TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

So what is the best video backdrop to use when you're shooting online videos? So I received this comment from Prisca, one of my online public speaking and media training students. Here's what she writes. She says, TJ, I'm up to lecture 34 in one of my online classes. You've asked for criticism. Well, here it is. I've enjoyed the course so far, but find the background of TVs distracting and too busy for a background. Okay, well, Prisca, it's a fair point. It is something I've given a lot of thought to. I used to experiment with a lot of different backdrops and here's what I found. Any backdrop I use is going to generate criticism. I use this. And by the way, again, this is just a TV screen, folks. This is a $47 video loop I purchased from Getty Images off of the Internet. So it's a $400 TV and a $47 video loop. I could put anything back there. Here's why I use this backdrop. First, in the positive sense, I am a spoken communication expert and in my own real world training practice, I do media training and public speaking training. Media training is a subset and a more highly specialized form of presentation training. There are a lot of presentation trainers who aren't media trainers, but basically every media trainer also does presentation training. So I'm looking for something that suggests media savvy, media experience. Hence something that looks like a big newsroom, a network newsroom. So that's why I'm using that to further position myself as an expert as it relates to speaking in the media. That's the main positive reason. The other reason is by having this relatively dark, it makes it easier to light my face. I could put another backdrop or turn this off and you see blue and all of a sudden my face goes darker and fuzzier. So with a backdrop light of this color, it's very easy with just two studio lights to have my face well lit. So that's it from a positive sense. Now, there are many defensive reasons why I use this backdrop as well. For starters, every other backdrop I've used has generated a lot of criticism. Now, this backdrop gets criticism. And Prisca, you're not the first one to mention this. I do appreciate you mentioning it, but you're not the first one to mention that you don't like this background. You find it too busy. But what I have found is any backdrop I use gets criticism. I've used the Brooklyn Bridge at daytime, nighttime, dawn, dusk. I've had other computer generated backgrounds all of them offend somebody or bother somebody. So even though I don't like criticism and I try to be responsive to people, this criticism generally creates the least amount of criticism. Let's talk about other options. I could have a pure black backdrop like a Charlie Rose type show that's extremely hard to light. I'm not a lighting expert, I just don't have the time to bring in 23 different studio lights. You could have a pure white backdrop like an Apple ad. Again, extremely difficult to light. More complex. I could do green screen, which why anyone wants to do green screen these days when TV screens are so cheap, I don't know. But again, the issue of what do you actually put behind you pictures? You can put video loops. Here's what I've concluded. It just it isn't worth my time anymore. Constantly thinking, researching, going after new backdrops because it doesn't matter that much. People who are tuning in to my YouTube channel, my online courses, are here for the information. I don't want to intentionally distract them, but I am looking for a way to distract them the least and to communicate something that is consistent with what I'm all about. And that's why I use this. And I'm sorry if this seems overly difficult. I do think you should give thought to your video backdrop. I've given this a lot of thought, but I can't continue to give it more and more thought and experiment with new backdrops every day. But Prisca, I do very much appreciate your criticism. If you feel like you need to give me some marks off for that, I understand, but it's the best I can do. Thanks for writing.