Transcripts
1. Who Are You & What Will I Learn?: What's up? My name is Dale McManus. I'm a professional cinematographer, photographer, and award winning YouTuber. I have a bachelor's degree in film and seven years experience in the field of videography and photography. If you're wondering what kind of quality video you're going to be able to take by the end of this course, I'll show you. This is some of my personal footage that I've taken while traveling to different parts of the world, and that I've taken walking just five minutes from my house. One of the other crazy part, I took all of this on my iPhone and the video that I'm showing you right now got over two million views on Facebook. No joke, seriously, learning professional cinematography is what separates you from the rest of the world. I've designed this course around DSLRs and smartphones, but you can use any camera that you have. I've designed this course to be as clear and concise as possible. I use graphics and screen recordings and my own personal examples to keep you engaged the entire time. I even include downloadable notes at the end of the course so that all you have to do is kick your feet up and enjoy the material. All right. So this course is designed for anyone that dot, dot, dot. Once they become a skilled videographer and cinematographer. Wants to shoot incredible video without spending thousands of dollars on expensive gear. Wants to stunningly document their travels and amp up their social media accounts. Wants to turn video and cinematography into a professional career and wants to shoot short films, movies and learn the art of storytelling. So here's just some of the things that you're going to learn in this course. How to shoot professional video by utilizing shot composition, how to optimize your camera settings for taking better video, how to replicate cinematic movie like movement for your video, how to create professional lighting for any scenario, how storytelling can instantly boost your production quality, and how to film people, landscapes, architecture and so much more for boosting your social media or showing your friends or whatever purpose you might have for your video. With that being said, head on to the next lesson and we will jump right in.
2. What is Cinematography?: What really is cinematography? Well, according to the Internet it's the art of capturing motion picture photography, that's super boring. Here is my take on it, cinematography is about telling a really great story, it's about setting the pace, it's about driving emotion and keeping a forward flow, it's about engaging your audience. Most importantly though, cinematography is about understanding instinct versus stimuli. Instinct being a fixed pattern of behavior in response to a certain stimuli, AKA, an impulse reaction. Running away from a hungry grizzly bear that wants to rip your face off, that's an instinct reaction, the hungry grizzly bear being the stimuli. The stimuli is what triggered the response to run away, so you are probably thinking, cool Dale but what the f does this have to do with cinematography. [inaudible] cause here it is. Shooting great video is about learning to control that stimuli, you get to choose what hungry grizzly bear you throw at your audience it makes sense. Other words, the more you learn and apply the rules of cinematography, the more control over your audience that you have, you get to control the reactions. All and all, it's about knowing what to look for, and why to look for it in order to take better video that your viewers are not going to want to take their eyes off. But, before we dive into the rules of cinematography we need to get some groundwork done on cameras. Head on to the next lesson, and we'll talk about some technical stuff.
3. Camera Section: Intro: In this section, we're going to be talking about the camera. Whether it has a built-in cell phone or it weighs 30 pounds and has 700 different attachments, they pretty much work the same way. We're going to be going over video resolution, frame rate, aspect ratio, focal length, and all the fancy stuff for both DSLR, which is digital single lens reflex, as well as iPhone. I'll even dive into my camera bag and show you what I'm working with on the daily. I'm only going to be talking about this boring technical stuff to save your horse later in editing. Because when you're uploading your sweet, sweet videos to YouTube and Instagram and all that stuff and you figured out that you had a technical problem that you cannot fix, it will suck, I promise. At one or another, you will make a mistake and it will cost you a lot of time. The last thing we want is for you to have to reshoot all of your footage over again because you screwed something up. So you have to know this stuff, cool? All right, let's do this.
