James Charles is one of the biggest beauty influencers online. From his breakout viral video in 2016, he’s grown a combined following of over 100 million across YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram. Like many creators, Charles uses a home-based studio with standing sets to shoot content and livestream. Because lighting quality is essential for rendering skin tones, he’s had a good lighting setup with professional cinema lights for years.

But to stay current, creators have to constantly work to improve their production, while keeping up with weekly video content and streams. Charles is no different and set out to complete a studio lighting upgrade.

In addition to upgrading to the best new LED light quality, a major concern of the existing setup was time and ease of use. Time is everything to a creator with a packed schedule. The existing lights were from different manufacturers and had subtly different looks, and adjustments had to be made at each light by hand. Some accent lighting, like the tubes that backlit the “Painted” set’s logo, were so hard to get to that he’d given up on switching them on at all.

Because much of his content had to be filmed on a smartphone to get the best performance from the algorithm, adjustments were a constant problem. Charles explains, “Sometimes when you’re filming videos on the phone, it has trouble processing too much light. So the ability to adjust the light so it doesn’t look crazy and the [phone] camera can’t process the skin details is super important.”

The tutorial set was used to film close-up makeup tutorials, so Charles and his team chose the Aputure STORM 1200x as the new key light. The STORM 1200x’s BLAIR light engine blends multiple colors to emit extremely high-fidelity white light, perfect for accurate skin tones. For the “Painted” set, a wide, soft light wash was essential, so the Nova P600c was used as a key with a softbox. Smaller STORM 80cs were used as accents and hair lighting.

To make the lights easier to control, Charles set up a Sidus One wireless transceiver with an iPad running Sidus Link Pro. The lighting control software let him sit in front of the camera and exactly dial in the look he wanted from each light. Charles quickly learned the interface and began saving and recalling presets.

Sidus Link Pro also brought opportunities to add spice to Charles’ production. The Painted logo was upgraded with INFINIBAR backlights that could be set to match the packaging color for new product launches. Charles quickly realized he could even use the individual pixel control in the INFINIBARs, and lit the logo with a multicolor pink gradient. “That is so cool!” Charles said.

Last, Charles created a flashing red “sale alert” effect that he could trigger on command. When turned off, the lights all instantly snapped back to white, something impossible with Bluetooth lighting control apps.

With the lighting and control upgrade done, work continued on the next videos and streams. The lighting upgrade meant tutorials continued to look their best, with rich skin tones and wraparound soft white light.

The wireless control switch to Sidus Link Pro meant time spent adjusting lights dropped dramatically, and with much less cabling in the studio. “For me, Aputure was the easiest choice ever,” Charles says.

In a video after the upgrade, he sums up the job to the aspiring creators in his audience: “Quite honestly, sometimes it takes a lot more than a ring light. I could have the best makeup look in the entire world, and if I don’t have the right lighting to show it off, it’s game over.”