- Do you wanna shoot videos of yourself?
Maybe you're shooting YouTube videos or tutorials,
and you're wondering,
"Can I shoot these videos on my phone?"
The answer is yes.
Shooting high quality videos on your phone is possible.
However, it can be difficult,
especially if you're a beginner.
You have to ensure that the camera settings are correct,
you're capturing good audio, the framing is right,
you're not being cut off in the video,
all of that and more,
all while also being in front of the camera.
That's why in today's video,
we're gonna take you through seven tips
to help you capture the best possible videos of yourself
on your smartphone.
I'm Teresa of InVideo,
and today we're talking all about filming yourself.
Let's get started.
(logo whooshing)
Let's start with the first tip,
which is to make sure
you're using the right camera on your phone.
So on a typical smartphone, you have two cameras,
the front-facing camera or the selfie camera,
and then the back camera.
The selfie camera has the one benefit
of allowing you to see yourself while you record,
but that's pretty much where the benefits stop.
The back-facing camera is always gonna be higher quality.
The only time I would really recommend
using the front-facing selfie camera
is if you need just a really quick shot of yourself,
maybe you're out and about capturing a vlog
and you don't have time to go through the rest of the tips
that we're gonna get to in this video,
you could always get just a really quick shot
using the selfie camera,
but in general, you're gonna wanna opt
for the back-facing camera to get better quality.
The challenge then is being able to see what you're filming.
This is actually really important.
You wanna be able to monitor your video
to make sure it's in focus,
and to make sure it's recording when you need it to be.
Take it from me,
I have had my video stop recording in the middle
and I kept talking for a long while
thinking the video was still going
only to find out that it wasn't later on.
Your video might stop recording
if your phone runs out of space, or something like that,
there are a lot of technical issues that can happen
so it's always good to monitor your video.
There are a few different ways to get around this,
the first and simplest way is to use a mirror.
This is old school, but it works perfectly well.
It's also a great option
because chances are you already have a mirror
lying around somewhere,
so all you have to do
is position the mirror behind your phone,
you'll wanna angle it upwards a little bit,
or slant it sideways a little bit,
and that will allow you to see
the reflection of your phone's screen.
The next option would be to mirror your phone screen
to your laptop or your computer.
So this is gonna be different
depending on the type of phone you have
and the type of computer you have.
If you have both an iPhone and a Mac computer,
you'll be able to connect them using the lightning cable,
and then you'll be able to open QuickTime on your computer,
go to Record New Movie, and then select your iPhone.
So basically, you're turning your phone into a webcam,
so that will allow you to see
what your phone screen is recording.
And then if you have a Windows computer
and an Android phone,
there's an app called Connect
that can allow you to view your phone's screen
if your phone and laptop are both signed in
to the same wifi network.
If you have a tablet or an iPad or a Chromebook
or some other type of mobile device,
then you can download a screen sharing app,
and if download the same app
to both your device and your phone,
then you would be able to screen cast between the two.
So that would be an option.
And if you're not able to use any of those methods
because of the type of equipment you have,
you can download a software called Reflector,
this is a screen-sharing software that will work
no matter what kind of phone or computer you have,
so it's a great option
if you don't wanna have to worry about that.
It is gonna cost you a little bit of money.
You can go ahead and find a link to that
in the description below.
So any of these options will work,
the important thing
is to monitor your video as you're recording
just to make sure the video is going
and everything you need to be in focus, is in focus.
But also when it comes to monitoring your video,
you wanna make sure
that you're always looking into the camera
while you're talking,
so finish the sentence, then check on your monitor,
and then look back into the camera to start talking again.
It's very noticeable and pretty distracting
if you're looking slightly away from the camera
while you're talking.
Your next tip is to use a tripod for still shots
and a gimbal for shots that involve movement
instead of shooting handheld.
You can get a great tripod for your phone for about $20,
and that's really all you need for this type of video,
you don't need anything too fancy.
Again, you can find a link to a phone tripod
in the description.
