In the age of YouTube and user generated content we are always looking for ways to make our footage more professional. Most people will say that it doesn’t matter about how your content looks, but what the content says, or is what you’re selling or providing have enough verbal content to overcome the visual representation. While that is true, we as content creators are always looking for the edge. I think the main reason why we give this advise of “don’t worry about how it looks, worry about what is says” comes from us as creators critiquing our early work and cringing at the fact people found it intriguing. This article are those who are still mastering there craft of story telling, but also want to make you footage visually pleasing. Most of us have a smart phone in our pockets and/or purse, and a lot of us for YouTube record on these devices. Some of you would like to showcase products or B-roll footage as a way to further enhance what we are trying to portray. I’m here to give you a few tips and tricks to that you can apply to your smartphone to get an edge on everyone else.
Above is a video I created at cedar point theme park in Ohio. Since we were going to be on rides, it would have been a lot to carry around a DSLR. Instead I took this opportunity to apply some of these tricks to create some better than basic footage. The following are some things to keep in mind when creating smartphone footage.
Steady Hands
Whip Transitions
120 FPS or higher
Relatable Transition
Speed Ramping
The Journey
Timelapse
When shooting footage with any camera and whether it has image stabilization or not, we should keep the camera as steady as possible. With a smartphone 2-3 point of contact are best. Footage should (depending and what you’re trying to portray) shot in landscape mode. While in landscape mode, hold phone on top and bottom while it is sideways with thumb and index or thumb and middle finger. While holding it like this, bring your elbows in towards your body so it’s touching it. This will give you at least 3 point os contact while shooting and further stabilize your footage.
Whip transitions are a great way to blend footage. You can shoot your footage and at the end of it whip the transition left, right, up, down, spin or which ever way you’d like in a fast motion. Your next seen should start with the same motion as the previous clip which will help blend both clips in post.
120 FPS (frames per second) is a really nice way to further stabilize your footage while getting some really smooth slow motion effects. Waterfalls, sports, acrobatics are some nice footage you can get while shooting in a high frame rate. You can easily go into your camera settings under video and change the video output for slow-motion to your preferred frame rate which can then be applied by slow ramping or speed ramping in post.
Relatable transitions and the journey go hand in hand. Peter McKinnon is a great YouTuber that takes full advantage of this and has some great examples when he creates coffee videos. It’s all about the process. From grinding the beans, to taking the first sip. Same can be applied for any footage for a story you’re trying to tell. It should have a beginning, climax and an end. Storyboarding is a great way to think of the entire shoot first before tapping record for the first time.
One way I like to use speed ramping is in conjunction with shooting at higher frame rates. To me it has a better designed impact in that you can go from a seamless slow motion seen to speeding up your footage 4x, 8x or higher. This is more of a post production tip and most video editing software has features where you can clip part of the footage and speed up that portion fo it.
Lastly time-lapse options on most smartphones give high quality footage to portray a long seen in a short time. This is similar to speed ramping but time-lapse footage doesn’t use all frames. Instead it takes a photo in intervals which then stitches together to create a video. Best final footage from time-lapse photography comes from keeping the camera as stationary as possible. That way other stationary objects stay that way in the footage while everything else moves. This is a nice effect when there’s a cloudy day, or the sun is setting, or pretty much if you want to show the entire day from one vantage point in a short amount of time.
Using all these tips and tricks will definitely bring out a higher quality in your videos even though it’s coming from an iPhone or android device. Sometimes it is hard vlogging with a DSLR or something bigger. Smartphones have the capability of being inconspicuous while not drawing unnecessary attention to yourself especially if you’re new to this. Remember to keep creating content as it has a nice way of showing your progression with quality and confidence over time that you can see.
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