doesnot mean you even have to buy a
fancy microphone like this. I'mgonna show you how to do it as a
trial, as a test without makinga big investment.
And then if you do decide youwanna make an investment, you
wanna go a little further, I'mgonna tell you all the things.
(21:30):
That's what's happening and Iguess, let's see. Oh, I wanted
to say the challenge this weekwas working with speed changes.
So each week I do teach like alesson that gives you some
tutorial that's well beyond whatI share on my social media. So
this week was about speedchanges and recording at
different speeds or how toaffect the speeds after you're
(21:50):
done recording.
So lots of things were covered.It was a really fun and
productive lesson. If you'reinterested in that, just click
on the link in the newsletterand join us. You I don't think
you would regret it. It's such afun group of people, and today's
meeting was so supportive, andit was so good.
I love seeing my people. So ifyou're one of them, thank you
for being there, and Iappreciate you. See you next
week. Bye.
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. I am
here with some unsponsored bycontent to kick us off. And this
one comes with a little bit of astory attached because I was
cleaning out a drawer and Ifound some cards and a letter
and the cards and a lot of thecards were from my social media
followers when I had cancer. AndI just kind of flipped through
(00:21):
them and it just brought backit's not like it brings me back.
Sometimes I forget that evenhappened to me and I don't even
like to talk about it because Ifeel like when I do, because I
don't want to talk about it, butbecause I don't want to feel
like it was that significanteven though it was. I don't want
to feel like it defines me. So II have moved on, and I don't
look back a lot. But it was avery significant time period,
(00:44):
and for many people who know me,they do remember it so well.
And, anyway, I received a letterfrom this woman, Lindsay.
I'm gonna just use her firstname. She's followed me for a
long time. On Instagram when Iused to do in the pandemic, I
used to do baking rafflesbecause I was doing baking
content. So on Sunday nights onInstagram, I would go live, and
(01:07):
sometimes one of my kids wouldbe there with me and we'd have a
raffle and we pick the winnersso that I wasn't eating all the
baked goods that I was bakingduring the pandemic when I was
making these videos. So I wouldthen ship the baked goods.
It was so much fun and it wassuch a special time because I
made core connections. And thisis so important in building a
community because Lindsay and Ihave known each other and have
(01:31):
never met in real life untilabout a few months ago when I
presented at a conference, Imean, at a entrepreneur luncheon
in Connecticut, and she came toit. And I was like, oh my god.
It was like for the first timemeeting a a longtime friend. So
my point is that therelationships that we make on
social media are not surface.
(01:52):
In a lot of cases, they'redeeper than when than some of
our current relationships. It'sjust the way that works out. And
I don't know why that is. It'sbecause it's a very, tightly
curated connection when you'relike minded, where a lot of
times in real life, you don'treally know that much about
another person until you slowlyget to know them, or you're
(02:13):
friends forever, and so you havea given. Even if you are not
similar in a lot of ways, youhave a history.
But in this case, you'rebuilding a new friendship with
someone who probably does thinkmore like you, and that's how
you've come together. So mypoint of the the of all of this
is not wasn't really to talkabout that, but she wrote me a
(02:33):
letter and she said, I justwanna thank you for some of the
things that you have influencedin my life. And she listed some
products. And so I thought, ohmy god. This is the perfect time
to bring up one.
And it's one of my things I useevery day, and I'm gonna bring
it up because she wrote, I havea few things to thank you for. I
either now own or I do becauseof you. One of them is a Dyson
(02:56):
Airwrap. I cannot imagine mylife without it. Thank you.
And I'm laughing because I douse this every single day. I own
two of them, so I don't have tobring them back and forth when
I'm away for the weekend at thebeach. I bring I have one down
there. So I have reallycommitted to the Dyson brand and
I love how it works. Andhonestly, let me give you a
little demo.
(03:17):
You flip this thing. I dry myhair so fast and it works like a
charm. It comes with all theattachments, you know, you got
the round brush, you got thecurly brushes, the whole thing.