4. What is Video Resolution?: At some point or another, you've probably come across these numbers with the letter p at the end. Most commonly found on YouTube and other video streaming platforms, where you can control the quality settings. These numbers are the video resolution, and to put it simply, resolution means quality. Knowing these numbers well-determined whether your footage is going to be blurry and pixelated or it's going to be high definition. Let's take 1080p, for example. The p stands for progressive scanning, which is the method that the video is being drawn onto the screen in front of your face. Progressive scan means that each line of video is drawn from top to bottom in sequential order frame-by-frame. It traces one line of video at the top, goes to the second line, the third line, all the way through. It does this so quick that you can't even see it. While the opposite of this is 1080i, which stands for interlaced scanning. This is where every other line is drawn frame by frame onto the screen in front of you. It starts at the top line, skips a line, does the second line, skips another, does a third, and so on, and then once it's done one pass, it goes for a second pass and fills in all of those other spaces. The only reason I bring this up is because most modern day cameras use progressive scanning. So just stick to the p. The more important part is the number. The number represents the amount of lines that the video is tall, or aka the amount of pixels that it is tall. The more pixels stacked on top of each other, the higher the quality of video, aka the higher-quality of resolution. Hence, why 1080p looks a lot clear than 360p. A 1080p video is 1,080 pixels tall by 1920 pixels wide. It's actually what I'm shooting on right now. Hence, 1920 by 1080. A 720p video is 720 pixels tall by 1280 pixels wide, hence 1280 by 720 and so on and so forth with 480, 360, 144, I think it gets even lower at crappy quality that should never be used. In my opinion, 1080p is the lowest that you should go. But there's another number that's higher than all of those, and that's called 4K. 4K is basically 4,000 pixels tall. But in actuality it's 3,840, but nobody is going to be a stickler about it, and 4K sounds way sexier, rolling off the tone. I'm shooting 3,840, anyway, let's call it 4K. iPhones can even shoot in 4K nowadays. Mine does it, yours probably does it too. While the only way to shoot 4K on a DSLR is to spend some sweeter and dolly dolly bills, on the latest model from Canon or Nikon or similar. There's no built-in phone, but I still like DSLRs. I'm actually shooting on one right now. There are higher resolutions that exists like 6K and 8K, but the most commonly sold commercial cameras all shoot up to 4K, which is plenty. I always shoot in at least 1080p, if not 4K. I never go below. Here are those too high resolutions in comparison to lower-quality resolutions. 4K and 1080p are much bigger and better in a good way. Now, I want to bring up that the physical size of the screen that your audience is watching your video on, may or may not change this ratio. Here's what I mean. A movie theater screen and an iPhone are very different viewing devices. This is where resolution comes into play. If you're planning to play your video on a movie screen, then 4K is probably a better way to go. The higher quality, the bigger the screen that you can put the video on without losing quality. If you try to put like a 720 video, or even a 1080 onto a giant movie screen, they're going to have to sit way back to not notice a big drop in quality. On the other hand, if you're playing your video on an iPhone and most people are watching it on social media, you can get away with 720p. I usually shoot in 1080p anyway, but you really won't notice a difference between the quality because the phone is so small. The smaller the screen, the lower quality that you can get away with. But like I said, shooting in higher-quality is always better. You can always drop a 4K video down to 720p video later in editing if you're trying to save files space. But you can't go the other way. If you shoot in low-quality, you cannot bring it up. Got that? Cool. Shooting in high quality like 4K is great because in editing, you can bring a 4K video onto a 1080p timeline, and actually scale it up to twice the size without losing quality. This is how I shoot all the time. I love to have some wiggle room in editing. But keep in mind that 4K files are very large files. They're going to take up a lot of space on your memory card or your phone. Now that you understand video resolution, we need to talk about Aspect Ratio. Head on to the next lesson, and we'll talk about it.
5. What is Aspect Ratio?: What is aspect ratio? Aspect ratio is the first cousin to video resolution but they are not the same thing. Aspect ratio is exactly what it says it is, it's a ratio. More specifically, it's the ratio of width to height in your video, not the width and height themselves, the ratio. The most common aspect ratio is 16 by 9, 16 being the width and nine being the height. It's a 16 to 9, as in longer than it is tall. If you're watching this video on a computer screen or a mobile phone, this is the aspect ratio that those devices are built in. If you were alive before the 1990's and capable of cognitive thought, then you probably remember most computer screens and TV screens being a square shape. That square shape is 4 by 3. I bring this up so that you can see the difference between 4 by 3 and 16 by 9. Two completely different ratios and two completely different video shapes. Most of the time on an iPhone, you don't even have the ability to change this, which is good. Nobody really shoots in 4 by 3 anymore. There's no reason to use 4 by 3 unless you're going for some hipster '80's vibe to your video, whatever. Otherwise, just don't shoot in it. Your eyes view life as a rectangle, not a narrow square. There is no greater mark of an amateur videographer than the 4 by 3 dance cap that you don't even know that you're wearing. Now, before we move on, I do want to point out that a movie theater screen and an iPhone screen are 16 by 9 ratios. Two very different screen sizes that require two very different resolutions, but the same aspect ratio. Easy enough, right? Let's go talk about frame rates.
