10 Tips to Shooting Cinematic SMARTPHONE Videos

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey how's it going jake here with fulltimefilmmaker.com and today we're going to be going over my top 10 steps for shooting cinematic videos with a smartphone and if you like the tips we share here we've built a full mini course called smartphone video pro that goes way more in depth on teaching my shooting and editing workflow for creating cinematic smartphone videos so stick around till the end to learn more about that now many of you have probably seen some of the smartphone videos we've put out like the iphone versus red the iphone versus lg v30 parker's huawei p30 pro review our smartphone shootouts and so much more and our point in doing all these videos isn't to claim that phones are just as good as actual cinema cameras but to show you that if you know how to use a smartphone camera to its fullest potential you can create some stunning images that compete with these higher-end cameras and in this video i'm going to be sharing with you my workflow of how i've been able to make my smartphone footage look similar to that of a cinema camera in fact the footage you're seeing right now was shot on my iphone 12 pro not bad at all now i'm not saying that smartphones can replace cinema cameras or that you should necessarily plan on shooting professionally for a client using a phone but parker once mixed in some iphone 10 shots into one of his real estate videos that was shot on his 1dx mark ii and his client couldn't even tell which shots were done on the phone and which shots were done on the 1dx mark ii so can you shoot professionally with a phone i wouldn't encourage it but if your results rival that of nicer cameras and your clients can't even tell the difference then i think there are some scenarios where that might be an acceptable option especially for lower budget shoots for beginners but anyway let's go ahead and dive into my 10 steps to shooting cinematic smartphone videos step number one is buying the best smartphone gear one of the most common questions i get asked is what phone and what phone stabilizer will give me the best footage now i've already done a smartphone shootout comparing some of the most popular smartphones on the market and from my test i'd say that most of the top smartphones out there are going to deliver great results so you really can't go wrong with any of them but my top two choices personally would be apple and samsung they seem to be ahead of the rest and producing the highest quality video images and having the best settings the oneplus is probably my next favorite especially with our brand new hasselbad lens but again you really can't go wrong with these flagship phones like when you're choosing from canon or sony or nikon they're all just different with their own pros and cons as for accessories the main accessory i recommend getting like the number one is a good stabilizer having a good stabilizer will immediately take your videos from looking like a home video looking like a pro video i have shot full videos handheld on a smartphone before and yes you can get great images without a stabilizer but i recommend getting a stabilizer to really enhance your quality but not all stabilizers are created equally after using a wide variety of stabilizers the new dj osmo mobile 4 is my personal favorite one by far and it only costs 150 the stabilizer is super easy for run and gun shooting you just attach a clip onto your phone and it magnetically snaps into place on the osmo you can turn it on and start shooting without having to balance it or set it down you can easily switch to vertical modes take it apart all within seconds and it comes with dji's app that offers tons of awesome features and effects that you can use while recording and we'll put links below for all of our smartphone kit so if you want you can pick up the osmo the only other accessory that i think is necessary is a good manual camera app there are several that i've used and like and my favorite for the iphone right now is the moment camera app and for android my favorite is filmic pro vs grip also released their own camera app which is pretty good and dji's memo app with the osmo is an awesome option as well if you have the samsung s21 ultra you can use their pro video setting which is basically a built-in filmic pro in their native camera app so you wouldn't even need another app but no matter which one you use it is vital to use an app that allows you to control your settings manually to achieve the best possible results now we filmed a lot of videos using just the native camera app and yes the footage still turns out great you can get some great results but having full control really helps elevate your smartphone footage so really just up to you if you really want to take your photo to that next level by adding one more step to your workflow or if you're okay with all the film settings being on auto just up to you so with those three things a smartphone a stabilizer and a manual camera app you'll be able to get started filming cinematic images but depending on what type of content you're shooting you might want to look into some other accessories like the following nd filters for getting a cinematic motion blur we picked up puller pro's iris kit and love it but note that most of our smartphone videos have been shot without nd filters third-party lenses we own a variety of lenses for iphone from moment and b-script we'll talk more about these later but you can do some cool things with these lenses you also might want a tripod i picked up a cheap 20 tripod selfie stick on amazon that i use when i need a static or selfie shot for microphones the audio you're hearing right now is being captured using a 30 ftf gear love mic that is plugged into my phone or you can pick up something a little bit nicer like this rode mel mic that plugs directly into your phone but we'll talk about audio later in another tip and lastly you might want to buy a portable battery charger because most smartphones aren't going to be able to shoot all day on one charge and some phones in certain weather won't be able to shoot for more than an hour or so at a time without overheating and making the screen super dim and hard to see when you're shooting in direct sunlight so when you're not using it try and keep it out of direct sunlight turned off and plugged into a battery supply to juice back up but as i often point out the gear isn't what makes this video cinematic it's the skills behind the gear so let's now