If you are reading this it is likely you want to learn how to record better beast videos to hopefully share on this site. The good news is that is exactly what I plan to help with here. If you don’t know me yet I am TheBestGuy and have already shared 5 videos of my own on this site that you may of enjoyed. Nice to meet you! 
Anyways the guide will help you with some basics of recording in general but especially will have parts tailored to recording much higher quality beast content both by yourself or with a buddy helping out. This will be a very in depth guide so be warned it will take some reading but if you are serious about improving your videos I am sure you’ll find many things very useful. And I plan to keep expanding this as things come up.
-Lighting you need it: First thing is first, more lighting = more good. Cameras aren’t eyes and they don’t do well in dimmer light. Having too dim light will result in typically a too dark video as the camera can’t see well enough. A too grainy video as the camera increases ISO to try and brighten the video which introduces noise. A very blurry video when there is motion as the camera has slowed it’s shutter speed to try and let in more light per exposure which causes motion blurring. A very blown out video where dim areas are okay looking but lights will look super overly bright and blurry. Or likely a combination of all of the above.
Also another thing is when it’s dark a camera will have a hard time keeping focus as the software won’t be able to tell the depth of objects as well and also it’ll open it’s aperture more or all the way if it can and needs too which makes the focus area shallower and thereby makes it harder to keep focus and makes things not perfectly in focus blurrier.
TLDR. More light means brighter video, less noise, less motion blurring, less over exposure, and the camera being able to focus better over all.
-Lighting needs to be done a certain way: Okay so more light is good right? Except when it is not. confused? Let me explain.
You need to go about lighting in a certain way to get good results, you want more light but you need to have it positioned well or it may make things worse. And with light that is very directional you want it to be coming from the same direction on the camera typically. AND you want it to not be too bright that the rest on the rooms light pails in comparison.
If you have directional light that isn’t coming for the same direction as the camera is facing and is instead say pointing towards the camera behind someone then what will happen is the person will cast a shadow on themselves and make it likely harder to see then if you didn’t have the light at all. And even if the directional light is facing the same direction as the camera if it is too bright that it’s brighter than the room around it you will get a video that has bad bright spots in it and once again might make the video lower quality than if you didn’t use any additional lighting.
The best way by far to get more lighting and better video with is by using indirect/ambient lighting which unlike directional lighting is lighting that is typically very diffused and present from multiple angles. Like light that has bounced off of surfaces like a wall and/or comes from a diffused bulb and fixture. General room light is indirect usually. A way to see indirect or ambient light in action is by holding your hand out about 4 ft away from a wall in a way where you cast a shadow on said wall. Good ambient light at that distance should cast a soft shadow that you can still see in the center pretty easy. Now do the same thing but in a dark room with a flashlight (which is very directional light) a foot or two behind your hand pointed at the wall to cast a shadow. You’ll likely see a very sharp shadow that is extremely dark in the center. This is why Directional light is best avoided, anything blocking the light like a persons body will to the same effect.
The only type of directional light you want almost always is facing the same direction the camera is pointing (typically mounted on a camera) and is kept just slightly less bright than the surrounding light to not be overpowering. This is also known as fill light.
TLDR. Not all light is the same, directional light should always be on the camera and not super bright. It’s best to try and only use indirect light where you can.
-So how do you get better overall ambient light then?: The best way to get better ambient light is to simply get more overall diffused lighting in a room. One way is to buy brighter bulbs for your normal fixtures if you can such as some of the super bright 800 or 850lm LEDs. These will actually use way less power and produce way more light than the old type of filament bulbs or those florescent ones you likely still have. Switching will not only help your video, but will also save you money. What’s to lose?
Also just adding more light to the room will help. So If you are really serious about doing this then consider buying a few (As many as 4) standing lamps or similar (preferably with white shades or use them without shade and with diffused type bulbs) with at least two bulb sockets each and putting them in every corner of the room you are recording in while recording (or close to it where they aren't being blocked by something) and having them on along with the room’s main lights.
This right there will overall lighten up things more than you can imagine. Consider this, if your room has 2 bulbs on normally and you add 8 more via lamps you now have 5x the original ambient light bouncing around. This doesn’t mean that every spot is going to be 5x as bright, but that there is 5x more light overall helping to eliminate shadows.
