How to Actually Look Good on Zoom: From a Film Major

Undoubtedly, the question on everybody’s mind today is “how the heck does one look good on Zoom?” Of course, you can hook up a DSLR to your laptop, use a 50mm prime lens, buy a set of studio lights and build an entire film set in your office, but this of course is not practical in the slightest. 

So you have no choice but to look like a floating head in an under-exposed abyss, right? Wrong! I am here to bring you a Film Major’s advice on how to set up the perfect, almost-professionally-lit Zoom call. 

The key is your lighting. To provide you with a little bit of film production insight, when lighting a subject, you have to have a key light, a fill light and a backlight. Your key light is where the light would naturally come from in a space. For example, if you are standing by a window, the light would naturally come from the sun. If you are in a dark room watching TV the main source of light is the television screen. 

The fill light will come from the side and aims to fill in all of the shadows on the subject’s face created by the key light. 

Lastly, a backlight is the source of light from behind the subject to ensure it does not look as though they are flat against the wall. It separates the subject from the background.

Now that we know the different types of lights, let’s go over what you’ll need to create this yourself! 

You want to set yourself up in a space with a variety of lighting sources. You want to have access to natural light (a window or glass door with curtains or blinds so you can control the amount of light), an overhead light, and a desk lamp or two. 

When you are setting up your webcam, your first step is to decide where your key light is coming from. In my experience, it is best to use your overhead light as your key. Set yourself up in a space where your overhead light is doing a good job of illuminating you. You may notice some shadows on your face, but never fear, we will fix that issue momentarily. 

Next, it is important to assess your backlight situation. I like to use natural light as my backlight, but in a controlled amount. Sunlight can be very intense on camera, and from the back it can put your entire face in a shadow. If you are going to have your back to a window, be sure that you have the blinds adjusted to only let in 50%-60% of the natural light. Additionally, if you are going to use natural light as your backlight, you want to be a minimum of 8 feet away from your window. The goal is to minimize the amount of light coming in from behind you.

If you do not have blinds or cannot be at least 8 feet from the window (or it is dark outside), I would recommend using a lamp as your backlight. Do not place this light directly behind you, because it will do absolutely nothing. Instead, you want to use a technique called “bouncing” the light, where you put light on another surface to “bounce” it onto your subject. In this case, we want to bounce the light off of a wall and onto you. So place the lamp behind you, either in the frame or out, in a position that illuminates the wall behind you. This light from the wall will then bounce forward off of the wall to light you from the back.

Now, onto what I find to be the most important Zoom lighting step: the fill light. This light will be achieved with a smaller desk lamp. You should place this lamp 6 inches to a foot behind your webcam, and at a 3/4 angle (between 0-90 degrees from the webcam). Do not place this lamp straight-on or directly to your side. If your lamp is really big, or the bulb is powerful, you may notice that there is too much light on your face. If this is the case, rotate the lamp to face the wall in front of you and bounce your fill light onto you. The goal with your fill light is to ensure that there are no dark shadows on your face and that your eyes are illuminated. 

A “movie magic” trick with lighting is to always make sure the subjects’ eyes are lit, since humans are innately drawn to looking into people’s eyes. Be sure that yours can be seen clearly on camera! 

Something very important to keep in mind when bouncing light is the color of the room you are in. When you light a subject, you should be aiming to use white light. Think about this: if you put a red light bulb in a lamp, what color would your subject appear? That’s right, red! The same principle applies to the color of your walls. If you are bouncing light off of a white wall, the light that bounces back will not have any color to it, also known as white light. If your wall is colored, though, it will bounce back the color and affect your appearance. 

In my experience white, pink, red, gold and grey walls make for the best bounce colors since they are neutral and match the natural undertones of human skin. Colors to avoid include dark blue, green and dark yellow. These colors will reflect back onto your face and you run the risk of looking a little bit sickly. 

With that, your setup is complete! Remember, lighting is different for every space so take some time to play around with the locations of your key, fill and backlights. Lighting is all about experimentation, so go have fun getting ready for your closeup! 

(Thank you to the classmate who listened to me explain my Zoom lighting theory, and gave me the idea to write out a tutorial!)