talk about how to actually use whatever you have to its fullest potential and turn it into cinematic goodness tip number two is camera settings using either the moment app or filmic pro app the first setting i recommend setting is your resolution to 4k with the bit rate turned up as high as it can go obviously the higher the resolution the better quality your video will be and with smartphone footage size does matter next setting is your frame rate by default your phone will probably shoot at 30 frames per second however hollywood movies are shot at 24 frames per second so i recommend changing this to 24 frames per second when shooting in real time or 60 frames per second if you want slow motion and then slowing that down to 24 frames per second in post to keep that cinematic 24 frame per second look and there are times where you don't want slow motion for example parker shot this entire video on the lg v30 all at 24 frames per second because he wanted that scene to be in real time not slow motion as for white balance i usually just let my auto white balance find the initial white balance of my scene then make sure to lock that white balance in so it doesn't change throughout my shot if after auto white balancing my white balance looks too warm or too cool i'll manually adjust it before locking it in again a perk only applicable to third-party apps not the native camera app now as far as shutter speed and iso we'll talk about these more in the next step but just be aware that one of the limitations of shooting on a smartphone is you can't control your aperture so your phone will usually be shooting at a higher shutter speed which will make the footage look a little bit jittery due to a lack of motion blur but to fix this motion blur problem you'll need to use an nd filter that allows you to keep your shutter speed at twice your frame rate so 148 if you're shooting at 24 frames and 1 20th if you're shooting at 60 frames to give a more natural motion blur so for best results use nd filters but for speed of shooting in drastically changing lighting environments or just to save money as i've shown in all my smartphone videos you can get away with not using them but it will have a less cinematic looking motion blur but again you're shooting on a smartphone so only you can decide if slightly better motion blur will drastically improve your video as for iso i leave this as low as possible to decrease noise in your image the higher the iso the more noise that will appear so those are the basic settings i use when filming on my phone there are also a few fun settings like shooting in a flat picture profile or a log picture profile and just depends on what's most important to you most phones shoot 8-bit codecs which means they don't have enough color information to bring all that color back in post so when you're shooting a log you're losing color information for slightly better dynamic range but if you like a more washed out or muted or flat look then go for it but if you like having vibrant colors or more color to work within post then i recommend using the natural picture profile and we'll show you how to color grade for certain looks even without shooting in log inside of our online course but let's move on to step number three and that is nailing correct exposure this is probably the biggest problem i see with most amateur looking smartphone footage when the exposure of the video is constantly changing and is usually a little bit overexposed your camera's auto exposure will do its best to guess the exposure you want but it's usually just a little bit off so the best way i've found to quickly nail exposure is once you have your shot framed up look for any overexposed parts of your image and drag the exposure tool which is this little circle over the blown out highlights and the exposure will adjust and bring those highlights back then tap the circle so that it turns red to lock that exposure in so that it doesn't change throughout your shot and this will help your footage have a clean exposure now probably the trickiest scenario to shoot the smartphone is when your subject is being backlit by the sun the optimal option in this scenario would be to bring in some fill light or reflector to brighten up your subject and match the brightness of your background but since most of you won't have lights or a reflector holder when you're shooting with a phone your next best option is to expose for somewhere in between your subject and the sky the iphone actually does a pretty decent job in these scenarios with their hdr technology and if you click on the sky in the background it will do its best to expose for both your subject and the background but point is take the time before each shot to lock in a clean exposure that doesn't have blown out highlights moving on to step number four is focus for the most part i would recommend just relying on your smartphone's autofocus some smartphones are going to have better autofocus than others but most of the smartphones out there are doing a pretty great job at this they'll keep your subject in focus without too much focused hunting but if you're ever filming a scene where you aren't going to be changing the distance from your subject very much you can also lock in your focus before every shot by using this square tool to hover over whatever you want in focus and then pushing it until it's red which means the focus is locked and won't change also filmic pro gives you a focus wheel to pull focus manually as the samsung s21 ultra but it's not a very smooth rack so i wouldn't recommend using it during a shoot now keep in mind when you're locking in all your settings like this you need to make sure to unlock and reset each time you shoot a new shot or change lighting scenarios whilst your second shot will have the settings of your first shot and if your subject's a different distance or the lighting is different it won't look as good step number five is lighting one of the main reasons we've been able to make smartphone footage look similar to cinema camera footage is because we shoot in ideal lighting conditions gray cinematography is so much more about lighting than is about what camera you're shooting with so if you can learn how to find or create good lighting scenarios you can make just about any camera look awesome in the huawei video parker did most of the shots that made it into the final video were shot during golden hour which is the first and last hour of the day as the sun is rising or setting his best results usually came from when he had cloud