Even better you can get bulb socket splitters that allow you to typically screw in an additional 1-3 bulbs per socket meaning instead of 8 extra light for those 4 lamps they can have 16-32 more bulbs total or be between 9-17x brighter than a room with a normal two bulb fixture. This might sound crazy overkill but trust me it is not. Actually professional recording even on small sets tend to use several lights that often times can reach 10,000 or more lumen which is about 12.5 of these lights EACH. So say there are 4 of those lights on set that is about 40,000lm or 50 bulbs. Keep in mind too, studio cameras are able to handle darks way better than yours can and they still use that much lighting. (I do admit I know a lot of what I am talking about here from experience working on some shows back when I lived in Cali.)
Now I know you might not want to buy standing lamps due to expense which is understandable or you want to use lights you already have around. That is perfectly fine, just try and use diffused bulbs and keep them in corners if possible. If you only have two lights then try and keep them in opposite corners or behind where the camera will be pointed. If you have directional lights like desk lamps don’t point them directly where you are recording. Try to bounce them off a white surface first such as a white wall or ceiling to diffuse the light.
Keep in mind the smaller the room too, the more the lights are going to be able to light. A room twice as big will take about two times the light to light. 3 time bigger then 3 times the light and so forth. Also all of this is pointless if you want to record during day with a well sun lit room. (The average sunlit room can contain a hundred thousand lumens or more depending on window count and sunlit entering it. Once again though, avoid recording in direct sunlight.)
TLDR: Buy lights, many lights… Use all the lights!! But only some of them… (But seriously if there is one section you do actually read all the way it should be the above one as it is extremely important to understand!)
What type of room should I record in?: The room ideally should be smallish, but not cramped. Have whitish or bright walls, ceiling and carpet. And should mainly be clutter free.
Why should it be smallish? Smaller rooms are easier to light and allow the light to bounce around more meaning better diffusion and less shadows.
Why white walls, ceilings and carpet? White and brighter colors reflect light, black and darker colors absorb light. Well technically they both reflect and absorb it but whites reflect more, darks absorb more. This means, more white means more good. (Don’t underestimate this effect a white room can easily be 4-5x brighter with the same amount of light than a room filled with dark everything.)
Why clutter free? Clutter even if not in the recording area tends to be of many colors and have many angles on it. Thereby clutter absorbs more light, and cause more stray light bounces which reduce overall light in the room compared to a more open environment.
A quick tip is buying some white sheets, or using other white fabric to cover clutter AND dark furniture (Like black or brown chairs) while recording to increase overall room lighting.
TLDR: Record smallish but open rooms with white or bright walls, ceilings and carpet if possible. Cover clutter and dark stuff like furniture with white sheets or cloth.
-Use a camera light, but sparingly: I know I have been telling you to avoid directional light as much as possible as you really should, but the fact of the matter is that a directional camera light might need to be used no matter how well you light up the rest of the room. Especially when needing to get the camera between two bodies like a person and their canine companion copulating.
A camera light is the only type of directional light you should ever need to use for filming amateur and likely even pro beast content. The key thing is the camera light is either on a camera or mounted to a camera externally and should always be pointing in the direction the lens is pointing.
This is important as it’s what allows it to not cast horrible shadow on everything and make things unseeable. Even still there are some major considerations such as one, if you can help it don’t keep the light on full brightness unless that brightness happens to be quite dim.
This is because never should you have the light brighter than the ambient light in the room in areas that are not hit by shadow. I know this is confusing but imagine you are trying to light up some action from under a dog, but it’s too dark to get a good shot so you turn on your camera light. Whatever that light touches should be illuminated slightly less than the brightness of areas that are not shadowed such as the dog’s back directly in room light.
This is kinda hard to explain but basically the camera light is to help brighten the shadows cast but not get rid of them all together. Otherwise if you have it too bright things like contrast starts messing up on the camera where you get overly bright areas and underexposed areas and focusing problems and a bunch of other issues.
Another thing is though the light built directly into your camera (which likely will be a phone) will work, honestly they suck… Yes they may be extremely bright but they are also often a single point which is bad for many reasons when recording. For more serious individuals I recommend buying an external diffused light to either put on the hot shoe of your camera or a something they call an “LED selfie ring light” that clips onto your phone. I will discuss this a little later.
Both of these will offer a lot better lighting than most on camera solutions.
TLDR: You can use camera lighting when needed, but don’t have it too bright. Also it’s recommended to buy an external light instead of using whats on the camera.
-Recommended Item 1 Tripod and Mount if needed: So the first thing I recommend is getting a tripod. A tripod for those that don’t know is something that you set a camera on to hold it stable and lets you do things like adjust height of the camera, and tilting. They are invaluable.
