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What I Wear When Filming a Course

Instructors share how they dress up for when they're recording their course lectures. Read this post to get some inspiration! 

 

Most of my videos are just screencasts or slide narration where I don’t appear, so in reality I’m usually wearing a t-shirt and jeans! But when I do appear on camera, I do put some thought into my attire. You want students to identify with you, yet you still want to look like a respectful authority figure. For courses aimed at engineers, I’ll usually wear a collared shirt, but without a tie or jacket. But for courses aimed at executives, I break out the sport coat.

It’s also important to avoid complex patterns in your attire, as they can create odd interference patterns on camera. I have a section of my closet that consists of tailored, solid-color shirts for use on camera.

And I also think it’s important to have some sort of “signature” in your apparel. Steve Jobs had his turtlenecks; Bill Nye has his bow ties. For me, it’s a flat cap, and I’m never on camera without one. 

 

Do you have a "signature"? What is it?

 

 

Greg Reverdiau: I do mostly talking heads and I use the same grey short sleeve collared shirt. I don’t know that I would call it a signature per se but it does help with consistency and it is easy to white balance. 

 

Graham Nicholls: As all of my videos are me on screen I wanted to look presentable and professional so I started out with a black shirt and that has continued throughout my courses. The only difference being that I now have my logo embroided on it..... I guess, therefore, that the black shirt is my signature.

 

Although I did get one review with someone complaining that the black shirt made them feel dark and down so they requested a refund..... you just can't please everyone!

 

Hypnodan: I like to wear the same thing all the time in all videos. I think over the years I've been on Udemy I have had three different shirts I've worn in my videos, one shirt I wore in my 2014/2015 eCourses, another shirt in my 2016/2017 videos and another shirt in my 2018/2019 courses.

I tell myself that this is for consistency in the videos (which it partly is), but I like having a 'work outfit' and I like things to be unchanging. When I was working full-time in my last couple of jobs I wore the same shirt every workday from 2007-2015. My wife hated the shirt and made sure it was thrown out once I left my last job. 

 

Alicia Paz: Mine are all talking head and I wear different things every 3-5 videos and have a rack of clothes while filming I organize pre-filming to change into as I film 8-12 at a time. I joke privately I have costume changed like Beyonce.  It's business casual and low on patterns but overall brighter colors.  Partly it's because my courses are meant to be done 1-2 video per week (Udemy suggestion: courses that can be "dripped,") so in my head, different clothes signal some kind of "stop" to students who want to binge the whole course.

 

My signature...I would say 80% of my videos I have the same red lipstick in, a handful I have a purple color which has received some comments on in the past and I stopped wearing- but at this point, I brought it back from my newest course.  Also, I rock some funky and ornate nails and use my hands a lot (East Coast problems) so I get a lot of comments on social media about them- although all positive and sometimes for close up shots of them.  This also fits my demographic.  

 

My background is the same in all videos, but one which is busy on purpose as it's about distraction.

 

 

Author:

@FrankKane