6. Understanding Frame Rate: What's up? It's time to talk about frame rate. No, this is not an iPhone app for rating picture frames in your nearby area. It's the frequency at which video frames are recorded per second. This is called frames per second or FPS. What is a video frame? Well, it's basically just a picture, so frames in a video are just a bunch of pictures played one after another. Think of frame rate as the amount of pictures that are taken in a single second of your video. The lower the frame rate, the less frames you have, and the higher the frame rate, the more frames you have. Easy, right? Seriously guys, this is one of the most commonly overlooked delicacies to awesome video ever. The most common frame rates in any modern day camera is anywhere as low as 24-240 frames per second. If you were to record a video at 30 frames per second and record the exact same thing at 240 and then play them back, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference. That is, until you slow it down. See how clear the one on the right is compared to the one on the left? What is it about the 240 frames per second that make it so much better than the 30 frames per second slowed down to half speed? This is because with the less frames per second, the less information we have to work with in editing. Think of it this way, the human eye works exactly like a camera, except our human eye can only process around 30-60 FPS before not even noticing a difference. The only way we could, is if our minds could control time and space and slow life down to 50 percent speed. Well, 50 percent speed, it would be longer and slower. Unfortunately, science hasn't made a pill for that yet. Anyway, so why is this so important? Because when you're editing later, your eye is going to be processing it at around 30 frames per second, so when you slow a 30 frames per second video down to 15 frames per second, which is half speed, it's going to look choppy and frankly amateur. While slowing down a higher frames per second video like let's say 60 slow that down to half speed, and now you've got a nice smooth crisp 30 frames per seconds. Still slower, but now you have more frames in that video that make it a lot cleaner looking. To get truly smooth and crisp looking slow motion, you need a higher frames per second like 60-240. The other reason this is so important is because frame rate determines the style of our footage. Here are two shots of the same action. One is being played in 24 frames per second and the other in 60 frames per second. Do you see how the one that's in 24 frames per second has that classic movie theater motion blur to it? The one that's 60 frames per second is a lot crisper because it has more frames to blend. It gets a nice clear picture 60 times in a second compared to 24. Does this mean that you ever have to record in 24 frames per second? No, you definitely don't. You can record in a high frame rate and then bring it into editing later and render it out at 24 frames per second if you really want to. It's always better to record in higher frame rate if you can, so that you have the ability to slow down without it looking choppy. Makes sense, right? Head on to the next lesson and we'll nerd out about some lenses.
7. Lenses & Depth of Field: Most people on the planet know what a lens is, but few people know how much a lens really affects a shot. Every lens has what's called focal length, and focal length is measured in millimeters. You have very wide lenses, and you have very telephoto lenses, and you have lenses that can do both, which are called zoom lenses. I'm shooting on one right now. Typically, wide lenses are a lot shorter, while telephoto lenses are a lot larger. In order to figure out what lens you need to shoot on, you have to think about your shot. If it's an interior room, then a wide lens is going to pick up a lot more than a telephoto lens. This is because a telephoto lens doesn't allow you to back up very much to get everything in the shot. Anytime I'm shooting an interior that's small, I always use a wide lens. If you're shooting landscapes, you can get away with a wide or a telephoto if You Want. It just depends on what part of the landscape you want to shoot. If you want to capture the entire image, then go ahead and use a wide or standard lens. If there's a subject in the background that you want to zero in on, then you're going to need a telephoto lens, it'll save you a ton of walking. If you're shooting in low light, then a telephoto lens is going to cut out a lot of your light. It's going to make your image a lot darker. This is because the larger the lens, the more glass that's inside of it, and each pane of glass that's inside of it is going to cut out your light little by little. When you're shooting in bright areas, this isn't much of a problem at all, but in low-light conditions, you might want to stick with a smaller lens and just get up close to your subject. If you're shooting up close to an object, then a wide lens will not only get your subject, but it will also get the surrounding environment as well and provide a bigger picture of what you're looking at while a telephoto lens will really be able to close in the image and it'll create a nice blurry background, which is called depth of field. Depth of field is basically the range of sharpness in your image. You can have a large depth of field where everything is in focus, or you can have a small depth of field where only your subject is in focus, and the background is blurry. Here's a really shallow depth of field on a telephoto lens. I can cast it out or bring it back in by changing my focus ring. If you're filming people, then a wide lens and a telephoto lens are going to have very different face distortions. If you're shooting a rap video, use a wide lens, but if you're going to be shooting a wedding interview, for instance, you're going to want to back up and use the telephoto lens so that you can get close in on the emotion and retain a regular face shape. The wide lens really distorts your face. Just think about the shot and choose a lens accordingly. My all time favorite lens is the 18-135. I'm shooting on it right now; it's awesome. I highly recommend it because you can go from very wide, 18 millimeter, so I can be in a room and get most of the room, and I can zoom in to 135 and get really close up on objects and get that really nice blurry background depth of field going on. The worst thing is when you're about to miss a shot because you're scrambling with your lenses. If you're shooting on an iPhone, then you have a lot less control, but you are not out of luck. I shoot on my iPhone just about as much as my DSLR, if not more. There are special lenses that you can buy for your iPhone that'll give you telephoto, macro, wide, all that. I'll supply a link to Amazon so that you can check those out as well. Comes in this sweet case too. The reason I like this, is because you don't want to use the digital zoom function on your iPhone. It is absolutely the worst thing. It'll turn a great shot into a blurry pile of crap. Don't use the two fingers zoom.