I am assuming most reading this will probably be recording with your phones which will not work on a tripod natively. However if you look for something called a “Universal Phone to Tripod Adapter” you can find many mounts for under 10 that will let you attach your phone to any standard tripod with full functionally.
A tripod is great as it allows you to have your camera stable anywhere in the room, along with adjusting height of the camera and angling. Only downside is that it’s much easier to get the action when someone is holding the camera.
TLDR: Get a tripod and mount.
-Recommended Item 2 External Light: As said before pretty much all on camera lights are serviceable but generally suck so if possible you should buy an external one with multiple leds and diffusion. Most people are using a phone so I recommended getting something like a “LED selfie ring light” which is a led ring you can clip on your phone and often times has multiple brightness setting which is great for reasons mention prior. They are cheap and by themselves will allow you to record much better content on your phone.
TLDR: External camera lights are better than ones on camera.
What else can I do?: One of the other best things you can do for lighting is putting a bright white sheet, towel or anything under you while recording. Especially if you have dark carpeting. This is probably one of the simplest ways to drastically increase the light you’ll have to work with ESPECIALLY when recording shots from underneath like a closeup during doggy style or a “Down Under Shot.”
Please observe this gif I have included and notice how much light is on my hand with the black fabric below it and then the white fabric.
Yeah you see that difference, pretty big...
-Protecting Identity: Protecting your identity should be your biggest concern when recording any videos. Simplest way is to make sure that your face and any identifiable marks such as tattoos are not in frame or are blurred in editing. To save time, wearing a full mask is recommended in videos where your face might be seen a lot. Some mask are creepy like a ski mask, but some can be sexy like if you look up something called “puppy hoods.” They are just a dog shaped leather mask. I don’t know, have fun with it.
Another thing is try to avoid saying your name or the name of anyone else present with you, along with your animal’s name. If said I recommend muting the name being said in post. You’ll also want to have a place you can record that’ll be hard to identify like a room that’s mostly empty with no remarkable furniture. (Obviously you don’t want to record in a room where in the shot’s background you have you families portrait hanging up.)
In areas that might be hard to get everything identifiable out of frame, then instead buy a few sheets (preferably white for lighting reasons) and cover it all up. No more identifiable stuff in shot. You can go farther to by setting up backdrops on walls by doing things like hanging a sheet off the drywall using something like Thumbtacks. If you do that though you want to try and reuse the same hole when putting back up. Or using those sticky clips.
Staying dressed too can help with covering this like tattoos and such. Some like to use essentially assless pants to stay dressed but still go at it. Just an idea.
General Tip 1, GET THE SHOT: This applies mainly to dog videos. Please for the love of all Goodness remember to get a clear shot of the animal’s penis when/after they pullout. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I know it is something that in general bother’s a lot more than me… *Warning a bit of a rant ahead*
When an animal pulls out of someone, especially a dog please don’t just decided to record someone’s ass for 30 seconds then cut the clip. Or end the clip like 1 milliseconds after the pullout. Get a damn shot of the Beast’s Tool!! I seriously don’t know how many great videos have been ruined by people doing this.
The video starts off great, dog humps, person is moaning in pleasure, they get knotted, maybe say a lusty line or two of “Wow they are so big!!” or “I can’t believe it their knot is huge!!” And you are like “I can’t wait to see what they are packing, sounds like a real doozey eh” (You know typical stuff you think) and after very a long build up the moment finally comes and there is a sudden moan of ecstasy and a pop and a gushing sound as the knot comes out...
But sadly the camera misses the whole thing happen because of a bad angle so you either don’t see the dog’s glory at all or just a blur for a frame and still can’t make out anything. So what does the camera person do? They decided to record someone’s ass from 2 inches away for the next 30 seconds instead of showing the damn dog!! Then just end the video… Or like I said, cut the video like instantly after the pullout… You want your videos to be better? Then don’t do this…
Feel free to record someone’s ass for 30 seconds or whatever, that is cool but take at least 10 seconds before/after or whatever to show a clear shot to people what the dog was packing…
“Okay, well what happens if you get caught up in the moment and forget to do that or the dog already lost their erection?” Fair enough, that does sometimes happen. And if it does I recommend doing what a user on this site did for his Dane Knot video which is if it is missed just add in a pic or vid at the end of the video showing what the dog’s junk looks like when at mast and the video will be be 100x better than not doing so.
