From the course: Camtasia Essential Training: Advanced Techniques

Optimizing your creation environment - Camtasia Tutorial

From the course: Camtasia Essential Training: Advanced Techniques

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Optimizing your creation environment

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- [Instructor] I have created plenty of videos using nothing but my laptop, Camtasia and whatever space I find myself in. That said, there are a number of workflow tweaks and tools that can make production quicker and just more fun. I'm going to show you a few that have worked for me. Hopefully you'll find one or two to boost your own creation experience. I'll start with a second monitor. Now this alone improves my productivity by at least 25% and just makes creating media so much smoother, highly recommend this. Any monitor will do. You can even use a TV. I'm also a big fan of the external mouse. I use this the majority of the time. Now, I know some people swear by the track pad, but for media creation, I can move much quicker and make more refined adjustments with a quality mouse. Sound is also a big deal for me. My sound hierarchy goes like this, studio monitors at the top, headphones, then earbuds, and at the bottom of the pile, laptop speakers. If you're going the earbud headphone route, be aware that things sound a bit different up close and personal like that. So if I mix with headphones, I like to give things a listen on some sort of regular speakers before posting. And of course a nice quiet low-reverb workspace is great for creating and recording quality sound. If you have roommates, especially of the kid variety, good luck with the quiet part. Now my workspace has a lot of flat surfaces that can create a lot of reverb. So a rug on the floor, some fabric around the perimeter, and a few sound panels on the ceiling helped tame the reverb. Anything that absorbs sound helps. On a related side note, a walk in closet full of clothes is an excellent option for recording vocal tracks. If you're going to be on camera, you'll want decent lighting at least for your face. And really any light will help. You can use a desk lamp, a ring light, or even if you just sit facing a window, that will often do the trick. Along those same lines, consider your background. For video shoots, I try to remove any distracting clutter or at least hang something to hide it. I also leave most of my audio video stuff set up in my studio. Now the extra clutter is kind of annoying but setting up and tearing down every time I create a video is just too much of a gumption sucker. I also think a comfortable quality chair is a worthy investment. I spend more time in this chair than my bed, so why not be comfortable? And if none of that works for you, plopping down with a laptop at the kitchen table or the back deck works just fine too.

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