coverage which gave a nice even soft light other shots still worked but the prettiest shots were those the best lighting same thing with this hawaii iphone footage most of the footage was shot during golden hour or during soft light cloud coverage and the san francisco footage we planned to visit the main attractions during golden hour and the other locations during the day because we wanted to prioritize the best light for the best locations people don't realize that we usually put many hours into pre-planning our shots researching pretty locations and best times of day for each and then building our full day schedules accordingly so finding and creating great lighting scenarios in pretty locations does take time and effort but it's one of the biggest keys and biggest payoffs to making any camera look great so basic takeaways shoot around golden hour or in shader cloud coverage for soft even lighting moving on to step number six is how to get smooth cinematic movements probably the next biggest thing that will set your smartphone footage above the rest is knowing how to incorporate smooth movements and we even see amateurs on gimbals with crappy footage because one they're either using a crappy gimbal two the in-camera stabilization is conflicting with the gimbal stabilization or three they just don't know how to operate the gimbal for smooth clean shots if your smartphone footage isn't looking as smooth as ours it's probably because of one of those or all of those three reasons now we already discussed the first issue i recommend the dji osmo mobile 4 as the best gimbal on the market you get what you pay for and if you buy a crappy gimbal don't be surprised when you get crappy results moving on to the second issue i see people having were the in-camera stabilization fights with your gimbal stabilization giving you all these warpy micro jitters i found that with the newer smartphones combined with quality gimbals this isn't as big of an issue but with older phones like the google pixel 5 they'll have a lot more issues with this but i haven't had this issue very much with my iphone 12. the times that comes up as an issue is if you're running full speed and not having any shock in your knees to absorb your up and down movements so as long as you keep your walking motion smooth this really comes up as an issue and as for the last problem i see with people's shots not being very smooth i hate to break it to you all i hate to say it but having a gimbal doesn't mean your shots will automatically look cinematic you have to actually practice using it and learn how to move and walk smoothly so that you don't get any jerks or bumps in the footage so take some time and practice and even with a lot of practice sometimes i'll try out a shot turns out it's bumper than i wanted or i panned or tilted too fast so i'll do that shot several times until you get the movement down just right and also just fyi if you're putting on heavy accessories like third-party lenses or camera cages this does affect the weight of your camera and how well your gimbal can keep your phone smooth too much weight can result in the motor of the gimbal working too hard and not working as effectively tip number seven is focal lengths and lens options most smartphones today have two or three lens options usually the standard lens is around 26 millimeter then there's an ultra wide around a 13 millimeter and a telephoto lens around a 65 millimeter but some phones might have more cameras and some phones might have less obviously the more lens options your phone has the more versatility you'll have in telling a cinematic story just from your phone however be aware that usually the main camera on your phone is going to be the nicest quality and the telephoto and ultrawide lenses are going to be a little bit lower quality because these companies are prioritizing the main lens that mostly everyone will use most of the time but for those who don't have all the focal length options you want on your smartphone like i've mentioned you can buy third-party lenses like moment lenses or b-script lenses to give yourself one more options and two a more cinematic image they are a bit expensive but we own a couple and love them all and think they are well worth the price because they're going to give you higher quality images than the built-in ultra wide and telephoto lenses because you can use the third-party lenses on your main highest quality standard lens however the hassle of just having one more thing to set up when you're wanting to capture a quick shot and realistically you don't want to keep the lenses on because you won't put your phone in your pocket or use it to do other things and having to make sure your gimbal can handle the weight it just usually isn't worth it to me to use them unless i'm shooting handhelds and have a lot of time to capture and set up my shots of course it's not necessary to have multiple lenses or focal lengths you can definitely just get by with one and still tell a great story but again the more options you have the better you'll be able to tell your story tip number eight is composition my biggest piece of advice when it comes to composing a great image using your phone is to make sure you fill the frame with your subject one of the biggest mistakes i see people making in their smartphone videos is they aren't close enough to their subject for example most people film all their home videos with their phone and this is what most people's home videos look like usually sitting on a couch or setting up like 5 or 10 feet away from your subject whereas my home videos are all up in the action getting as close as i need to in order to fill up the whole frame with my subject and shooting from angles or perspectives that make the audience feel like they're actually there don't be like your mom and just pinch it on your screen and digitally zoom in all that does is reduce the quality of your footage instead of zooming in physically move yourself closer to your subject what this will also do is create depth in your image which is one of the biggest keys to creating cinematic images now i know it's not always possible to move physically closer and for that you'll want to switch to your telephoto lens but when possible move as close as possible to fill the frame with your subject another way to create depth is to use the foreground if my shot is feeling boring and stale and two-dimensional i try and find things in my foreground that i can put in my frame to add layers and depth to the image another composition