Sorry for the ranting but it’s passionate subject for me… Even these “Pro” Zoo Film makers do the same thing… They’ll have two or 3 cameramen and they’ll all be like “Oh dog just pulled out... need to get 3 slightly different shot of this ladies cootchie for the next 5 minutes...”
TLDR: Remember to show the dog’s dick after pullout if they are still erect, if not or forgotten to get the shot it’s always a good idea to add and image or a bit of video when they are erect to the end of the video to show the audience.
-General Tip 2, Slowly and Not Too Far In: With camera recording it is always better go slow and steady… When moving closer try and do so smoothly instead of thrusting the camera forward and while looking right, left, up, down or anywhere else with the camera try to use smooth and slow motions. Swinging the camera around like a twitchy madman will result in constant motion blur or stuttering that not only looks bad but can make people sick.
Along with this don’t get inches away from what you are trying to record otherwise it leads to many issues, one of the biggest being the camera having trouble focusing a super close distances. Other’s include poor framing where stuff is hardly ever in video, or bad motion blur where the frame is so filled by motion everything just looks like a blurry mess especially when coupled with low shutter speeds prevalent when you get too close as it typically blocks light for the camera.
Remember it is always better to be 50% farther back from a shot than 50% too close. Too far back can always be cropped in while editing, however you can’t make a shot bigger in editing if too close so if you miss something it is gone for good. Trying to thrust a camera too close in and twitchy motion is probably the biggest sin I seen with most armature content out there.
TLDR: Don’t get too close with the camera as that makes it hard to keep action in frame and it can always be cropped later. And when looking around with the camera do it slowly, not twitchy like.
-General Tip 3, People Find it Hot: Most people are embarrassed about moaning while getting rammed and will try to stay quite during videos because of this. But the truth it most people will find hearing your moans quite hot. Also if your not worried about people hearing your voice expressing yourself in a genuine way like saying “Yeah just like that… It feels so good!!” is typically considered very exciting too.
However skip the fake moans, and half hearted dirty talk otherwise people are likely going to see through it and dislike the content more because of the “cheese” factor it now has.
A weird thing is I have seen people completely cut segments of video like when they are getting rammed or during a pullout because they start swearing so much. There is no reason to do this, it is jarring and unneeded. At the least just mute the audio there and leave the video intact.
TLDR: Feel free to moan and talk dirty, people like it.
-General Tip 4, Music: In ALMOST no circumstance should you replace the natural sounds of a video with some random music you grab offline… Or even not random for that matter… I am sorry but it is just a terrible idea and if you look at just about any video that does it you see hoards of people complaining about it for good reasons.
I don’t know why some people might think being banged by their dog while Stairway to Heaven plays is sexy but it’s not… Well maybe to them it is, but for the other 99.99% of people it is going to be very uncomfortable or perhaps even offensive that their prized song was use in such a way. Also people like different music so even though you think this death metal band is super stellar and use one of their songs for your video, chances are other people are not going to be so keen on it.
Sometimes music can be used in an okay way such as in compilations ans such WITH the original sound still hear able. But normally it should not be used.
TLDR: Please no music, especially if it overbears or replaces the videos natural song all together.
-General Tip 5, Watermark: Adding a watermark with your username or at least saying that your content is being provided fro free in an are where it can't be easily cropped or covered is a very good idea to stop companies or other's from trying to claim your work and even sell it. For videos a scrolling watermark or at least one right in the center is recommended. It's annoying, but almost always necessary.
TLDR: Use watermarks.
-General Tip 6, Watch out for vertical videos: This is one I personally have fell victim to many times which is recording video on phone in Vertical view instead of Landscape. For those that do not know vertical view are those videos that take up only about 1/2 of the screen as they are taller instead of longer like normal videos. It's usually 9:16 (Vertical) vs 16:9 (Landscape.)
The reason you don't want to record in that view is typically because when playing back it makes the video ridiculously small and hard to see. Also in general make the shot harder to frame. The good news is though many videos that have been recorded in vertical view especially close up ones can be rotated in editing and still look fine, but not always is that the case.
Overall it is best to remember to avoid recording in that view unless specifically needed. Thanks user pferdefreund for the suggestion.
Hopefully that is a good starting point for you and I do plan to add to this is more stuff comes up so if you wish I welcome suggestions such as edits or additions you might have.
