(upbeat instrumental music)
- Hey guys, welcome to Travel Feels.
Today we're gonna be talking about
five things you need as a filmmaker.
Nowadays, filmmaking is more accessible
than ever before in history.
You can buy a cheap camera and great lenses,
and get really high-quality video
even from just things like your phone,
recording 4K and all that, it's crazy nowadays.
But I'm gonna go through five things
that I think every filmmaker should have to up your game.
And it doesn't mean that you're gonna go to the store now
and buy all these things at once.
I think these are things to build up for,
and buy as you go along.
You know, you do a few jobs,
then you invest in some more gear,
then you do more jobs, and invest in more gear.
Also, when it comes to investing in gear,
make sure it's something that's worthwhile investing in.
There's a lot of things that aren't really
gonna be that useful, or you're not gonna use that often.
The things I recommend you buy
are things that you're gonna use on every shoot,
and these five things are some of those things
that I use on 90% of my shoots.
First off, you need camera support and stabilizers.
You need something like a tripod, or a monopod,
or a Glidecam, so your footage isn't all shaky all the time.
One of the biggest giveaways that the production quality
isn't very high is shaky footage,
especially that little micro-jitter
that happens in a lot of DSLR cameras.
But you can easily eliminate that with something
like a monopod, or a tripod, or a Steadicam, or Gimbal,
or whatever suits your project.
Each tool has a different purpose.
Sometimes I'm on a monopod, sometimes I need a tripod,
and it just needs to be locked off,
sometimes I'm using a Gimbal, or a Steadicam,
or sometimes it makes more sense
to have something like a shoulder rig.
But I find that the most useful pieces of equipment for me
have been a monopod and a Glidecam.
A monopod is kind of like a tripod, it just has one leg.
The better monopods have little feet on the bottom,
which make it a lot more stable,
and cut out a lot of that jitter,
but it also helps you to do smooth movements with it,
and not get any shake while you're doing the movements.
If you don't have the feet on the bottom,
it's a lot shakier, and a lot harder
to do smooth movements with a monopod.
If you wanna do weddings, or any kind of live events,
or any kind of run-and-gun,
I highly recommend getting a monopod;
it's totally worth the investment.
Next I would invest in a Steadicam.
I really like the Glidecam Steadicams,
they're just really well-built,
and you can get them really cheap,
especially the older versions.
There isn't that much difference
between the new and old versions in my opinion.
And they can be a little bit hard to get used to at first,
especially the balancing process,
but it's not too bad; once you get the hang of it,
the balancing is super easy and quick.
And you're never gonna run into any problems
with it malfunctioning like a Gimbal might have,
so that's why a lot of times for run-and-gun shoots
I really like the Glidecam, 'cause I can always trust it,
it's not gonna break in the in middle of my shoot,
and it's just really durable, easy to travel with.
And what I like to do is I have a Manfrotto base plate
on the Glidecam, and so that way I can take the camera
really quickly and easily from the Glidecam,
and put it on the monopod, or switch back and forth.
And this has been my saving grace when I shoot weddings.
I shoot weddings by myself usually,
and this allows me to go really quickly
from monopod to Glidecam,
depending on what's going on in the situation.
If you wanna learn about wedding filmmaking,
I have a course that I made last year on my whole workflow
and process and how I make wedding films.
And if you use this coupon code,
you're gonna get a nice discount on it.
There's only a limited amount of those coupons,
so make sure you get yours
if you're interested in wedding filmmaking.
Also, if you wanna learn about color grading,
I made a course just recently on it.
I go through my whole workflow and process,
and here's a coupon for you to save big on that one.
I'll also link the courses down below.
So for any kind of event videography,
I would highly recommend a monopod and a Glidecam,
just because they're so easy and quick to work with.
You can really move around fast and get tons of cool shots.
Next, you need good sound.
People can forgive a lot with image quality in video,
but bad sound, it's just terrible to watch and listen to.
