6 Mistakes Beginner Filmmakers Make

hey how's it going parker walbeck here with fulltimefilmmaker.com and today i am joined by our newest team member nate taylor and today is going to be helping me break down six of the most common mistakes that we see beginning filmmakers and videographers make now we currently have over 15 000 students in our full-time filmmaker program and i've personally reviewed and given feedback to thousands of their videos over the years and i've seen some common bad habits that have some easy fixes if you know what to look for and if you like this video we have a free one hour filmmaking training that covers these and many other filmmaking tips and you can watch that in the link in the description below but let's now dive into our six beginner mistakes nate take it away all right guys mistake number one that we see often is people shooting and editing in the wrong frame rate this one is a must for us to talk about because too many times we see films come to us that are shot in 30 and 60 frames per second and then edited in those frame rates instead of shooting in or editing in 24 frames per second most hollywood films are shot at 24 frames per second so that is what our eyes are used to seeing when we watch professional films also the motion blur associated with 24 frames and a shutter speed of double that replicates the amount of motion blur that the human eye sees so overall it just looks more natural when you shoot at a frame rate that is higher than 24 frames per second like most beginners usually do 30 frames per second it's going to end up looking like a soap opera news broadcast or a home video because that's the frame rate those are usually shot in now there are times when we use higher frame rates like 30 or 60 but it's usually only when we plan on slowing those down to 24 frames per second in post and we do that to create slow motion for example when shooting wedding videos we want that dreamy look so we'll use 60 frames per second to achieve that 30 frames per second also has a place in our workflow and that's when we fly our drone when we shoot at 30 frames when flying and slow it down to 24 in post to smooth out any of those micro jitters in the shot for anything that we want to be in real time like for example this talking head we always shoot 24 frames per second and moving on to our second biggest mistake we see is poor lighting lighting is one of the most important elements to great cinematography and probably the least understood and least appreciated aspect of filmmaking with beginners most beginners assume you can just buy a nice camera and it'll make everything look great but in reality i'd say the opposite is true great lighting can make any camera look good here's a quick example of how much an image can change just by changing the lighting so what's the difference between these two images well the image on the left is being lit only by the ceiling lights which in this case is bad for a few reasons number one direction of light number two quality of light and number three contrast of light for light direction typically the shadows that a light casts are going to be more flattering on the human face when the light is coming from a direction just slightly above and slightly to the side of the subject's face that's one of the more popular looks in hollywood films and most rookies will just use ceiling lights which will give your subject raccoon eyes or they'll just blast a ton of frontal light on the subject taking away any shadow at all which then makes the image look super flat and not very cinematic the second reason this image doesn't look very great is the light quality now typically you want your key light which is the main light that lights up your subject to be a large light source like a soft box because the bigger the light source in relationship to your subject the softer the light's going to be which makes the shadow less harsh thus being more forgiving on the imperfections of the skin and most rookies images use too much hard light which is fine for the right scenario but learning how to soften your light in certain scenarios can help make your images look more flattering and the third reason is light contrast the background is the same brightness as the subject so there's no depth or separation of the subject from the background the image just looks flat and boring and most rookies do a poor job at creating depth in general and there's a lot of ways you can create depth like using foreground or leading lines but one of the best ways to have contrast is by using contrast of lighting so typically in talking heads like this your subject's going to be brighter than the background so that it draws your audience's eye to the subject and not to the background so by controlling the light by lighting up your subject with a nice big soft key light and maybe a little backlight to separate the subject from the background and maybe even some splash light of color on the wall to get some color contrast suddenly the image feels more three-dimensional just by using lighting now we're just scratching the surface here we have a full video here on youtube discussing lighting and dozens of other videos in the course covering lighting more in depth but the point is to take the time to learn how to light it will make or break your image now moving on to the third biggest mistake that we see and that is bad lens choices a common mistake i see rookies making is popping a wide angle lens on their gimbal for all their shots close-ups mediums wides just move closer and farther away right well actually certain focal lengths will have different effects on your image to be aware of wide lenses like 16 to 35 are great for wide or medium shots like real estate architecture or landscapes but wide-angle lenses aren't great for close-ups on portraits of the human face and they start to distort the facial features it's been said that between 70 and 100 millimeters is the most flattering focal length on the human face and anything over a hundred millimeter is usually used when you want to compress a lot of space and make something appear closer than it really is or if you physically can't get closer to your subject and personally here are the different times that i use different lenses i use my 16 millimeter for real estate and landscapes i use the 24 or 35 as my main lens for medium talking head shots like what you're seeing right now is the 35 i use a 50 millimeter as a great middle ground lens i can get decently wide shots while also allowing you to get some close-ups and that's why you'll see the 50 millimeter being used so widely because they're super versatile and for close-up shots or detail shots i'll usually pop on my 85 and for scenarios where i can't get very close to my subject like sporting events i use my 20 millimeter to compress that space and fill my frame with the subject now if you can only afford to buy one lens i'd probably get a zoom lens and i'd suggest picking up something like a 24 to 70 because it has a nice balance of both wide and tight now obviously what lens you buy depends on what you'll be shooting so if you're mostly shooting real estate then obviously you're going to want to start out with a wide angle lens so first determine what type of content you're going to be shooting then buy the lens that best fits that need the point is learn to adjust your lens choice to fit the look and feel you want to get and don't get lazy and just use the same focal length for everything but moving on now to our next mistake number four is bad audio now first you might be thinking wait what what does sound have to do with creating cinematic images well the definition of cinematic is having qualities characteristic of a motion picture and if you think back to the last time you went to the movies you'll probably remember that the sound and the music and the dialogue all played a massive role in immersing you into the story i always say that audio is half of the viewing experience what people hear tells half the story creates half