Also as a reminder I have offered to edit videos for free per what I have said in this (https://www.zooville.org/threads/offer-to-do-free-editing-please-read-entire-post.2292/) thread if you are interested. Even if you have general questions please feel free to pm me. Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something!
Anyways the guide will help you with some basics of recording in general but especially will have parts tailored to recording much higher quality beast content both by yourself or with a buddy helping out. This will be a very in depth guide so be warned it will take some reading but if you are serious about improving your videos I am sure you’ll find many things very useful. And I plan to keep expanding this as things come up.
-Lighting you need it: First thing is first, more lighting = more good. Cameras aren’t eyes and they don’t do well in dimmer light. Having too dim light will result in typically a too dark video as the camera can’t see well enough. A too grainy video as the camera increases ISO to try and brighten the video which introduces noise. A very blurry video when there is motion as the camera has slowed it’s shutter speed to try and let in more light per exposure which causes motion blurring. A very blown out video where dim areas are okay looking but lights will look super overly bright and blurry. Or likely a combination of all of the above.
Also another thing is when it’s dark a camera will have a hard time keeping focus as the software won’t be able to tell the depth of objects as well and also it’ll open it’s aperture more or all the way if it can and needs too which makes the focus area shallower and thereby makes it harder to keep focus and makes things not perfectly in focus blurrier.
TLDR. More light means brighter video, less noise, less motion blurring, less over exposure, and the camera being able to focus better over all.
-Lighting needs to be done a certain way: Okay so more light is good right? Except when it is not. confused? Let me explain.
You need to go about lighting in a certain way to get good results, you want more light but you need to have it positioned well or it may make things worse. And with light that is very directional you want it to be coming from the same direction on the camera typically. AND you want it to not be too bright that the rest on the rooms light pails in comparison.
If you have directional light that isn’t coming for the same direction as the camera is facing and is instead say pointing towards the camera behind someone then what will happen is the person will cast a shadow on themselves and make it likely harder to see then if you didn’t have the light at all. And even if the directional light is facing the same direction as the camera if it is too bright that it’s brighter than the room around it you will get a video that has bad bright spots in it and once again might make the video lower quality than if you didn’t use any additional lighting.
The best way by far to get more lighting and better video with is by using indirect/ambient lighting which unlike directional lighting is lighting that is typically very diffused and present from multiple angles. Like light that has bounced off of surfaces like a wall and/or comes from a diffused bulb and fixture. General room light is indirect usually. A way to see indirect or ambient light in action is by holding your hand out about 4 ft away from a wall in a way where you cast a shadow on said wall. Good ambient light at that distance should cast a soft shadow that you can still see in the center pretty easy. Now do the same thing but in a dark room with a flashlight (which is very directional light) a foot or two behind your hand pointed at the wall to cast a shadow. You’ll likely see a very sharp shadow that is extremely dark in the center. This is why Directional light is best avoided, anything blocking the light like a persons body will to the same effect.
The only type of directional light you want almost always is facing the same direction the camera is pointing (typically mounted on a camera) and is kept just slightly less bright than the surrounding light to not be overpowering. This is also known as fill light.
TLDR. Not all light is the same, directional light should always be on the camera and not super bright. It’s best to try and only use indirect light where you can.
-So how do you get better overall ambient light then?: The best way to get better ambient light is to simply get more overall diffused lighting in a room. One way is to buy brighter bulbs for your normal fixtures if you can such as some of the super bright 800 or 850lm LEDs. These will actually use way less power and produce way more light than the old type of filament bulbs or those florescent ones you likely still have. Switching will not only help your video, but will also save you money. What’s to lose?
Also just adding more light to the room will help. So If you are really serious about doing this then consider buying a few (As many as 4) standing lamps or similar (preferably with white shades or use them without shade and with diffused type bulbs) with at least two bulb sockets each and putting them in every corner of the room you are recording in while recording (or close to it where they aren't being blocked by something) and having them on along with the room’s main lights.
This right there will overall lighten up things more than you can imagine. Consider this, if your room has 2 bulbs on normally and you add 8 more via lamps you now have 5x the original ambient light bouncing around. This doesn’t mean that every spot is going to be 5x as bright, but that there is 5x more light overall helping to eliminate shadows.