It is I, wherever I go on anytrip, even if I'm traveling only
in a carry on, this is apriority. It comes with me.
(03:37):
I would give up a pair of shoes,whatever I have to give up if I
can bring this. Of course, ifI'm going to Europe, I can't
because it doesn't work with thepower over there. But the point
is, it's something I use everyday. It makes my life so much
easier. I have very thick hairfor those of you I might have
talked about this before onother on other episodes, but my
hair is so thick it takesforever to dry.
So even if I try and let it drynaturally, hours later I still
(04:01):
have wet hair underneath and Idon't like how it feels. Because
this is one thick, I mean, I'mblessed that I got my hair back
so well after my cancer, losingmy hair and having to shave my
head. But literally my hair isas thick, if not thicker than it
was before. So, the drying ofthe hair is such a long process
because I don't like the feelingof wet hair underneath
(04:23):
especially. So I love my Dyson.
If you don't have one, you'remissing out. Literally missing
out. And if especially if youhave curly hair and you wanna
straighten it, it's super quickfor that. It has all the
attachments. It's got all thethings.
And I I am a fan. The otherthing I wanna talk about that I
will say on I don't haveanything bad to say about the
(04:45):
Dyson, by the way. I can't eventhink of because I like to give
you the honest review. I've havenothing bad to say except one
time I thought it broke and itturned out it was just the
filter needed to be cleaned,which is this little thing here
and I didn't even know. So Ithought, oh gosh, my Dyson died,
but it didn't.
It just it just needed a littlevacation for me to clean it. So
that's that. The other thing isanother item I use every single
(05:06):
day. Oh my god. And this one isthe content creator's necessity,
especially for someone like mewho goes on these all day shoots
for a brand, and I'm shootingand I'm shooting and I'm
shooting, and then eventually, Ieven delete some videos, but I
need I run out of battery, and Ican't always be plugged in
because I'm on a set.
(05:26):
I'm in the middle of, like,locations where we don't have
power necessarily. I have thispower pack. Now the reason why I
wanna talk about it is becauseit's not your everyday power
pack. Look how thick it is. Thisthing will charge my phone fully
from start to finish.
I wanna say four or five times.It goes like gangbusters. The
(05:47):
brand, I don't even know. Whatis it called? It's spelled v r u
r c.
V r u r c. I got it on Amazon.Why do I like this one so much?
I don't even care that it'sheavy. I don't care that it's
thick.
It takes up a lot of space. I donot care. This is a staple for
me. It has the cord right in it.So I can pop the cord out and I
(06:09):
don't have to worry aboutattaching a cord.
It has the cord for even has thecord for an iPad in here and a
the phone, I mean some of thecamera cord, camera things. So
it's got all the cords attached.So I can charge my new
headphones because I got theheadphone cord here. This is it.
People, if you don't have one ofthese, you're missing out.
(06:32):
It has saved me multiple times,especially when I was on I
remember being on the Olympicsshoot when I was out in
California, and I was recordingthe Olympians for Ole. I I was
nowhere near power. We were outon this this Olympic track for
the entire day. I also have hadto charge my phone again and
again, like, four times withthis, and I still had so it
shows you the percentage whenyou plug it in and charge it.
(06:53):
Works like a charm.
It also I like this feature thatyou can pop the cord out and
just put it in, but to behonest, this is loose now, it's
not even working. So I have touse I plug it into my I use my
computer cord to charge it.Literally, I take like, here's
my computer cord. This plugs inand then it starts charging. So
it's really like it has theoptions even if it does get a
(07:14):
little funky with that oneattachment.
I I'm kind of bummed I mightorder another one because when
this gets loose, I use it a lot.I'm always if I'm at a hotel and
I'm at a shoot, just plug itinto the hotel and I don't have
to worry. But it still workseven though that's broken.
That's how good this thing is. Ilove it.