It's just so distracting, you can't pay attention,
it's just really not a good experience.
So you really need good audio.
If you're just starting out,
I think it's best to invest in a little shotgun mic
that goes on top of your camera.
This can be really versatile to capture talking,
if it's close enough, or just ambient sounds,
and it'll really help your production quality
when it comes to sound,
rather than just recording straight into the camera.
If you're doing any talking head interviews
or anything with somebody talking,
you're gonna need to invest in lav mics.
Now there's tons of different options for lav mics nowadays,
but I would go for a wireless setup.
I've used these Sennheiser lav mics for a long time now.
I don't even know how many years ago I bought these,
and they're still super good, no issues with them,
and just really helpful in so many situations
to get good audio.
And if you want really high-quality,
for let's say an interview, or anything like that,
then I would recommend the Rode NTG3 mic.
That's what I'm using right now, super high-quality,
and just a great tool.
Shotgun mics are much better than lav mics
at getting the nice bass in the voice, and those warm tones.
But both are good.
A lot of times I use both at the same time,
just to make sure,
so I'll have a lav on the person, and a shotgun,
just so if something goes wrong with one or the other,
or one mic picks up the sound better than the other
in that certain situation, then I have that backup.
So sound is super important,
should be one of the first things you're investing in.
Next I would invest in lenses, especially really fast ones.
And what I mean by a fast lens,
it's a lens that can go to a really small number aperture.
This means that you can get more depth of field,
and create more cinematic shots, and also,
if you're shooting in really low light conditions,
you can get a lot more light
into the camera with a fast lens.
So these are really crucial.
And lenses are a great investment,
because they don't really drop in value over time that much;
they kind of hold their value.
And especially if you buy them used,
you can a lot of times sell them for the exact same amount,
or even make a little bit of a profit,
depending on what kind of deal you got when you bought it.
So definitely invest in a good lens.
One of my favorite lenses that I use all the time,
that's filming right now, is the Sigma 18-35 1.8.
Now it only works on crop sensor cameras,
but it's a great lens.
It's one of the fastest zoom lenses there is,
and it just has a really nice look to it.
I also like wide lenses much better than zoom lenses.
I find that they're just much more versatile.
With zoom lenses, you're always getting
that same kind of close-up shot most of the time,
unless you're just really far away from the subject,
but with a wider lens, you can go up closer,
you can get nice wide shots,
just get a wide variety of shots.
So if there was one focal length that you had to get,
I would say go for a 35 mil.
But the Sigma 18-35 just covers a really nice range.
Next, I would buy a filter,
specifically a variable ND filter.
When you're shooting video, you wanna always keep
your shutter speed to double whatever your frame rate is.
And sometimes it's so bright outside,
and you wanna shoot shallow depth of field,
a smaller number aperture, and it's just way too bright,
so what you do is you use an ND filter to make it darker,
and that way you can keep your shutter speed
at double whatever your frame rate is,
and still shoot at a shallow depth of field.
This is one of the biggest tips
to getting nice cinematic footage outside,
especially when it's really bright out.
Another thing I find is that digital sensors
on cameras these days are just way too sharp.
And so I like to use filters that kind of soften things up
a little bit, and bloom highlights just a little bit.
I like to use what's called
a Black Satin filter from Tiffen.
And what this does is it softens up the image
just a little bit, to take that edge off that digital look,
but it still keeps all that fine detail in it.
And it also helps with highlights a little bit,
as you can see here,
which really helps with digital sensors,
because the rolloff into the highlights
can be really harsh and kind of ugly-looking.
That's one of the big reasons why I think Hollywood
didn't switch out of film to digital for the longest time,
was just that the dynamic range and the highlights
just weren't as nice as in film.
And still a lot of people shoot on film in Hollywood.
So a variable ND is a must,
and if you wanna make your image even better-looking,
I would say buy something like the Black Satin filter,
or a Black Pro-Mist, which is a little bit more intense
than the Black Satin filter.