8. DSLR: How to Change Resolution & Frame Rate: If you don't have a DSLR and you want to shoot on a phone or some other form of camera, then feel free to move on to the next section. If you do have a DSLR and you're new to them, then this stuff is important. This is how to change frame rate and resolution on your DSLR. They're all going to be a little bit different, but they all pretty much have the same menu functions, so just a little bit of searching and my DSLR might match the same as yours. Just turn on the camera, then go to the menu, which is at the top left of my camera. Then use the scroll wheel to navigate over to movie recording size. Click the set button to enter this menu item. Then you can use the scroll wheel again to change the frame rate and the resolution. This is not one of Canon's latest models because I'm not a baller like that but soon, hopefully, maybe, I don't know, we'll see. So I can only go as high as 1920 by 1080 at 30 frames per second. I have to drop to 720p in order to go to 60 frames per second. But anyway, this is how to change them on your DSLR.
9. iPhone: How to Change Resolution & Frame Rate: All right, I'm going to show you how to adjust resolution and frame rate on your phone. Just go to your settings, navigate down to camera, and tap on record video, where you can now pick any setting you'd like. Just like a high resolution, the higher frame rate you pick, the more space that this is going to take up on your phone. So 4K files at 60 frames per second are going to take up a lot more. Or also 1080 at 120 or 240 are going to take up way more than say 720 at 30 or 720 at 60. For regular video, I typically stick at 1080 at 60 frames per second, unless I find a reason to switch to 4K. If you go back one menu, you can pick on the slo-mo function and you can change your slo-mo settings. I typically set this at 1080 at 240 frames per second. This is so that when I'm shooting, all I got to do is swipe once and I can change from 1080 at 60 to 1080 at 240. Or if my regular video is set at 4K, then I can always switch from 4K down to 1080 at 240. The whole point of having this Slo-mo feature on your phone is so you can switch to it really quick. Set it at a higher frame rate so that you can get really crisp, clean, slow motion. Although if you're recording your grandmother blowing out her 92nd birthday candles, 1080 at 240 is a little overkill. You can get away with regular video at 1080, at 30 frames per second. But if you're very unathletic friend is about the tries first backlit for the first time, you want to get that in 1080 at 240. Trust me, you'll be really happy that you did. Also, while we're in this menu, turn on the grid function, just turn it green because this'll help later for rule of thirds and making sure that you have a very level frame with the horizon.
10. What's in My Camera Bag?: What's up, guys? I'm going to be going through my camera bag right now and discussing what I bring with me on the daily whenever I shoot and why I have certain things that might save my ass if I run into a problem. Let's get started. [inaudible] we go in here. First the obvious one. I've got my DSLR. Normally I got it into a protective case but for the sake of unzipping, here it is. I have a Canon T3i, this is an older model I'm looking at getting a new one soon. But regardless, very important for when you're shooting is to have something to shoot with. Up next, I've got my tripod. It's small, portable, lightweight. I've had this for a really, really long time. It was actually a hand me down from my dad. It's a [inaudible] lightweight fit in my bag. Gets pretty tall I think up to about like my chest level. Definitely recommend having a very lightweight nice tripod to travel with. I travel a lot when I shoot and this really comes in handy. Up next, I've got my laptop. I always bring this with me when I shoot, because when you need to transfer footage and your inner random place, it helps to have a fully charged laptop because I run out of space on my cards. Sometimes I forget to bring one, an extra one and you just never know when you're going to need to transfer your footage or when you're waiting out the rain or the sun's too harsh or whatever it may be, there's too much traffic noise. You can edit your videos while you're waiting. If you can fit your laptop, I recommend it. Just don't get your bag stolen and because I bring my laptop, I also bring my hard drive or drive and cable. This is very handy. Sometimes you run out of space on your computer and sometimes you need to give videos to your friends that you're shooting with, whatever it is. It always helps to have a hard drive or maybe a lightweight USB drive that you can swap between computers. Very handy. Another thing that I carry with me and I find this one probably the most helpful thing in this bag is a portable battery charger. I got this for $10 at Walmart. Super helpful. Turn that [inaudible] on. Pretty awesome. You can charge your phone with it, you can charge your camera battery, GoPro, whatever it may be. Just really helps when you're walking around and you don't have any outlets in sight for a while. Up next I have a shower curtain. This is a funny