The end. On we go. The topic fortoday I think I'm going crazy
(07:36):
today. The topic for today isn'tI I didn't really wanna call it
like how to make your contentbetter, but it's all these tips
and things that we can use inour phone that I think a lot of
people don't take advantage of.So it's like how to make your
content better by fullymaximizing what you're using
your phone for and what you'redoing with your phone.
(07:56):
Okay? So let's talk about thatbecause I think it's like it's
even though they seem likeobscure things, they're so
important for certain types ofcontent. And more than the
newsletter, what I could giveyou in the newsletter was more
broad strokes. I'm gonna get alittle more in the weeds here.
So first off, I get I am soguilty of this all the time, not
cleaning my lens.
(08:17):
And I'm trying because sometimeswhen you use the front camera,
sometimes you here's where I'mrubbing it. But front camera,
back camera, for those of youwho are just listening. Sorry,
you're gonna have to watch forthat one. I'm not gonna say it.
So I'm rubbing I'm alwayscleaning my lens back, front,
back, front.
And Julie will always say, yourlens needs cleaning. So this is
definitely a thing. Okay?Oopsie. Hold on.
(08:37):
Pause please. Okay. Had to getthe door because Jonathan has
arrived. We are hosting himovernight. Alright.
On we go. So cleaning the lens.Turning on your phone to do not
disturb. This is so crucial ifyou are shooting like I am for
brands, and then suddenly you'refilming and you're getting a
phone call in the midst and youryour film your filming will get
(08:59):
disrupted. It'll stop recording.
So at least mine does. So youdon't want that to happen, but
of course, gotta remember toturn the do not disturb off when
you're done so you don't missany important calls. Okay. The
next thing is to, think aboutframing your content, and I have
a very steady like, I can seestraight line really well. Like,
(09:20):
if I am shooting something andthe horizon line's in it, I will
see right away when it's off bya millimeter.
But a lot of people don't havethat trained eye to do that, so
it's helpful to turn on gridlines. And you can do that in
your phone. You can turn on gridlines so that you can see and
you can frame better so you canhave a sense of that. And that's
a key thing. The other thing iszooming is, you know, this is
(09:43):
like the millennial, maybe themillennial and gen z annoyance
is when they give their phone totheir parents to take a picture
and the parent zooms in.
You will see a lot of hilariousTikToks about this and probably
hilarious Instagram reels wherethe mom is fired because she
started to do the pinch zoomthing or the dad is fired
(10:06):
because he was Zooming. And it'sthey don't like it. Okay,
people? So if you're taking aphoto for someone, don't take it
upon yourself to Zoom in. Icannot stand when people do it
to me.
If I hand someone my phone bythe way, I'll hand someone my
phone and I press record becauseI want them to be filming the
video of me walking into thespot that I'm gonna film, they
(10:26):
take it upon themselves to stopthe video and start it again.
Like, no. I started the video.Just hold the phone. Okay.
I'm being mean. But I'm justsaying, like, if you're taking a
picture for someone or if you'retaking a shot for someone and
they ask you to do it, if theygive the phone to you a certain
way and they ask you to do takea photo, don't take it upon
(10:49):
yourself to do a zoom in. Youare better off walking closer if
they and if they want you towalk closer. But even for your
own content, if you wanna zoomin, I do a lot of pop zooming
because I like it. I like the,like, zooming in and out.
But a lot of people don't likeit. And as a style, I like it as
a style. But when I am gonna getI don't zoom in with my fingers
(11:12):
to get closer to an object. Itypically will walk closer and
then get my framing and then dopop zooming in and out as a
style. But my widest frame isusually where I put myself and
position myself.
Okay. So the story here is zoomwith your feet, meaning move
closer to your object. But ifyou like the style of zooming,
of course, you can feel free todo that. It just does make your
(11:33):
content more grainy. Okay.
Whoo. The next one is to adjustyour camera settings, and these
are a few things here to thinkabout. I have done a whole we
did a whole podcast and a wholenewsletter about what your
camera settings should be foroptimum usage, but optimum, I
guess, the look. So you wanna beat 30 frames per second most
(11:55):
likely for a sharper look. Ifyou want a filmic look, 24
frames per second will give youthat.
