5 Tips for Shooting Handheld Videos

[Music] what's up guys Landon here from the full-time filemaker team and today i'm going to be giving you my top 5 tips for shooting handheld videos now obviously there's been a lot of buzz around the daniel shipper style of filmmaking and he already does a great job breaking down his process and showing behind the scenes so this video is really just to add onto what he's taught with more tips and tricks that I've learned while creating this style of video plus I want to cater to people who just want to film higher quality handheld stuff not necessarily b-roll sequences like Daniel but just good techniques and tips for general handheld shooting now there are definitely quite a few advantages of shooting handheld over just shooting with a gimbal or a tripod the main advantage being that you can control the exact movements that you want your camera to make whereas with a gimbal or a tripod you're at the mercy of what those tools are capable of so overall it's a great way to get natural less robotic movements out of your camera also I want to point out that I did not use in body image stabilisation optical image stabilization or digital image stabilization that technology is a tool that works well in many situations like if you're just standing still while holding your camera and you want it as smooth as possible but it wouldn't have worked very well in this case and that's because the stabilization technology would essentially be fighting my handheld camera movements over correcting it and just making it worse but don't worry because these tips I'm about to show you will make you forget the image stabilization ever existed all right seven number one is to use a wide-angle lens now we do this because it widens our field of view and it hides a lot of the micro jitters that you'd have if you used a tighter focal length for example compare this clip shot handheld on an 85 millimeter to this clip shot on a 24 millimeter you can tell there's a lot more shake happening on the 85 millimeter and in most cases you want to keep that shake to a minimum now obviously there are times when you might want that heavy camera shake like if you're filming a fight scene or you just really want to emphasize that handheld movements Hollywood movies do it all the time especially action films because it actually adds to the story and it helps you as the viewer feel like you're a part of the action you can also technically shoot at that same wide angle like the 24 millimeter then digitally zoom in this is super helpful if you're filming an object that's hard to track like something flying through the air but as long as you capture your subject somewhere in the frame you can scale and reposition it in post so with that being said yes we recommend using a wide-angle lens but depending on what you're shooting the tighter focal length might help you achieve the look that you're going for so just shoot accordingly now my go-to lens for handheld videos like the sequence you saw earlier is the Sigma 24 millimeter F one point 4 I like this lens specifically because it allows me to capture a pretty wide area but I'm also able to get up close and show a fair amount of detail most people who shoot handheld b-roll sequences use a similar focal length for example Daniel Schiffer uses a 25 millimeter Zeiss Bautista lens for nearly everything Peter Lindgren uses a Tamron 28 to 70 but keeps it around that 28 millimeter focal length for handheld stuff Jesse driftwood primarily uses the Canon RF 24 to 105 and again it generally stays near 24 or 30 millimetres so by knowing what other creators are using hopefully that will steer you in the right direction for your lens choice but moving on now to tip number 2 hand placement now obviously not every camera is shaped the same for example I hold a red much differently than I hold a mirrorless camera as a general rule of thumb though you'll want to place your right hand on the grip of the camera with your left forearm or wrist supporting the bottom and then your left hand holding the lens now the point of doing this is so you have three points of contact with your camera therefore improving overall stabilization you can always add another point of contact one that Parker will do sometimes when holding the red is he'll pin it up against his body or one that I like to use for certain shots is a camera strap so I'll just attach it to my camera and then pull it tight in front of me and it steadies my hands just a little bit more and there are a few tools that you can use to make holding the camera a bit easier for example I have a cage on my 1dx mark 2 with a couple of wooden handles on the side as well as a handle on the top the handles I chose for this setup are super economic so my hands fit perfect on each one I mostly use this rig when I'm shooting videos that are a bit more professional and would look good handheld the USR as you've seen is my camera of choice specifically for handheld b-roll sequences like the one you saw earlier but whether you have a camera cage or not you'll still need to hold the camera tight to your body which actually brings me to tip number three move your body not your hands there are certain times when I only using my hands to create movement like this shot that has a more intricate camera movement and I'll get to that later but generally you'll keep the camera close to your body and allow your legs and torso to create that movement for you now the best way to do this is by planting your feet and then only moving the top half of your body now obviously this works great if you're standing in one place but what about when you need to follow a subject again you'll want to hold the camera tight to your body and employ what we call the ninja walk honestly there's no definite way of doing this some people like to walk on the balls of their feet but I personally like to just softly step down on my heels now this is the way I walk with a glidecam or gimble so naturally that's how I do it but try both and figure out which one gives you the best results so now that you have the