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I just taught a course in how to shoot good video with iPhones and Android
devices and I thought I'd share some tips from the session
The best reason to use these cameras is that you almost always have them with you.
They can also give you some good results if you know a few tips.
So here's Tip 1: and you might know this already
keep the camera horizontal. That way you will shoot at the correct
aspect ratio for video. If you hold the phone
other way you're going to end up with black bars on the side of the frame.
Tip two. Use a lot a lot of light. Cell phone cameras need more like than traditional cameras.
Outside you're usually fine. Of course, try not to shoot into the Sun.
If you're shooting people indoors, move into a place with good lighting.
The newer phones to a good job of boosting the exposure level
but that will usually add grain, which doesn't look good in the final video.
So make sure to use light. So here's a simple example
this shot was just ambient light. The cameras providing gain
to make up for lack of light. It looks okay.
But there is some grain. Now with the light.
Looks a lot better doesn't it. Tip 3:
Set the focus exposure point if your phone will let you do that.
So to make this work on my phone
which is a Droid Maxx, what I need to do is enable the focus point
on the left side
Know I would like to focus
on the the flowers. So I drag over to the flowers You'll notice
the scene gets brighter. When I focus on to the window
foreground darkens, and the focus point changes.
tip 4: keep the camera still. The small size of the camera actually makes them harder
to handle
but try not to move a lot. One of the best things things to do to keep steady is to
shoot on a wide shot and not zoom in.
When you zoom, and this happens with all cameras,
the shaking becomes magnified. If you need to zoom, zoom with your feet.
That's an old saying that means move yourself to a place you wanna get close to.
Ao here's another tip about
how to keep steady. Often people who want to show you things, move very quickly
when they do that, so let me give you an example.
so let me show you my tulips over here thenover here we have hukera.
And over here we have Daphne, and then over here we have Irises.
Let me show you the better better way to do that. Start off with your shot and then you want to count t
to five before you move.
Let me show you what I mean. These are the tulips.
I'm counting five in my head -- here's the hukera.
Then the Daphne.
and then on the other side of the yard you have Irises.
Tip 5:
I encourage you to use these phones to shoot interviews, The class I just taught
was for public relations and marketing directors.
We talked about how useful phones are to capture comments from interesting
people
When you do interviews shoot so the person is slightly off-center,
as close to the camera as, possible since you will pick up background noise off the
phone's microphone.
Tip 6: Edit your video to show your viewer
only the best parts. Remember, people are more likely to watch extremely short
videos
have a training video on YouTube and Facebook
with some basic editing tips for the free programs iMovie
in Windows Movie Maker. Thanks for watching.