- Have you ever wanted to make a video but then you just don't have anyone to help you out and actually shoot you? What I wanna do in this
video is go through a few different methods
on how to film yourself, the gear that you need and some techniques to give your audience that feeling that there is someone else there actually shooting your video. The first one is gear. So when it comes to your gear, it's actually relatively easy what you need to be able to film yourself. The key thing is a camera. You can use basically
any camera that you have and a tripod and the tripod is important. You don't want like a
little tabletop tripod. You wanna try pod that can
get you different angles and different perspectives. So just think one that
goes like five, six feet. Another tool that I use is a drone, and drones are great because
you can put them up in the sky and get cool looking shots of yourself with this completely
different perspective. And if you wanna incorporate
some moving shots into your video, well,
you can get a slider or you can get a gimbal and
lock your gimbal off on a tripod and program it to do different movements. You can get super fancy with this, but honestly, the majority
of the shots that I get are on a tripod with my camera, that becomes the easiest and the fastest way to
grab shots of yourself. Sometimes you'll wanna bring
out some fancy piece of gear, but honestly, just a camera on a tripod, that's really all you need. Number two is planning and blocking. You wanna think through how you're going to be
interacting with the scene and are you gonna be entering frame? Are you gonna be exiting frame? Are you gonna be going
to the cliff over there? Are you gonna be walking past camera? You wanna think through
what is the movement that you're going to be doing and you also wanna block it out. So you might set your camera down and actually try the movement,
play it back, look at it, reframe it a little bit and do it again. There's no right or wrong way to do it, and you don't always nail
every shot the first time. Number three is that you wanna
lock your focus on manual. So a lot of times when
you shoot with auto-focus it might fluctuate and bounce
between different aspects. If you're filming yourself
and you've blocked it out, you know where you wanna be in focus. And I would say, just lock
off your focus at that point. Whenever I'm filming myself
and I just leave it in auto, it doesn't necessarily
always get the shot, and that's why I say you
wanna review your shot because you wanna see if the
focus was bouncing around, it's gonna look much better if your focus has held on one point. Now there's definitely situations where auto-focus will work great and that's where you're moving closer or further away from the camera. So if you're like walking
right up onto the camera, then you'll probably
want to use auto-focus because you wanna be able to capture that focus moving in and out. Whereas if you're moving across the frame or you're entering and
stopping at one point, it might be better to lock
off the focus on manual. Or if you have things in your frame, you'll definitely wanna
lock off your auto-focus so that it's not bouncing
between something in the foreground and
something in the distance. Number four is framing and composition. So you don't always wanna
just do the same shot over and over and over. You wanna think through
a variety of shots, shot sizes, perspectives,
get a super wide shot, super close up. You wanna dirty the frame, which basically means putting objects in the frame that fill it. So things that could be out
of focus in the foreground or like in the background,
something that's in the distance, you just wanna think through variety. What are the shots that
you need to tell your story or move the video along? And then what are some creative ways that you can shoot that? And this is why I say
you wanna get a tripod that's not just a small
little tabletop tripod because sometimes you'll
want to get a shot that's at five feet, whereas sometimes you'll
wanna get it at one foot. And just depending on the situation and where you're shooting, it's gonna be more beneficial to be able to move that camera up
and down and all over so that you're not always getting the same perspective in the same angle. Number five is shot sequencing. So you wanna think through
what is a sequence from A to B, think of like four or five different shots that you can put in sequence
and with shot sequencing you also wanna think through continuity. So if you're moving from shot A to shot B, but then your hat changes
from forward to back or like you change your clothes, or your headlights are
on, and then they're off, that's gonna be jarring for the viewer. So you wanna make sure that
every shot is continuous. It's one shot to the next. So when you make a sequence, think of it like you're making a movie, you don't want things to
be changing for each shot and you wanna move from a wide angle to a
medium, to a closeup. You wanna change the
shots and perspectives throughout a sequence and vary it up. The more that you can vary up your shots and bring different
elements into each scene, the more it will feel
produced and more cinematic or like a movie, because
there's actually a progression and there's different styles of shots. So it just feels more thought out. And number six is avoid the
wide lens, always close up. When you're vlogging, if
you just have a wide lens like a 16 to 35, and you're
always just throwing it on 16 and putting it on the ground
and getting like a wide shot, all your footage is gonna look the same. I've found that when you
actually think through your shots and you use like a longer lens, like a 50, or like an 85, or like a 135 and you use these long focal
lengths to grab these shots of yourself, and doing
whatever it is in your video, it's really gonna make
the footage stand out because seeing something shot at 135 but then is like a full
body shot of you walking through the frame, is gonna
look so much different than just your 16 millimeter
sitting on a bench right there and having to just walk by the wide lens. So this is why I say get a variety in terms of your
perspectives and your sizes but also change your focal lengths and give your audience something else than just the same style
of shot over and over. Number seven is add movement in post. So when you're filming yourself, it's just gonna be a camera on a tripod and all of the shots will static. But if you add just a slow
push in a slow pull out or like a dolly left to right, you can give your footage movement. And this is a technique
that I use all the time. Whenever I'm filming myself I'll add just a slight
5% push-in or pull-out, gives that extra layer of movement. If you're using a drone, you
can actually add some movement into your footage as well. Just depends on what you're doing. So you don't wanna do
things that are illegal but at the same time, you can
fly and grab some cool shots. One of the things that I like to do is put the drone up and
get like a tripod shot. So you could put it up in the
sky, get a cool perspective and then have your movement
happen throughout it. Now again, you could
add some posts zooming into your drone shots if they are just like a tripod in the
sky, same thing applies, it will look like a moving camera. Now number eight it has to
do with sequencing again, but you wanna shoot things that are not necessarily just you. So if you're looking out over a landscape, well, then shoot the landscape. So you wanna shoot shots
that are gonna be intercut with the footage of you
interacting with the scene that show more of a perspective. And the more that you
can paint this picture of what's going on in your story and show these different shots, the more dynamic it's going to feel. One big tip is don't just
get one shot and move on but I've always noticed when I'm able to get a few extra shots, I end up using all of them in the edit. One thing you have to remember is, when you set a camera down on a tripod and you walk a distance, especially if you're using a long lens, you're gonna have to go pretty far out to get a nice wide shot. You're gonna have to double back and get that camera and the tripod. So make sure it's safe from the elements but also make sure it's safe that someone's not gonna
come by and just snag it. I'm not gonna put my camera
down somewhere public where people are walking by and then walk off into the sunset. I'm definitely gonna take note
of what's in my surroundings before I actually do some of these shots. So just something to keep in mind, people will steal gear. Your camera will fall, things will happen. When you're not near your camera, think that things could go wrong, so just make sure it's secure just so you don't lose it
or damage it in any way. And if you have any questions
about filming yourself when you're solo, let me
know down in the comments and next I highly suggest you check out this playlist right here. It goes through some
other filming techniques that's really gonna help
you craft better videos. All right, I'll see you on the next one.