And then if you're gonna be filming any moving shots,
you definitely want to get a gimbal for your phone,
this will make a world of a difference
between shaky handheld footage,
it will really make your footage look a lot more smooth
and a lot more cinematic.
If you're just filming talking videos similar to this one,
you might not need to worry about getting a gimbal
because it's just gonna be still footage.
But if you're gonna be filming B-roll,
or if you're gonna be filming vlogs
that have a moving camera,
you definitely wanna look into getting a gimbal
to stabilize your footage.
The Hohem 3-Axis Gimbal is a great option
for a mix of affordability and function.
Again, you can find the link to that in the description.
Tip number three is to make sure
you get your video composition right.
The first thing you wanna think about
is the orientation of your shot.
Are you gonna be filming in portrait or landscape?
If your video is gonna be going on YouTube,
you're gonna wanna film it horizontally
or at landscape mode.
And if it's going on TikTok or Instagram,
you're gonna wanna film it vertically or portrait.
And if you're not sure where it's gonna go,
what I usually do is film it horizontally,
but leave enough space to crop it in later, if I need to.
So basically you need to get a pretty wide horizontal shot.
You also wanna think about head space
when you're composing a shot.
So you always wanna leave a little bit of space
between the top of your head and the top of the frame,
and you wanna make sure at the top of your head
is never being cut off at all,
it's actually a pretty easy mistake to make.
But you also wanna make sure there's not too much space,
you can pretty much just eyeball this one
and see what looks good.
And you wanna make sure that your phone
is level with your face,
you don't really wanna shoot from above
or from below at all,
so this is where your tripod comes in handy
to make your life a lot easier.
You can just make those small adjustments
to make sure that your face is right level with your phone.
Next, you wanna set up your background.
So for a video like this
where you're just talking to the camera,
it's always a good idea
to put some visual intrigue in the background,
so you're gonna wanna steer clear of blink walls.
However, you also don't wanna have
too much in the background
because then it just ends up looking distracting.
So I have just a few things behind me, ss you can see,
like a lamp and a computer screen,
these are all pretty big objects,
you wanna steer clear of having a lot of small objects,
and instead go with a few bigger objects.
You also wanna make sure there's a lot of depth to the shot,
so pull your chair as far away from the wall as you can.
All right, the fourth tip is to use manual camera settings.
So every phone comes with a built-in camera app,
but that app doesn't usually give you a lot of control
over your focus, your shutter speed,
your aperture, your ISO,
and all those things that you could control
on an actual camera.
So what you're gonna wanna do is download an app.
There are a lot of apps available in any app store
that will allow you to access those settings
on your phone's camera.
Really any of these apps that say pro camera,
or manual mode, or something like that should work.
And then go into your app of choice
and you're gonna wanna set your frame rate
to 24 frames per second,
and your shutter speed to one over 50,
that's kind of the standard for video.
You want your ISO to be as low as you can possibly make it
while still having a nice well-lit shot.
The higher your ISO, the grainier your image is gonna be,
but ISO is a good option
if you don't have a ton of light available.
When it comes to focus,
most phones are actually pretty good at auto-focus,
especially if they have a face that they can recognize.
So auto focus is a pretty good option
if you're recording yourself.
However, if you wanna just really make sure
that the focus isn't gonna change
in the middle of the video,
you're gonna wanna set that to manual.
So then to set your focus,
you'll need to have some object in the spot
where you're gonna go,
maybe a pillow or something like that,
and then just tap the screen to focus on that,
and then lock that focus in,
then when you sit down in the chair,
the focus should stay the same and you should be in focus.
The next tip is to make sure
you're properly lighting your videos.
Most smartphones today
come with very powerful high quality cameras,
but if you don't have good lighting in your videos,
even with those high quality cameras,
you're not gonna get those professional looking shots.
