D3300 to produce short business videos indoors

I want to produce short (1-2 mins) videos for my business (for example, explaining an idea) inside eg in my living room, home office.
I want to make them professional but there is no need to get too elaborate

What setting? P? or use the EFFECTS eg portrait?
What lighting? I have 2 softboxes and 2 LED panels.
Where to position the lighting?
What background? eg white, dark, does it matter?
How close to the background? How close to the camera?

I've played around with it for over a week - every day!
I've looked at a lot of videos. But my attempts so far are very ordinary.

Your advice is welcome?

I normally shoot in aperture priority. There is no provision for RAW or JPEG in movies the body saves in MOV format, so keeping the camera in RAW mode is best.

. Use the highest resolution and frame rate while shooting movies (1080 by 50/60 frames). You can later reformat to lower frame rates or smaller resolution, but you cannot do the reverse.
For movies it is best to have diffused light across the whole scene. Just make sure that there are no harsh shadows.
. Background depends on what you are shooting. White background is fine as long as it does not reflect light and confuse the metering.
. For professional touch, mount the camera on a tripod. That will take care of minor jerks that plague most hand held amateur shots.

Once you have shot the movie, use Nikon Movie Editor that comes bundled with View NX-II. You can
. edit the images frame by frame.
. add text to the
. add header and trailer
. combine multiple shots with transition effects
. last but not the least you can output to various formats, resolution and frame rates

You'll probably want to stick to 1080/30. Don't do 50 or 60 unless you want to turn it into slow motion. Shoot in manual. The general starting point is to keep your shutter speed double your frame rate so at 1080p/30, use 1/60 shutter. Focus on the eyes using an aperture like f5.6 or higher to give you some wiggle room to stay in focus if they move a bit. Once focused, switch lens to manual so it doesn't keep trying to refocus. White balance will depend on the color temp of your lights. With 2 LED lights, use one about 45 degrees from straight on their face and use the second to fill in anywhere it's too dark. Depending what the video is about, you can fit that into the background or if it's a business that has a nice big sign, use that. Don't use the cameras internal speakers! Crappy sound is a good way to make someone quit on a video. Get a Rode mic or a Zoom h1 with a lav mic to record sound separately. Depending on what software you edit with, there are tutorials to help you sync sound up with video (a lot easier than you think). Hope this helps!

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Hi Aroy. Thank you. Your time is appreciated.
I've given both P and A but don't see any difference between them but happy to stick to A - aperture priority I think.
My D3300 seems to use 1080 by 50 frames/sec as a default so all good there.
I'm finding just using the 2 softboxes does the trick. There is a faint shadow on the white wall behind me but it is very faint.
I'm using a tripod and because I'm 6 foot 6 inches I had to buy a very tall one.
I have focussed manually which seems good.
I was thinking I'd use imovie on my mac (I use PC and mac) but happy to give Nikon movie editor a try.
Thank you.

Hello Osantacruz . thank you. The default is 1080 at 50 frames/sec. But happy to reduce it if it makes things easier.
What is the advantage of using manual setting?
I do set the focus manually though - by putting a broom where I'm going to stand and focussing on it then standing in its place.
I have bought a Rode microphone which seems to be pretty good.
One thing i have noticed which i'm not happy about is the light seems to keep changing. Is that because the D3300 is chnaging the apaerture and/or shutter autiomaticall as i move my hands or turn a bit towards the light?
Thank you.

Yeah. By being in manual mode, just like the focus, it'll stay set and not try to "keep up" with any changes like moving your hand. If you can manage a 3rd light, that'd get rid of some of the background shadows too.

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MarkMcPherson said:

Hello Osantacruz . thank you. The default is 1080 at 50 frames/sec. But happy to reduce it if it makes things easier.
What is the advantage of using manual setting?
I do set the focus manually though - by putting a broom where I'm going to stand and focussing on it then standing in its place.
I have bought a Rode microphone which seems to be pretty good.
One thing i have noticed which i'm not happy about is the light seems to keep changing. Is that because the D3300 is chnaging the apaerture and/or shutter autiomaticall as i move my hands or turn a bit towards the light?
Thank you.

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. 50 is where you use PAL and 60 for NTSC. I guess that in Europe and India it is PAL, so 50. You can always change to 60. I prefer to use highest frame rate, as it can be used for slow motion if required. Any way you can reduce the frame rate to 30 or 24 in PP.
. Varying light is due to camera adjusting exposure in realtime. For constant exposure use manual exposure - M on the top dial. Just set the camera to A, ISO to say 400 and aperture to what you want. That will show the exposure speed. If it is too low (< 1/100) then adjust the aperture or ISO to get at least 1/100 sec.
. Make sure that the ISO is also fixed, else the camera will change it, if there is insufficient light.
. If you want everything in focus use higher apertures - F5.6 to F8, but that needs good light. If you want that shallow DOF then use F1.8. I normally use F1.8 with my 35mm F1.8DX. That gives me plenty of shutter speed indoors at ISO 400.