Lastly, I would say invest in lights.
And luckily for you, LED lights are just taking off.
And because they're becoming so popular,
it means that the quality of LEDs is going up,
and the cost is coming down.
I really like the Aputure Light Storm lights.
I have three of them, and I use them on all kinds of shoots,
high production and low production,
they're just really handy, really powerful,
with a high CRI value, which means that the color
isn't gonna skew in your videos too much
to green or magenta or anything like that.
And one of my favorite things is that
they can be controlled though a remote,
which is super handy when you're working as a one-man band,
you can set up your lights and then you can just
dial them in as you're looking right at the camera.
So you don't always have to run to the light,
and then come to the camera,
and then look at what it looks like,
and then go back and forth.
This way you can see exactly what your changes are doing,
and do it all from behind the camera
while you're looking at your image.
They're super handy, I highly recommend Aputure lights.
Now they are a bit pricey, so lights are one of the things
that I wouldn't invest in necessarily right away.
But if you're doing a lot of interviews,
or anything like that,
I highly recommend getting these LED lights.
But you can use pretty much any light,
as long as you're using them properly,
and using diffusion and different techniques
to really enhance that lighting.
I'm gonna be going through some different lighting
techniques later on to help you guys out,
if you're doing any interviews, or short films,
or anything that you need to light.
But I think lights in general are one of those things
that you can easily rent for pretty cheap,
and you don't have to invest thousands of dollars into them.
But again, if you're using them every day,
then maybe it is something that's worth investing in.
Like for me, these Aputure lights, I use them all the time,
almost on every shoot nowadays, including right now,
so they've really paid off for me.
Once you get into higher-quality productions,
where the budgets are higher,
a lot of your gear you can actually rent to the production.
So on top of your day or package rate,
you can add in let's say your camera rental,
or lenses, or your lights.
So these things can actually become
a source of revenue for you.
So that's an important thing to keep in mind
when you're doing bigger-budget projects.
What kind of things can I rent to the production,
and make money back from?
And then hopefully it pays off the light, or the lenses,
and then you're just making free money basically,
and you have a free lens.
But be really careful.
For example, a lot of people buy a camera,
but cameras just go outdated so quickly right now,
so if you're not renting it to enough productions,
and making that money back,
then you're probably just gonna lose a lot of money.
But, again, if you're using it often,
and you're able to get that rental money back
from your gear, then that just makes sense.
Now notice I didn't talk about investing in a fancy camera.
Cameras are just so high-quality nowadays;
even the lower-end consumer DSLRs,
they just have really high-quality video in them.
And when you pair that with a nice lens, and nice audio,
and good lighting, and good filters,
then you can get a really high-quality image
out of those cameras.
I know some people who make amazing films
that you would never believe
are filmed on a cheap DSLR camera.
So don't worry so much about investing in cameras.
I know it's not sexy to say
"Invest in filters and microphones,"
but those are the things that are gonna make
a big difference in your production value,
whereas the camera is gonna make some difference,
but not as much.
Like if you're gonna invest all your money
into a $10,000 camera,
and you have no good lights or good sound,
then your videos are still gonna look like crap,
because you're not lighting it properly,
and the sound sucks, so nobody cares
that you're filming it on a $10,000 camera.
And it's also really easy to get caught up in gear,
always thinking that "Oh, if I just had that lens,"
or "Just had that camera, then I would be super good."
And I mean it helps, but it's just not true.
It really depends on how you use those tools.
People have even filmed feature Hollywood films
on just an iPhone, and with good quality audio,
and good lighting, they were able to do amazing things.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
I'll put links down below of all the different things
that I like to use.
And remember, you don't need all this stuff at once.
Build up slowly, and invest in the important things.
That's it for today.
Remember to like and subscribe,
and comment down below if you have any questions,
and enjoy the filmmaking process.
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