Even better you can get bulb socket splitters that allow you to typically screw in an additional 1-3 bulbs per socket meaning instead of 8 extra light for those 4 lamps they can have 16-32 more bulbs total or be between 9-17x brighter than a room with a normal two bulb fixture. This might sound crazy overkill but trust me it is not. Actually professional recording even on small sets tend to use several lights that often times can reach 10,000 or more lumen which is about 12.5 of these lights EACH. So say there are 4 of those lights on set that is about 40,000lm or 50 bulbs. Keep in mind too, studio cameras are able to handle darks way better than yours can and they still use that much lighting. (I do admit I know a lot of what I am talking about here from experience working on some shows back when I lived in Cali.)
Now I know you might not want to buy standing lamps due to expense which is understandable or you want to use lights you already have around. That is perfectly fine, just try and use diffused bulbs and keep them in corners if possible. If you only have two lights then try and keep them in opposite corners or behind where the camera will be pointed. If you have directional lights like desk lamps don’t point them directly where you are recording. Try to bounce them off a white surface first such as a white wall or ceiling to diffuse the light.
Keep in mind the smaller the room too, the more the lights are going to be able to light. A room twice as big will take about two times the light to light. 3 time bigger then 3 times the light and so forth. Also all of this is pointless if you want to record during day with a well sun lit room. (The average sunlit room can contain a hundred thousand lumens or more depending on window count and sunlit entering it. Once again though, avoid recording in direct sunlight.)
TLDR: Buy lights, many lights… Use all the lights!! But only some of them… (But seriously if there is one section you do actually read all the way it should be the above one as it is extremely important to understand!)
What type of room should I record in?: The room ideally should be smallish, but not cramped. Have whitish or bright walls, ceiling and carpet. And should mainly be clutter free.
Why should it be smallish? Smaller rooms are easier to light and allow the light to bounce around more meaning better diffusion and less shadows.
Why white walls, ceilings and carpet? White and brighter colors reflect light, black and darker colors absorb light. Well technically they both reflect and absorb it but whites reflect more, darks absorb more. This means, more white means more good. (Don’t underestimate this effect a white room can easily be 4-5x brighter with the same amount of light than a room filled with dark everything.)
Why clutter free? Clutter even if not in the recording area tends to be of many colors and have many angles on it. Thereby clutter absorbs more light, and cause more stray light bounces which reduce overall light in the room compared to a more open environment.
A quick tip is buying some white sheets, or using other white fabric to cover clutter AND dark furniture (Like black or brown chairs) while recording to increase overall room lighting.
TLDR: Record smallish but open rooms with white or bright walls, ceilings and carpet if possible. Cover clutter and dark stuff like furniture with white sheets or cloth.
-Use a camera light, but sparingly: I know I have been telling you to avoid directional light as much as possible as you really should, but the fact of the matter is that a directional camera light might need to be used no matter how well you light up the rest of the room. Especially when needing to get the camera between two bodies like a person and their canine companion copulating.
A camera light is the only type of directional light you should ever need to use for filming amateur and likely even pro beast content. The key thing is the camera light is either on a camera or mounted to a camera externally and should always be pointing in the direction the lens is pointing.
This is important as it’s what allows it to not cast horrible shadow on everything and make things unseeable. Even still there are some major considerations such as one, if you can help it don’t keep the light on full brightness unless that brightness happens to be quite dim.
This is because never should you have the light brighter than the ambient light in the room in areas that are not hit by shadow. I know this is confusing but imagine you are trying to light up some action from under a dog, but it’s too dark to get a good shot so you turn on your camera light. Whatever that light touches should be illuminated slightly less than the brightness of areas that are not shadowed such as the dog’s back directly in room light.
This is kinda hard to explain but basically the camera light is to help brighten the shadows cast but not get rid of them all together. Otherwise if you have it too bright things like contrast starts messing up on the camera where you get overly bright areas and underexposed areas and focusing problems and a bunch of other issues.
Another thing is though the light built directly into your camera (which likely will be a phone) will work, honestly they suck… Yes they may be extremely bright but they are also often a single point which is bad for many reasons when recording. For more serious individuals I recommend buying an external diffused light to either put on the hot shoe of your camera or a something they call an “LED selfie ring light” that clips onto your phone. I will discuss this a little later.
Both of these will offer a lot better lighting than most on camera solutions.
TLDR: You can use camera lighting when needed, but don’t have it too bright. Also it’s recommended to buy an external light instead of using whats on the camera.
-Recommended Item 1 Tripod and Mount if needed: So the first thing I recommend is getting a tripod. A tripod for those that don’t know is something that you set a camera on to hold it stable and lets you do things like adjust height of the camera, and tilting. They are invaluable.