technical aspect of handheld shooting down we can get more creative and move on to tip number four motivated shots now like I said the biggest advantage of shooting handheld is being able to move the camera more rapidly and precisely this gives you a huge advantage in your storytelling ability because you're no longer limited to basic pans and tilts you can get extra creative and help your viewers be completely engulfed in the action that's taking place I'm calling this tip motivated shots because in a general sense when you're shooting you want your camera movement to be motivated by whatever your subject is doing for the opening sequence when our subject was grabbing a knife and slicing the banana the camera was following that exact movement in order to make you feel like you were a part of the action then when he's peeling the banana the camera is pushing in to emphasize that same movement and so on the way I see it there are two situations that you'll run into while trying out this tip number one you've directed your subject and you know exactly what they'll be doing and then number two you don't know the exact movements that your subject is going to be making so if you have directed your subject and you know what they're going to be doing you not only need to let them practice their movements but allow yourself to fine-tune what you're going to be doing with the camera I like to set starting and ending points for both myself and the talent for example this shot with acai bags sliding into the frame looks simple but the only reason it worked is because we had set a starting point the bag hiding behind the blender and my camera on the edge of the table with a specific framing and an ending point the bag just a few inches away from the blender and my camera at a spot that I marked on the table if you have your starting and ending points in place whatever movement that happens in between will just come naturally and give you the best results the second situation would be if you don't know what you're Drake is going to do in the shop this just means you'll need to anticipate the movement that they'll be making and match your camera movement accordingly now occasionally I get asked if I'm always looking at my screen while filming these types of videos and for shops that are a bit more improvised I'm typically fixated on my subject and then I'll glance at my screen a few times throughout the shot to make sure that my framing still looks good I find that this helps me personally anticipate what my subject is going to do I think it's a bit easier and more natural to follow someone's movement when you're looking directly at them rather than watching them through a screen but moving on now to tip number five keep the camera moving now if you're shooting handheld especially b-roll sequences like this one there's almost no better way to hide that micro jitter than by keeping your camera moving this is one of the tricks that I use when I can't hold the camera close to my chest and I need to hold my arms out if you just help the camera straight in front of you and depending on your arms to do all the stabilization you'd see a bit more jittering but if you combine that with some creative movement you wouldn't really notice now I did this was another little video that I made for Instagram there's nearly impossible for me to get some of these shots with the camera close to my chest so I'd hold it out with my arms extended and then add that element of movement to smooth out any potential jitters if you have the option it's also helpful to rest your hand or knuckle against a surface to minimize that jitter again the shot with a knife being drawn is a perfect example the first part of that shot would have been a bit more difficult if I wasn't able to slide my knuckle on the counter while pushing in the shot of the timeline in this video would have taken a lot more takes if I wasn't able to use my fingernail to smoothly glide across the screen also I told myself I wouldn't throw this in there because it's a bit obvious especially for b-roll sequences plus it doesn't always apply to other handheld situations but as a bonus tip I recommend shooting at a higher frame rate ideally 60 frames per second if it's appropriate for the video that you're filming a clip played back at a normal speed will be more prone to those bumps and jitters but just by slowing it down to around half that it'll smooth most of it out and you won't notice the majority of those imperfections also obviously I'm not perfect so a couple of those shots that you saw in the intro sequence did need a touch of warp stabiliser so no shame there if you need to use that occasionally just beware the warp stabiliser won't work super well on clips with a lot of movement happening they worked fine on this one for example because it's a very basic shot which makes it easier for the software to track and then smooth it out without any distortion but that pretty much wraps up this video hopefully you found some good tips to help you level up your next handheld video I'll also be putting together an editing breakdown for this video which is one of over 300 videos inside our full paid course full-time filmmaker where we help filmmakers from all over the world go from knowing nothing about filmmaking to becoming professional full time filmmakers now as always even if you're not a rookie this course will still teach you new techniques help you brush up on old ones and also connect you with a community of over 10,000 filmmakers just like you we also have a completely free one-hour filmmaking training where we give you our top 10 tips to creating cinematic videos so I'll drop a link below for you to check that out but that pretty much wraps it up thanks so much for watching don't forget to subscribe and if you have any further questions please let us know

Channel: Parker Walbeck

Views: 490,019

Rating: 4.9636583 out of 5

Keywords: handheld, daniel schiffer, james matthews, b-roll, filmmaking techniques, food video, landonbtw

Id: LuJdvwm8-0k

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020