And if you want really highquality, like if you wanna be at
a concert, it's where you canzoom the hell in after. The fact
when you're home and you'reediting and you wanna do a zoom
in, shooting at four k will giveyou a lot more image to work
(12:15):
with. It's just that it takes upso much memory on your phone
that you really have to have anbig storage and you have to be
aware that you don't wanna shootthe whole all your videos like
that, and you also wanna makesure you turn those settings off
when you're done so that you'renot killing the storage on your
phone by these a lot of a lotof, four k videos. If you turn
(12:36):
off the little thing that saysHDR, high definition r. What
does r stand for?
HDR. Well, if you turn that off,I forget what it stands for.
I'll look it up. Hold on. Let'sfind out what it stands for.
One second. What does HDR standfor? High dynamic range. Let's
(13:09):
see. Let's see.
(14:00):
Let's see. Well, I'm not evengoing to talk about that. The
(14:52):
next one is using the autoexposure auto focus lock. And a
lot of people don't even knowabout this, but if you're
recording a video and evenbefore you record, like if
you're in video mode about torecord, if you press and hold on
the screen, a a e sorry, theletters come up. Camille, I'm
not Oh my god.
(15:12):
The letters come up a e slash af. And that means auto exposure
and auto focus will lock. Sothat's when you don't if you're
shooting something and you'regonna do a split screen and you
don't want the lighting even tochange the slightest or the
exposure because you'll see aline down the middle, especially
if I was against thisbackground, if I was shooting a
(15:34):
character here and a characterhere and I was shooting two
shots, I would press and hold onmy screen and lock the exposure
so that the lighting doesn'tchange that much. It's really,
really helpful, particularly forsplit screens, I will tell you,
or stop motion when you don'twant the scene to appear in any
way different at all. So that'swhen you wanna use auto
(15:56):
exposure.
Also, you press and hold on it,if you're in a dark scene, a
dark place, you can brighten bysliding your finger up, and you
can darken. If it's too bright,you can slide your finger down
on the when when the screen islocked. And so play around with
that feature. If you don't knowabout it, drop me a comment or
respond to the newsletter andtell me, I'll do a little I'll
(16:17):
do a tutorial about it. Okay.
That's that one. Camera modes.Think about trying cinematic
mode for certain videos. Youcan't zoom in when you're
shooting in cinematic modeusually, although now the camera
seems to have, some people havethe feature to zoom in. So I'm
gonna see if I have it on mine.
When I go onto camera mode and Igo onto cinematic, I can zoom
(16:38):
in, but it's limited. It won'tlet me pinch and zoom. It just
goes from one x to three x. Soyou can be closer by tapping the
button, but you can't do amanual zoom in cinematic mode.
It just is a setting that makesyour videos look more filmic.
So if you're filming ahorizontal video, a landscape,
if you're trying to emulate amovie or something on your with
(17:01):
your camera, cinematic mode isyour friend. So try it out. It's
not it's kind of a cool thing.The other one is the back
camera, the point five, usingthat wide angle lens and using
your back camera so that you canget make sure you're not missing
yourself in a scene and you canget the whole scene behind you.
It does show a lot of arm likethis, but you can always crop
that in after the fact.
(17:21):
So it's a good setting to playaround with and it's, there's a
lot of trends that use that set,that setting. So think about
that. Also, think a lot ofpeople don't know that if you
are filming something and forexample, let's say you're
filming and you want to filmthese flowers, but it's focusing
on my face. If you are holdingyour phone and you tap on the
(17:41):
screen where the flowers are, itwill it will focus then on the
flowers. My face would go out offocus, but the flowers would
come into focus.
So you can tap around on yourscreen and choose what you want
in focus. Now I had somebody doone a point of view challenge in
the studio, and she'd held upwhat was it? Oh, her essential
(18:05):
oil. So she had a littleessential oil in her hand. Let's
pretend this is it.
