My 9 must-have gadgets for creating quality YouTube videos

This is the cheapest iPad in production, and it serves as a camera, monitor, and control surface, all for $329. 

Let's break that down. This iPad (and now, most current-generation iPads) have a camera on the same side as the screen. This is enormously helpful, because you can film yourself while watching to make sure you're in frame (that's called "monitor" in the film biz). I'll show later how I also use it as a teleprompter. I find the front-facing camera and screen combination ideal for A-Roll, also known as the video of the person who is talking. The iPad is a little ungainly for shooting B-Roll, or supporting imagery of product shots and detailed shots, but some folks like it because the screen makes for one heck of a big viewfinder, making it possible to see what's being shot in great detail.

I like that $300 price because I'm working on concrete floors, and if it falls while doing some production move, it's a lot less expensive than dropping a fully-equipped iPad Pro. There's a 10th Generation, but it costs $120 more and doesn't add much for the work I'm doing. Once I could capture video using the iPad itself, that gave me a front-facing monitor and a camera, all in one unit. This one capability, especially at the less-painful-if-dropped price of $329, opened lots of possibilities.

You could use an iPad Pro or the 10th Generation iPad for this as well if you wanted a more general-purpose device with better performance. But because those more expensive units contain exactly the same camera as this generation, and I use it solely for video, it works best for my own video-making applications. 

Now that you have your camera and monitor, you need to be able to rig it so you can see what you're filming. That usually means mounting it to a tripod. My rig of choice is a Ulanzi metal cage, decked out with a bunch of accessories. Unfortunately, this cage is no longer made. The good news is that the overall video creation solution I'm showing you in this article is vastly simpler than the version I began with a few years ago, which needed to support a bunch of attachments. 

When my wife wanted to set up a similar filming rig, we bought the iOgrapher iPad Case. It doesn't have as many attachment points as the one I use, but as I show in this article, they're not needed anymore. It's plastic, which makes it lighter. And it has the ability to add a lens to the back, for those who want to use the iPad's display as a viewfinder and the main iPad cameras for filming.

One caution: You're going to find a ton of cages for iPhones. Make sure you get one that works for your iPad if you're cloning my video creation approach.

I use the iPad for A-Roll, but for B-Roll, I wanted something that can provide a lot more options, including interchangeable lenses and really nice depth-of-field.

I bought the Sony Alpha ZV-E10 camera because it's very much like Sony's higher-end cameras, but way less expensive at under $700 for the camera and a kit lens. The ZV-E10 includes Sony's very fast autofocus system, which was a big selling point to me. In fact, the real-time autofocus in the ZV-E10 is the same technology as in Sony's A7 and A9 camera lines.

Although it's not a feature I use, the ZV-E10 has a unique "product mode." If you're filming yourself talking and you hold up a product to showcase, the camera will smartly track that product and focus on it until you put it back down, at which time it will refocus on your face. As I said, I don't use it for A-Roll, but many YouTubers swear by it.

This year I finally decided to spend some serious budget dollars for a high-quality Bluetooth mic system. I chose the DJI Mic 2. I've bought a number of items from DJI including the DJI Pocket 2 gimbal-stabilized camera and my Mavic drone. The DJI Mic 2 comes with two mics, so I can use it when talking to another person. It also has a Bluetooth interface, so I can connect it directly to the iPad without any additional gear. But it is pricey, coming in at $349, $20 more than I spent on the iPad itself.

That said, it's a really excellent solution for my audio challenges. It's reliable, simple, and produces great quality sound. Viewers care about audio quality even more than video quality. But you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a top of line audio system. Keep in mind I've been refining my solution for nearly a decade now, and I've produced nearly 200 videos. You can start cheap. This iPhone-compatible wireless Mic with a Lightning connector, for example, is just six bucks. It's not perfect, but it will do.

Beyond the image itself, there are two key factors that make a video watchable or annoying: sound and lighting. We've covered sound, so now let's look at lighting. 

First and foremost, these panels put out a lot of light. Some light panels just don't pack much of a punch, but these do. You can dial the amount of light way down, but when you need to fire those photons, this unit can make it happen.

My second favorite feature is that the panels are app controlled. In fact, all of the Amaran lights work using the same app and they can all be controlled together. So I can set both lights to one color or temperature, or I can create a variety of video effects using them. 

The light comes as a kit, with power and mounting brackets. You can also add batteries if you want to run them without tripping over cords.

There are quite a few teleprompter apps for the iPad. I went through a number of them, like Autokue, Prompt+, and PromptSmart Pro before I settled on Video Teleprompter. There is a free version that puts its branding watermarks in your videos, but the Pro version is where it's at. The Pro version adds a bunch of features I needed, including removing the watermarks and allowing control by a remote (more on that next). 

I bought this specific app because it doesn't just put a teleprompter on your iPad, it's also a camera app. That means I can record the video as it is prompting me, so I can use one iPad as both a camera and prompter. Video Teleprompter also supports control by a remote device to control the scrolling, a feature I quickly found desperately necessary.

I used to think using a teleprompter was no big thing. Then I tried it for myself and found that it's a LOT harder than it looks. Pro broadcasters often have a prompter operator who scrolls the prompter at just the same pace as the person talking. But, when I first started, I just set the prompter software running and tried to adjust its pace to be close to my speaking cadence... and then just tried to keep up. That was rough.

Eventually, I asked the Video Teleprompter folks what they recommended, and their choice was this Ikan remote control, which sends Bluetooth keyboard signals to the app. I hesitated for quite a while because, at $89, it's pretty expensive for what looks like a simple remote. But it was worth it. I hold it in my hand, usually behind the demonstration table. I can pause until I catch up with the prompter's cadence, back it up, and generally keep the prompter and my speaking in sync. This teleprompter remote has helped me avoid performing endless retakes and saved me time throughout the creative process. 

This device is a robot for your tripod. You can program it to execute moves, or you can remote control those moves with an app on your phone. It's ideal for wide panning shots for B-roll, but I use it as a member of my film crew.

At almost $1,500, this is an expensive device. But I've found that investing in video robotics has been a force multiplier for me. By using the DollyPLUS robot, I can move my camera around remotely. I can also set a shooting position, and then move it back, giving me room to use the cart gap as a passing lane. This is only one member of the army of video robots I use to produce my videos. I've found they help me produce interesting effects, do automatic moves that I find difficult to do manually, save me time, and give me flexibility. Besides, they're incredibly cool.

Do I suggest that you need to rush out and get a robotic tripod dolly to simplify your video creation kit? Absolutely not. Like I said, you can get started with your phone, a tripod, and a cheap lav mic. 

Once you've captured all your raw video, you need to cut it together. While there are many video editing applications, I use Final Cut Pro from Apple. This is an Apple-only product, but since I do all my video work on Macs, it works for me.

I switched to it about seven years ago when, on a deadline, the video editing program I had then using crashed on me so much, I didn't think I'd meet the deadline. I bought Final Cut, and it didn't crash at all. I also liked that Final Cut is available for a one time fee of $300, so once I bought it, I didn't have to pay rent on it every month. That adds up the longer you use Final Cut, especially compared to other programs, which can cost $20-80/month.

More to the point, I like it. It has a feature called the Magnetic Timeline, which allows you to move entire blocks of video around as coherent units. Moving a scene (including A-Roll, B-Roll, and all the effects) can be accomplished with a single drag-and-drop. That becomes enormously time effective once you get used to it. Final Cut has a robust aftermarket of add-ons, integrates with Apple Motion to create custom effects, and has a very active community. Additionally, there's a lot of training available.