tip is to use the rule of thirds keep your horizons on the top or bottom third of your shot in your subject on the left or right third to really help the image be as aesthetic as possible and lastly use leading lines we're constantly on the lookout for lines or patterns that are aesthetically pleasing in lines that will draw your viewers attention towards your main subject which brings me to our next tip and that is to shoot to edit this goes for any type of shooting on any camera but especially for beginners starting out on a smartphone the tendency most have is to just start shooting anything and everything in view without giving much thought as to why you're shooting it and how it fits into the overall story that you're going to be telling in the editing room so my advice would be to do a little bit of pre-planning before you start shooting and think in your mind what do i want this video to turn out looking like what emotions do i want to convey through the final video and then based on the vision you have in your head shoot each shot with that vision in mind so that each shot has a purpose for example we knew going to san francisco that we wanted to create a very chill inspiring travel video of me and my boys checking out the city so before we even arrived we made a list of all the prettiest places in san francisco that we wanted to capture on every location we asked each other how that scene would play into the video and made sure to shoot transitional shots that we could use to change scenes we also thought it would be fun to transition between the same shot in different locations using the same framing and the same movement and then in some locations we thought it would be cool to show us arriving to the location or leaving the location to help the story move forward and that is called shooting to edit every shot i take i'm thinking back to previous shots i've taken and thinking how can i shoot this shot and piece together well with other shots that i've already taken and keep in mind that only about five percent of all the footage i shoot on travel type videos ends up in the final edit we're always shooting as many angles and focal lengths and movements as we can think of so we have a lot of options in the editing room to allow us more creative freedom when telling the story so as a rule of thumb always shoot more than you think you'll need but don't just shoot to shoot be purposeful with each shot and how you plan on fitting that into your edit moving on to our last and final step number 10 capturing professional audio as we often say audio is half of the viewing experience yet most amateur filmmakers neglect the audio and just focus on the visuals a great film really comes to life and takes the cinematic value to a whole new level when you have professional audio accompanying your great visuals take for example our san francisco video here's how it sounds before and after putting in all the sound [Music] effects [Music] [Music] as you can see audio makes a huge difference in making the film come to life now with most of the smartphone videos i've shot i've just used audio straight out of the smartphone mixed with sound design in post meaning i add a lot of sounds from my sound library in the editing room and i talk about this sound designing process inside of the new mini course but as much as possible i try and capture as many of the sounds i can in camera in the moment that i filmed them most smartphones have good enough microphones on them to capture some decent sound that can be used for your video and the best way to ensure that you're capturing clean audio is to make sure your microphone is as close as possible when recording a sound or when talking into it but when you can't physically get any closer like right now i'm like five or six feet away from my iphone so the audio will be kind of reverb in the room so i've attached this lav mic to the phone that has an extension cord that goes to the phone so i can get very far away while still having crisp clean audio or like i've mentioned there are a lot of options out there for microphones that plug straight into your phone but if you use one of them you have to make sure you're nice and close to the mic or also have the same problem your standard microphone will have and pick up way too much reverb and background noise if you're too far away so point is try and capture as much real audio as possible when you're shooting your footage and try and get as close as possible to your subject when recording your audio so to answer the question of should i get an external mic for recording audio if you're recording dialogue of people talking then i'd say yes if you're just recording sound effects then i'd say you can just get away with using the built-in microphone in your phone and do some sound designing in post a lot of these third-party apps allow you to choose the direction your microphone is capturing audio from so there are a lot of tools you can use to enhance your audio without having to buy more tools but there you have it from my 10 steps to shooting cinematic smartphone footage and you guys this is just a sample of our new online course smartphone video pro where we help you take your smartphone videos from this to this also included in our smartphone video pro mini course are over 15 more tutorials including an in-depth breakdown showing my full editing workflow in premiere pro where i show you how to edit your footage color grade sound design add titles my best export settings and so much more we also have several virtual job shadows showing you how we operate on a set using a smartphone to film with we also include footage from some of our shoots that you can start practicing your editing skills with cinematic smartphone footage right away so if you'd like to take your smartphone videos to that next level hopefully this video helped but you can also click over here to join smartphone video pro or click the link in the description below and this is just one of over 20 workshops we offer here at full-time filmmaker so if smartphones aren't for you check out our workshops and see what genre best meets your needs but that's it guys for my 10 steps to shooting cinematic videos with your smartphone hopefully you learned something new don't forget to like and subscribe and if you have any further questions please let me know

Channel: Parker Walbeck

Views: 438,546

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Id: 357zr76Kh98

Length: 23min 52sec (1432 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021