This is a Dyson thing just justfor clarity. So you hold up
this, she's got the pretend it'sessential oil and she was
filming. What was happening, hercamera was focusing on the
background and the landscape andnot the actual product in her
hands. So I told her she couldhave tapped on the screen and
(18:28):
brought the product into focusand then the background would
have been more out of focus. Andthen she could have traveled a
bit and then tapped on thebackground and brought that into
focus.
So you can switch the focus backand forth by literally tapping
on the screen. So here is I'mI'm not gonna be able to
demonstrate this easily, but ifthis was here oh, let me just do
it with the flowers. So rightnow, let me get a little wider.
(18:53):
It's me and the flowers. So Icould get this to focus if I tap
on the screen.
I could get this to focus on theflowers versus focus on me. If I
tap back and forth, the focuswould would shift depending on
what in the room you're tappingon. So even with me looking
right now in the distance, I canfocus on the little brush that I
have sitting here, the Dysonbrush, but if I don't want it to
(19:17):
focus on that, I can tap behindit and I can have it focus on
the table in the distance. Okay?So tapping on an area of your
screen will bring that item intofocus.
And I actually do not think alot of people are aware of that.
I think we all depend on ourcameras to auto focus and it
will auto focus on the thingthat's most likely in the center
of the screen. So it does thatkind of automatically, but if
(19:38):
you're really particular and youwant to have it focus on
something and then switch thefocus to something else, so if
you're holding something up andyou want it to be focused on
this and then you wanna switchit to the scene in the
background, you can tap thescreen where the brush is. You
can tap the screen where thebackground is, and it'll shift
the focus. Okay?
Try it out and get back to me.Let me know if you learned
(20:00):
something. I always like you tolearn something. Even if it's
just a little tip, it's worthcoming for. I appreciate you
being here.
Alrighty. I'm gonna start towrap it up because Jonathan has
arrived, we're going to a gametonight, and then we're going to
see the New York Liberty play. Ihopefully can dance with the
mascot, Ellie the elephant. I'mdying to do that. But anyway, in
(20:21):
the studio this week, we areworking on podcasting.
So if you do have this month isthe whole theme of the month is
podcasting. Each week in thestudio, we're going to have a
theme moving forward. And thismonth, since I was halfway into
it in July already, it'spodcasting month. And that does
not mean we do nothing butpodcasting. That means our
special additional lesson of themonth is about that topic.
(20:44):
So we're still doing contenttips. We have weekly meetings.
We had a great meeting today. Itwas so much fun. We talked about
all the things we we actuallytalked a little bit about AI and
how to use that to help yourcontent.
So we're always hitting all thetopics, but I'm hardcore
focusing on a lesson series forpeople who want to podcast and
DIY and do their own podcast. Sothat is a lot of fun. And lesson
(21:07):
number one, part one was justreleased this morning, and I'll
be working on part two andprobably part three because I
want you to be all set with thetools you need if you want to do
your own podcast. And that doesnot mean you even have to buy a
fancy microphone like this. I'mgonna show you how to do it as a
trial, as a test without makinga big investment.
And then if you do decide youwanna make an investment, you
wanna go a little further, I'mgonna tell you all the things.
(21:30):
That's what's happening and Iguess, let's see. Oh, I wanted
to say the challenge this weekwas working with speed changes.
So each week I do teach like alesson that gives you some
tutorial that's well beyond whatI share on my social media. So
this week was about speedchanges and recording at
different speeds or how toaffect the speeds after you're
(21:50):
done recording.
So lots of things were covered.It was a really fun and
productive lesson. If you'reinterested in that, just click
on the link in the newsletterand join us. You I don't think
you would regret it. It's such afun group of people, and today's
meeting was so supportive, andit was so good.
I love seeing my people. So ifyou're one of them, thank you
for being there, and Iappreciate you. See you next
week. Bye.
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