the emotion and yet audio is probably the most neglected part of filmmakers in the beginning most beginners don't capture clean dialogue don't capture any sound effects don't match the levels in post don't use good song choices don't take any time to sound design and so on so here's a couple quick tips we would recommend that will help you improve your sound today first don't rely on the in-camera mic invest on an external mic whether that's an on-camera mic a love mic or a boom mic mic should be right up there with camera lenses and lights on your gear list secondly even if you have a nice mic don't make the common mistake of the mic being too far away from your subject i'd recommend placing that mic 6 to 14 inches away from your subject obviously you can't always get that close but where possible keep that mic in that range to capture clean crispy audio third you always want to make sure that the audio levels in your camera or audio recorder are sitting between negative 18 and negative 6 decibels any quieter and you'll start to hear fuzzy noise in the background and any louder your audio will start to peak and sound nasty and distorted and lastly take the time and post to level out all your audio tracks and beef up your videos with added sound effects and music to help your edits come to life again we have a full video here on the channel going further into depth about audio tips and have dozens of videos covering audio capture and editing more in depth in the full course and we actually built our own custom full-time filmmaker sound effects pack that comes with over a hundred of our most used sound effects to help spice up your edits links in the description below but point is don't neglect audio it is just as important as the video and moving on now to our fifth most common mistake is storytelling or the lack thereof most beginning videos or films we see have zero story or direction or even a general purpose as to why the video was created in the first place a common video i get sent is a compilation of random clips of random subjects pieced together randomly to music again with no sound design and there's really no point to the footage it just looks more like practice footage to test out the camera settings which is fine to do nothing wrong with testing out your camera gear but if you want to do video professionally and want to attract high paying clients or audiences you have to create videos that serve a real purpose and actually tell a story and step one to telling a good story is determining what emotion you want your audience to feel you can tell if you succeeded at telling a great story if by the end of the video you succeeded in helping your viewer feel that particular emotion but if the emotional viewer feels is confused when you wanted them to feel inspired or they laugh when you were trying to get them to cry then you probably aren't doing a very good job at telling your story even if you're just shooting like a travel video when it's pretty much just a montage of pretty clips you can still do some pre-planning you can think of the overall emotion you want to convey make a shot list of beginning middle and ending clips and then shoot to edit which means have your edit in mind or your story in mind while you're shooting so that by the time you get to the editing room you already have a pretty good idea of which clips are in your intro which clips will be your outro and a general idea of how the rest of the clips piece together to keep your audience engaged and interested in watching the entire video on this subject one of the biggest questions i get asked is what kind of content should i shoot and i always say whatever kind of content you want to get hired for or that you're passionate about creating if you're passionate about making music videos and find a local musician and go shoot a free music video if you want to shoot weddings then go get a couple who can't afford a wedding and offer to shoot one for free if you want to shoot commercials for local businesses then take any product around your house and come up with a creative idea that would sell somebody on wanting to buy that product but don't do what most beginners do and just go to the park or your backyard and shoot a variety of shots of tables chairs trees and sun flares and then editing them all together to music and sharing that on social media that isn't relevant to anyone no one cares to spend two minutes of their life watching random boring clips back to back to back make sure every video you create has a clear purpose and do your best to tell a cohesive story that has a beginning a middle and an ending instead of just loads of middle clips thrown together to music and on that note a big part of storytelling is our last big mistake we see from beginners and that is bloated unfinished looking edits like parker mentioned no one likes watching long edits of a bunch of random clips back to back too often we see beginners shoot five minutes of average footage then put all five minutes of that footage into a five minute edit depending on the shoe we often only use maybe five to ten percent of our footage in the final video sometimes not even that you should only be putting the best to the best of your clips the ones that have the best lighting the best composition the cleanest movements etc and back when we started we both made the same mistake and then we'd sit down to edit and use all of those clips in our edit instead of getting rid of those mediocre or crappy clips we just throw them all together and it ended up looking like a home video shot on a good camera a 30 second video of only the best clips will make for a much more engaging video than a 5 minute video with the best clips mixed with mediocre clips i can't emphasize this enough because a lot of people wonder why they don't land clients and often times it's because the video they send a client is so long and bloated and it is unclear what the point is no one gets perfect shots 100 of the time however in the editing room you choose what you use to showcase yourself always put your best foot forward by including your best footage that you are most proud of learning to create engaging concise videos that actually tell a story and have a clear purpose will make clients want to work with you so make sure to do some pre-planning have a goal emotion you want to evoke from your audience have a clear purpose that the video serves whether that's to sell a product or create an emotion and then shoot to edit getting more clips than you think you'll need and then take the time in the editing room to sift through the mediocre clips only leaving the best of the best and piecing them together in a way that tells a cohesive purposeful story and again we talk more in depth in the course about how to become a better storyteller but if there's one takeaway to walk away with today it's that longer isn't always better only make your edits as long as they can be while still keeping the audience engaged throughout the whole video and there you have it folks that is our top six biggest mistakes we see from beginners based on the hundreds of videos that we've reviewed over the years and obviously there's dozens of other mistakes we haven't covered here but that should at least give you a good starting point to know where to look to quickly improve your videos and make them more engaging and more professional looking to learn more awesome tips like this make sure to check out our free one hour film making training and if you really want to take video production serious make sure to check out our full course full-time filmmaker where we have over 400 tutorials just like this to help you land higher paying clients and take your video skills to the next level but that's all we got for you guys today hopefully you learned something new 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Channel: Parker Walbeck

Views: 1,100,242

Rating: 4.967639 out of 5

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Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020