How To Make Recipe Videos with the OverHead Pro

by Kiran Shahbaz

Here is your step by step guide on how to make overhead recipe videos with your OverHead Pro. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions in the comment section below or by emailing kiran@getoverheadpro.com. 

  1. Setup your OverHead Pro
    • See OverHead Pro Assembly Instructions that were emailed to you
    • Make sure that your camera is level using the circle bulls eye level
    • Make sure you have enough space on your camera/phone to film. Make sure you have plenty of space so that your camera doesn't stop recording mid-way through. Have at least 5GB of free space for a 5 min videos. You can transfer/erase photos, videos and apps etc. to free up space. 
    • Control your camera with your computer. Constantly pressing the the “record” and “stop record” button on your camera makes for shaky footage and wastes time (as you may have to re-arrange your camera to make sure the shoot looks good and is level). If you are using iOS devices, you can use AirBeam to control your iPhone from your Mac. If you have an Android phone, you can check out Camera Remote. 
    • Make sure your camera/phone is completely charged. Filming videos uses up a lot of battery. Best practice is to have your phone plugged in while your filming to avoid any mishaps. 
  2. Try to Film in Natural Light 
    • Like taking photos, filming in natural light is best. Avoid filming in direct light to reduce the appearance of shadows. You can always use a white sheet to cover your windows. This will allow you to shoot in a bright room without getting any shadows. 
  3. Pick a recipe
    • You are going to need to decide on which recipe to make a video for. A recipe that is tried, tested and true / one that is already popular on your blog is probably best. You can start with a brand new recipe that you are experimenting with, but you run the risk of not having a polished video. (It’s best to know the exact amount of each ingredient before you begin to film but more on this later).
  4. Get Your Kitchen Ready
    • You want to ensure that you have a clean work station to shoot from. A nice solid colour / wood counter with a large cutting board seems to be a safe bet. Be creative though and don’t feel shy to put your own spin on it! Using fun and nice cutlery is a also a good idea! 
  5. Get Your Ingredients Ready
    • Having all your ingredients with the proper measurements ready to go will save you time in filming and space on your camera. Imagine trying to make cookies and having to get every single ingredient from your pantry while shooting. This will either result in a super long video with more edits and taking a lot of space in your camera or you having to click “stop” and “record” in between getting ingredients which is tedious and annoying. Having your ingredients prepped and ready to go will make the process go so much quicker! 
  6. Action
    • Now that you have your OverHead Pro setup + camera balanced and ready to go, you have picked your recipe, prepared your kitchen and prepped your ingredients you are ready to shoot! Go get her!
  7. Getting Ready to Edit 
    • If you plan on editing the video directly on your smartphone, you can skip to the next step. If you are planning on editing on your Mac or PC, you will first need to get the videos from your camera/phone on to your Mac or PC. You can use AirDrop for iOS devices or use a cable to connect your phone camera to your computer/editing device
  8. Editing & Post-Production
    • Once you have your recipe videos where you want to edit them, you can start editing! There are many ways to edit your video depending on what you used to film and how many edits you’d like to make. Adobe Premiere and it works great. It has plenty of features but the ones you will likely use to edit recipe videos are speed (e.g. increase by 400x), brightness & contrast (to enhance the look, especially if shot in the evening), cut and edit individual clips (best to have videos under 60 seconds), add text overlay (for my title, ingredients, etc.) and music (there is plenty of free and royalty free music available on YouTube). You can probably use iMovie as well if you don’t want to pay for Premier and have a Mac. Other video editing software options include:  
    • Avidemux (Mac and Windows)
    • Blender (Mac and Windows)
    • Z24 Video Editor (Mac and Windows)
    • HyperEngine (Mac)
    • If you like you can also edit directly from your iPhone using apps like iMovie or Pinnacle Studio, of if you’d like to edit directly from your Android phone you can use apps like PowerDirector & KineMaster. There are plenty of editing software options depending on where you want to edit from (phone or computer) and what elements you’d like to edit. For a full list of Mac video editing software you can click here. For a list of Windows video editing software you can click here. 
    • Note that we at OverHead Pro haven’t personally used any editing software other than iMovie and Adobe Premiere so I can’t speak of how well they will work for editing recipe videos. 
  9. Adding (Free) Music
  10. Exporting Your Video
    • Exporting to Facebook in HD: 
      • H.264 video with AAC audio in MOV or MP4 format
      • An aspect ratio no larger than 1280px wide and divisible by 16px
      • A frame rate at, or below, 30fps
      • Stereo audio with a sample rate of 44,100hz
      • Note: If you are using Premier, there is a an Facebook exporting option which makes it really easy.
    • Exporting to YouTube
      • I export for YouTube in HD 720P 29.97. You can see here for more more YouTube exporting details.  

Please let me know if you have any questions and we'll be happy to answer them! 

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