Every developer on earth has, at some point, had another developer to thank for a breakthrough, a success, an aha moment they wouldn’t have had without coming across that blog post, that open-source contribution, that reply on socials or that humble Stack Overflow comment.
For some of you reading this, you’ll have considered starting a YouTube channel, publishing a blog, sharing explainer graphics on socials, or sharing your knowledge some other way, but not gotten around to it.
With video being one of the most powerful ways to help others level up, we thought we’d show how easy it is to start making code tutorial videos with a lightweight, no-fuss setup, so you can get started with sharing your knowledge, today.
1. Camera
Like most of the categories featured in this article, the topic of cameras is a never-ending rabbit hole of options, possibilities and pros and cons.
DSLR? Mirror-less? Point and shoot? Even learning the differences between these can be complex, and this without even discussing lenses.
Considering you’ll most likely be filming yourself at a desk, you don’t need complex camera tech. Instead, an iPhone might just be your best bet.
An iPhone?! Really?!, you might say. Well, firstly, numerous feature films have been created with iPhones since as far back as the S5, so if it’s good enough for Hollywood, it’s definitely good enough for your home office.
The iPhone’s continuity camera mode doesn’t get talked about a great deal, but it’s extremely powerful.
Simply connect your iPhone using a mount like this one from Belkin (you can move the camera around once connected) and if you’re on a Mac it’ll instantly recognise the new camera device, and along with crisp recording quality, you can tweak Portrait Mode to add or remove background blur (creating a high-aperture effect), Studio Lighting to digital add subtle digital lighting effects, and Center Stage (to auto-crop and move with you) and even a top-down desk view to show your hands on the keyboard and mouse.
Of course, if you’re looking to invest a good amount of time and money into your camera setup, you might want to go beyond the iPhone and look into DSLRs, mirror-less and the others mentioned earlier in this article.
If you’d like to use a camera separate to your smartphone, we recommend the Insta360 Link, which will give you most of the features that the Continuity Camera gives you, along with the same ease of use for around €150.
2. Audio
Audio nearly always gets overlooked. In some ways it’s understandable, because the importance of visuals is just more obvious. However, poor audio can cheapen your entire video, and no matter how good the visuals are, bad sound will hold it back (or even make it unwatchable, in some cases).
Now, much like cameras, there is an almost-endless amount of options available on the market, but we’ll help you cut through the noise.
The larger your setup becomes, or the more technical knowledge you need to handle the setup, the more chance there is that things go wrong, and the less likely it is that you’ll know how to fix it.
With that in mind, we recommend DJI Mic Mini microphones. They’re compact, more discreet than the alternatives mentioned below, and take seconds to set up. Also, as they’re clip-on, all you need to do is turn them on, attach them, and start speaking.
If you’re looking for an integrated solution (where your audio is recorded directly into your computer, at the same time as you film), we recommend either a Blue Snowball microphone (cheap, but with average quality) or a Shure SM7dB (which is, admittedly, much more expensive, but excellent quality).
3. Code Snippets
Any good coding tutorial needs one thing… code. The good thing is, there are lots of ways to generate code snippets and work them into your video content, and we’re going to share three of them, along with pros and cons for each.
Firstly, the simplest way to create code snippets is via a snippet creator like Carbon. You can define the language for correct syntax highlighting, tweak settings like padding and drop shadows, and you’re done.
Secondly, the chances are you’re writing code in an IDE like Visual Studio Code (Cursor is just a VSCode fork, remember) and rather than leaving your IDE to create snippets, you can create them with a third-party extension like CodeSnap. Select the code you want to convert into a snippet, configure the settings, and export as a screenshot.
If you’re looking to add animations, we recommend checking out Snappify, as their visual editor lets you step-through your code, include ornaments like arrows to highlight specific sections, and then export it ready to drop into your video editor.
4. Editing
In some ways, your video editor is the most important part of your setup. It’s where you bring it all together and really make your content. It might seem intimidating if you haven’t done it before, but the good news is they’re all largely the same. Sure, shortcuts might be different, or the UI might be laid out differently, but the similarities between different editors far outweigh the differences.
If you’re a Mac user, then Apple has been kind enough to roll iMovie right into your operating system, and we advise you to start with that if you’ve never edited before.
If you’ve got limited experience, go for CapCut as the features behind its subscriptions paywall aren’t essential for most projects you’ll produce.
If you want to take one more step up, check out DaVinci Resolve, particularly if you start to experiment with colour-correction, which is something DaVinci is particularly good for.
5. Bonus Tools
Okay, so your setup is ready to go. You have a camera, mic, a way to generate code snippets and software to edit it all together.
As is natural (especially for developers, who always look to stress-test their environment and push technical boundaries), it won’t be long before a few things pop up that will have you asking, “How do I do that?”
We’ve collected together some of the tools you’re likely to need, so you can take your content to the next level as your confidence grows:
Circle Camera - Want to crop your footage into a circle, and use it in the corner of the screen? This open source software makes it super simple, and it’s FREE.
FFmpeg - Edit your footage on the command-line. Great for quick compression, conversion, trimming and more.
HandBrake - Need to compress or convert files? Use this open-source software which puts a UI on top of an FFmpeg fork.
VLC - Occasionally you’ll come across strange or familiar formats that don’t seem to play in Quicktime or other video players. The chances are, VLC will play it without issue, so be sure to have this installed.
Audacity - This classic free audio editing tool might have an ugly and dated UI, but it just works. It’s got a whole load of useful effects rolled in, and is great for making quick edits without slowing down.
Adobe Podcast Enhance- Finally, if your audio needs a clean-up then Adobe have introduced instant AI-powered voice cleanup that makes cheap mics sound more expensive.
We hope you found this article useful and we would love to see the content you make. Be sure to follow us on socials and share it with us for a re-post.