The simplest method for lighting is to use natural light,
so if you're gonna shoot outdoors,
you can shoot at golden hour,
which is the hour before sunset, or right after sunrise,
that's when the sun provides
the most ideal lighting for videos,
it's a nice, soft light
as opposed to the harsh sunlight that you might get
if you shot closer to noon.
And then if you're shooting indoors,
you basically can just set up in front of a window.
This is a great option because it's free,
however, there are a lot of downsides.
It's unreliable, it changes all the time,
and you might not have a ton of it available to you
especially if you live in an apartment
with only one window, like I do.
So I would recommend picking up a few LED video lights.
The standard guide for artificial lighting
is to use a three-point setup.
So you have a key light, which is your main source of light,
and you're gonna position that
just a little bit to the side of your face,
let it hit your face on a bit of an angle,
and then you have a fill light on the other side,
which just kind of fills in some of the shadows
on your face,
and then you have a backlight or a hairlight behind you,
which kind of makes you pop from the background
by giving you a bit of a halo effect.
So you can find the link in the description
to get the LED light that I have,
which works great as both a key and a fill light.
You can adjust the brightness
so you can make the key light brighter
and the fill light softer.
And then for a backlight,
you can even get away with something smaller.
So you can find a link in the description
to a really tiny LED light
which will work great as a backlight.
All right, the next step I have
is to make sure you're capturing high quality audio.
So what you don't wanna do under any circumstances
is use the built-in mic on your phone.
If you have really bad audio quality,
that's actually gonna make your video
look a lot more unprofessional
than if you had bad video quality.
So one of the easiest and most straightforward options,
which is the option that I recommend,
is to use a lavalier mic.
This isn't the only way to capture audio,
a lot of people use shotgun mics,
but in my experience using a lavalier mic is the easiest
and most foolproof way
to record your audio for a talking video.
I think they work great for any setting,
they're great for a talking video like this one,
they're also great for vlogs,
because then you ensure that the microphone
is always really close to your face
and capturing even audio levels.
Again, shotgun mics are definitely a possibility,
but then you run into the issue of changing audio levels
if you're moving around a lot,
and the issue of not really picking up the audio very well
if you're far away from the mic.
Lavalier mics are also very affordable,
I use one that I got for $13, which I'm using right now,
and as you can hear, the audio quality is very good.
You can find a link to that in the description.
So you can go ahead and plug the mic right into your phone,
and then you'll have the audio and video all in one file.
The only downside to this
is then you have the wire in between you and your phone,
and that might be a little bit constricting
because then you could only be as far away from your phone
as the length of the wire.
So if you don't wanna have to worry about that
what you could do is record the audio
on a laptop, or tablet, or an audio recorder,
if you happen to have one of those lying around,
so plug your mic into there,
and then in that case what you're gonna do
is start your video recording,
then start your audio recording,
and then you're gonna clap at the beginning of your video
so then when you go to edit,
you can sync up the audio and video
by matching up the spike on the wave form where you clapped.
All right, that brings us to our last tip,
which is to make sure that your record enough B-roll.
Whether you're filming a tutorial or a vlog,
having B-roll is a great way to visualize
what you're saying.
And it also just makes your video
a lot more interesting to watch
by breaking up the monotony of having just one single shot.
So when it comes to tutorial, you wanna make a list
of just anything that would be easier to understand
if there's a visual to go along with the explanation,
and then film all of that B-roll.
And then when it comes to a vlog,
you can really just shoot anything
that's interesting to you,
and anything that adds to the story of the video.
We also have another video on our channel
that goes a lot more in depth
about shooting cinematic footage with your smartphone,
so you can go ahead and check that out
if you wanna learn more about shooting B-roll.
And that was our round up our top seven tips
to help you record high quality videos of yourself
using your smartphone.
Were any of these tips a complete surprise to you,
or did you know all of them already?
Let us know in the comments below.
We would love your feedback because we would love to know
how we can make videos that are the most helpful to you.
Don't forget to check out this video
to dive deeper into mobile videography.
I'm Teresa of InVideo,
and I will see you in the next one.