- Hey guys, what is going on?
In this video, we're talking about
how you can get cinematic footage
with your iPhone or any other smart phone.
(upbeat music)
All right guys, there is a ton
of footage out there being shot on smart phones,
on iPhones, that just looks awful.
And the reason is people are shooting
with their phone as if it's a phone.
Now, as filmmakers, we want to make sure
that we get the best results out of this
because this is in our pockets all the time.
I mean, the phone is with us everywhere we go
and it has an awesome camera, especially the new iPhones.
Wouldn't you rather get really awesome footage every time
that you shoot with your iPhone
rather than get really bad, just,
not very cinematic footage?
So I've put together a list of some awesome tips
that you guys can do to make your footage
just look a lot better when you're shooting.
And some of it comes down to just pre-planning
and thinking about your shots,
rather than just holding the camera
up to your face.
When people use smart phones,
they will use smart phones like this
where it's always just right in front of their face,
pointing, so you gotta get out of the mentality
of always having the phone at eye level
and just hand holding.
I know these things have great stabilizers
but it doesn't mean that every shot needs
to be handheld at eye level.
And that's the key.
As soon as you break that,
you're gonna start getting different results with your phone
that are gonna start looking more cinematic.
I really want to show you what I'm talking about
so I went out with my buddy Mike.
He helps me out on the past
on a lot of these kinds of videos.
We went out and shot a little scene.
I came up with a very basic scene.
It's basically him on a skateboard, riding home.
He gets home, he looks at the sunset.
That is the basic premise of what we're doing.
And so, I want to shoot it two ways.
The first way is with the iPhone
in a very uncinematic way,
so just shooting the iPhone at eye level just like this,
and here are the results.
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That looks pretty awful, doesn't it?
But that's what a lot of the footage
is looking like that you see.
And especially in places, like, Instagram Stories,
you're just seeing a lot of this,
it's vertical of course,
but you're just seeing this.
It's just of the person's view.
Putting some thought behind what the story is
and actually coming up with some unique ways to shoot it,
that makes it look more cinematic.
All right, so let me show you what I'm talking about
before we go over the tips
on how to make your footage cinematic.
So here is the same scene,
but I put more thought,
I put more planning into it
and I used a lot more cinematic techniques
to film the scene.
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So, what do you guys think?
Do you think that looks more cinematic
than the first time I shot the scene?
Honestly, it makes such a difference
when you start planning
and using different cinematic techniques.
So let's just dive right into this.
Okay, so the first thing is shooting b-roll.
I started with a shot that just shows the trees
just to start and give you a sense of where we're at.
So even just starting with a shot
and doing something with a different perspective,
you start to feel like you're watching more of a story
rather than just, you know, a phone in front of your face.
So b-roll is important
and I have a video all about the importance of b-roll.
If you haven't had a chance to check that out yet,
I put a link in the description.
Go check that video out.
Another big point is if you notice the color
and exposure is very different between the two times I shot.
So, you want to use an app on your phone
that's gonna allow you to control all your settings.
You want to shoot manual
and that's a big thing that filmmakers do,
is they shoot manual.
So you want to have complete control over your camera.
When you're shooting in just the camera on an iPhone,
it basically automates everything
and it, you know, it works pretty well
for just picking up the camera and shoot.
But if you want to make something feel more cinematic,
you're gonna wanna use an app
that allows you to control the settings.
So the app I use is FiLMiC Pro
and it works really well.
It literally gives you complete manual control
over everything that you want in the camera.
And with FiLMiC Pro, there is settings in there
that allow you to change the color
so you're not just shooting overly saturated
and overly contrasted.
So I chose, in this video, a log profile
that allows you to basically color grade it later.
So that gets into the next point
and that is color grading your footage
in post will give you more of a cinematic look
because you have more control over the image.
So what I did is I shot everything pretty flat
and then I brought it into my software
and I used luts to basically put on a look
to make it more cinematic.
And you can do these yourself.
If you want to dive into color grading
or if you just want to get quick results
and make it look really good,
you can find different luts that you really like
that are very cinematic.
And with your manual controls,
you know have control over, say, your focus.
And that's a big thing with phones.
The sensor size is tiny.
To be able to get some depth of field,
which depth of field is when things are in the background
are out of focus and things in the foreground
are in focus and vice versa.
So, when you start having objects
that are in focus and things out of focus,
that's when you get a very cinematic look.
You don't have as much control
when you're in the auto settings
but when you're in the manual settings,
you're able to draw your focus,
get the camera close, bring the focus
to an object that's right there
and now you have this depth of field.
So focus is very important to create the cinematic look.
All right, let's get into camera movement.
And this is one of those things
that's super important.
Move your camera like you would a cinematic, bigger camera.
Put it on a slider, put it on a gimbal.
Put it up in a drone.
Find different ways to move the camera through space
that allows you to have more control over the movement
rather than walking with it.
And when you put the camera on these objects
and move the camera just slightly,
just a little bit,
it creates such a more cinematic looks
than if you were to be doing really fast whips
and things like that.
Jerky movements aren't cinematic
so avoid all jerky movements.
You want slow, methodical, very thought out movements.
Okay, let's talk about angles.
And this is a huge one
and you saw it all over in this little sample
that I showed you,
is that when you get a different perspective.
So you get just the wheel
or you get a very low shot in the ground
with the grass in the foreground.
You're gonna change the way
that the whole feeling of the piece looks.
When you're shooting, you wanna think,
"What can I do to get a different shot of this subject?"
So it might be getting high, looking down.
It might be getting down and looking up.
It may be getting a perspective
from inside the railing, looking out.
You have to find your environment
and see where you can put your phone
that gets a different perspective
because that's how you get that cinematic look.
It's not just lens tricks.
It's thinking about how the story's gonna come together
and how the shots are gonna play against each other.
Okay, and one last thing that I wanna cover
is I was using a few lenses
on the front element of this.
I picked up some of these little...
What that does is allows you
to change the way that the lens works.
I was using the wide lens,
especially when I latched it onto the skateboard.
So it gives you a different perspective.
There's different elements that you can put
in front of your lens
that will change the quality
of the overall feel and look of the footage.
At the end of the day,
it comes down to the filmmaker's mindset.
You need to put that filmmaker's thinking cap on.
When you start thinking like a filmmaker,
you start thinking of how things
are all gonna work together.
That's when your piece will start feeling more cinematic,
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