I am assuming most reading this will probably be recording with your phones which will not work on a tripod natively. However if you look for something called a “Universal Phone to Tripod Adapter” you can find many mounts for under 10 that will let you attach your phone to any standard tripod with full functionally.
A tripod is great as it allows you to have your camera stable anywhere in the room, along with adjusting height of the camera and angling. Only downside is that it’s much easier to get the action when someone is holding the camera.
TLDR: Get a tripod and mount.
-Recommended Item 2 External Light: As said before pretty much all on camera lights are serviceable but generally suck so if possible you should buy an external one with multiple leds and diffusion. Most people are using a phone so I recommended getting something like a “LED selfie ring light” which is a led ring you can clip on your phone and often times has multiple brightness setting which is great for reasons mention prior. They are cheap and by themselves will allow you to record much better content on your phone.
TLDR: External camera lights are better than ones on camera.
What else can I do?: One of the other best things you can do for lighting is putting a bright white sheet, towel or anything under you while recording. Especially if you have dark carpeting. This is probably one of the simplest ways to drastically increase the light you’ll have to work with ESPECIALLY when recording shots from underneath like a closeup during doggy style or a “Down Under Shot.”
Please observe this gif I have included and notice how much light is on my hand with the black fabric below it and then the white fabric.
Yeah you see that difference, pretty big...
-Protecting Identity: Protecting your identity should be your biggest concern when recording any videos. Simplest way is to make sure that your face and any identifiable marks such as tattoos are not in frame or are blurred in editing. To save time, wearing a full mask is recommended in videos where your face might be seen a lot. Some mask are creepy like a ski mask, but some can be sexy like if you look up something called “puppy hoods.” They are just a dog shaped leather mask. I don’t know, have fun with it.
Another thing is try to avoid saying your name or the name of anyone else present with you, along with your animal’s name. If said I recommend muting the name being said in post. You’ll also want to have a place you can record that’ll be hard to identify like a room that’s mostly empty with no remarkable furniture. (Obviously you don’t want to record in a room where in the shot’s background you have you families portrait hanging up.)
In areas that might be hard to get everything identifiable out of frame, then instead buy a few sheets (preferably white for lighting reasons) and cover it all up. No more identifiable stuff in shot. You can go farther to by setting up backdrops on walls by doing things like hanging a sheet off the drywall using something like Thumbtacks. If you do that though you want to try and reuse the same hole when putting back up. Or using those sticky clips.
Staying dressed too can help with covering this like tattoos and such. Some like to use essentially assless pants to stay dressed but still go at it. Just an idea.
General Tip 1, GET THE SHOT: This applies mainly to dog videos. Please for the love of all Goodness remember to get a clear shot of the animal’s penis when/after they pullout. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I know it is something that in general bother’s a lot more than me… *Warning a bit of a rant ahead*
When an animal pulls out of someone, especially a dog please don’t just decided to record someone’s ass for 30 seconds then cut the clip. Or end the clip like 1 milliseconds after the pullout. Get a damn shot of the Beast’s Tool!! I seriously don’t know how many great videos have been ruined by people doing this.
The video starts off great, dog humps, person is moaning in pleasure, they get knotted, maybe say a lusty line or two of “Wow they are so big!!” or “I can’t believe it their knot is huge!!” And you are like “I can’t wait to see what they are packing, sounds like a real doozey eh” (You know typical stuff you think) and after very a long build up the moment finally comes and there is a sudden moan of ecstasy and a pop and a gushing sound as the knot comes out...
But sadly the camera misses the whole thing happen because of a bad angle so you either don’t see the dog’s glory at all or just a blur for a frame and still can’t make out anything. So what does the camera person do? They decided to record someone’s ass from 2 inches away for the next 30 seconds instead of showing the damn dog!! Then just end the video… Or like I said, cut the video like instantly after the pullout… You want your videos to be better? Then don’t do this…
Feel free to record someone’s ass for 30 seconds or whatever, that is cool but take at least 10 seconds before/after or whatever to show a clear shot to people what the dog was packing…
“Okay, well what happens if you get caught up in the moment and forget to do that or the dog already lost their erection?” Fair enough, that does sometimes happen. And if it does I recommend doing what a user on this site did for his Dane Knot video which is if it is missed just add in a pic or vid at the end of the video showing what the dog’s junk looks like when at mast and the video will be be 100x better than not doing so.
Sorry for the ranting but it’s passionate subject for me… Even these “Pro” Zoo Film makers do the same thing… They’ll have two or 3 cameramen and they’ll all be like “Oh dog just pulled out... need to get 3 slightly different shot of this ladies cootchie for the next 5 minutes...”
TLDR: Remember to show the dog’s dick after pullout if they are still erect, if not or forgotten to get the shot it’s always a good idea to add and image or a bit of video when they are erect to the end of the video to show the audience.
-General Tip 2, Slowly and Not Too Far In: With camera recording it is always better go slow and steady… When moving closer try and do so smoothly instead of thrusting the camera forward and while looking right, left, up, down or anywhere else with the camera try to use smooth and slow motions. Swinging the camera around like a twitchy madman will result in constant motion blur or stuttering that not only looks bad but can make people sick.
Along with this don’t get inches away from what you are trying to record otherwise it leads to many issues, one of the biggest being the camera having trouble focusing a super close distances. Other’s include poor framing where stuff is hardly ever in video, or bad motion blur where the frame is so filled by motion everything just looks like a blurry mess especially when coupled with low shutter speeds prevalent when you get too close as it typically blocks light for the camera.
Remember it is always better to be 50% farther back from a shot than 50% too close. Too far back can always be cropped in while editing, however you can’t make a shot bigger in editing if too close so if you miss something it is gone for good. Trying to thrust a camera too close in and twitchy motion is probably the biggest sin I seen with most armature content out there.
TLDR: Don’t get too close with the camera as that makes it hard to keep action in frame and it can always be cropped later. And when looking around with the camera do it slowly, not twitchy like.
-General Tip 3, People Find it Hot: Most people are embarrassed about moaning while getting rammed and will try to stay quite during videos because of this. But the truth it most people will find hearing your moans quite hot. Also if your not worried about people hearing your voice expressing yourself in a genuine way like saying “Yeah just like that… It feels so good!!” is typically considered very exciting too.
However skip the fake moans, and half hearted dirty talk otherwise people are likely going to see through it and dislike the content more because of the “cheese” factor it now has.
A weird thing is I have seen people completely cut segments of video like when they are getting rammed or during a pullout because they start swearing so much. There is no reason to do this, it is jarring and unneeded. At the least just mute the audio there and leave the video intact.
TLDR: Feel free to moan and talk dirty, people like it.
-General Tip 4, Music: In ALMOST no circumstance should you replace the natural sounds of a video with some random music you grab offline… Or even not random for that matter… I am sorry but it is just a terrible idea and if you look at just about any video that does it you see hoards of people complaining about it for good reasons.
I don’t know why some people might think being banged by their dog while Stairway to Heaven plays is sexy but it’s not… Well maybe to them it is, but for the other 99.99% of people it is going to be very uncomfortable or perhaps even offensive that their prized song was use in such a way. Also people like different music so even though you think this death metal band is super stellar and use one of their songs for your video, chances are other people are not going to be so keen on it.
Sometimes music can be used in an okay way such as in compilations ans such WITH the original sound still hear able. But normally it should not be used.
TLDR: Please no music, especially if it overbears or replaces the videos natural song all together.
-General Tip 5, Watermark: Adding a watermark with your username or at least saying that your content is being provided fro free in an are where it can't be easily cropped or covered is a very good idea to stop companies or other's from trying to claim your work and even sell it. For videos a scrolling watermark or at least one right in the center is recommended. It's annoying, but almost always necessary.
TLDR: Use watermarks.
-General Tip 6, Watch out for vertical videos: This is one I personally have fell victim to many times which is recording video on phone in Vertical view instead of Landscape. For those that do not know vertical view are those videos that take up only about 1/2 of the screen as they are taller instead of longer like normal videos. It's usually 9:16 (Vertical) vs 16:9 (Landscape.)
The reason you don't want to record in that view is typically because when playing back it makes the video ridiculously small and hard to see. Also in general make the shot harder to frame. The good news is though many videos that have been recorded in vertical view especially close up ones can be rotated in editing and still look fine, but not always is that the case.
Overall it is best to remember to avoid recording in that view unless specifically needed. Thanks user pferdefreund for the suggestion.
Hopefully that is a good starting point for you and I do plan to add to this is more stuff comes up so if you wish I welcome suggestions such as edits or additions you might have.
Also as a reminder I have offered to edit videos for free per what I have said in this (https://www.zooville.org/threads/offer-to-do-free-editing-please-read-entire-post.2292/) thread if you are interested. Even if you have general questions please feel free to pm me. Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something!
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