one. It's actually for lighting. I'll discuss more about this later. I don't carry this with me all the time but when I know that I am shooting a short film style video, I will bring one of these. Almost forgot, I also bring my charger to my DSLR. Don't forget that. You never know. I've got my microphone case. I'm actually using the microphone right now but inside of here, I've got a cable that plugs into my DSLR. I'm using the iPhone 1 right now. I've also got a windscreen that goes over my mic. When it's super windy, you can throw this. It's actually called a dead cat as well. A funny name, but you can throw this on the mic and it blocks all the wind. Very helpful. I've also got a light that goes on top of my DSLR. Pretty bright. It actually attaches onto the top with the hot shoe mount. You just slide it right on, spin it. Then I can shoot with some light and I've got my lenses for my iPhone. I like to shoot them iPhone a lot, it's really convenient and handy. These are lenses that go over the iPhone. They are telephoto wide, a CPL lens, and a macro lens. You just clip on to the front. They were pretty cheap pile like $20 on Amazon and last but not least, I have my Osmo Mobile case by DJI. Inside of it is my DJI Osmo Mobile. It's great for stabilization. Your phone goes on it. I'll talk about more about this later, great tool. Inside of the case, I've also got the charger for it. I've got a car charger. This is good if you don't want to waste that portable battery that I showed you, you can use a car charger if you're near your car. This is good have. I've also got an extra battery for the Osmo. Always good to have extra batteries. I don't have an extra battery for my DSLR, you definitely should. The reason why I don't is because it's so old and I don't think they make them anymore, but a good idea to have extra batteries and that is it. All of that probably chaps up to about 20 pounds maybe. I travel a lot when I shoot like I said. It's really not that bad. I'll leave a few things behind if I know that I'm not going to need them, but in general, good to have backups for things, good to have other ways to charge anything that'll save your battery. With that said, let's move on to the next section.
11. Exposure: Intro: Exposure. No, I am not talking about a naked man in a trench coat or the reason that you get tricked into doing work for free. I'm talking about the amount of light in your video. Exposure in the simplest terms is how bright or dark your image is. Knowing how to get proper exposure will set the professionals apart from the amateurs. Nothing sucks worse than getting into your editing program and importing your footage only to realize that your shot is super blown out like this, or it's super dark like this, and no amount of brightness and contrast filters are going to help you out. So in this section we're going to be talking about aperture and f-stop. We're going to be talking about ISO and shooting in low light conditions. As well as going over some typical exposure problems you might have while you're shooting and other parts of the camera that will affect your exposure. Trust me, this stuff is so important you are going to want to stick around.
12. Aperture & Shutter Speed for Cinematography: This next part is going to seem a little tricky, but I'm going to try to explain it as simply as possible. Let's do it. Every single time you take a video with your DSLR, there's a ring inside the camera lens that can be opened or closed to let more or less light into your video. This ring is called the aperture ring. The larger the hole, the more light comes in your video, making it brighter. The smaller the hole, the less light comes in, making it darker. Easy enough. Well, the camera gods wanted to throw a monkey wrench into that plan so they decided that we should measure in F-stops. In technical terms, F-stop is the ratio of focal length and aperture. What? That is boring, and confusing and stupid. Just think of F-stop as the amount of light that passes through your lens and into your video. But to make things more irritating, the camera gods were like, "let's measure them backwards." Basically, the larger whole is labeled as a smaller number while the smaller hole is labeled as a larger number. Stupid, but whatever. If you're shooting on a DSLR than you have to remember this and you might as well tattoo it on your forearm while you're at it. As far as iPhone's, you don't need to know aperture and F-stop. Apple made it real simple and just called that exposure. They just made one simple swipe up and down to change it. I'll talk more about that later. If you are changing the aperture on your DSLR, which is this number, you also have to change this number. This number is the shutter speed. The shutter speed works a lot like frame rate, except it's not for processing, it's for light. Basically controls how much light enters each frame of your video. The faster the shutter fires, the less light gets in while the slower it fires, the longer it's open, which lets more light come in. This also affects motion blur. Do you see what I mean about this section being confusing? Bear with me. Basically, the longer that the shutter is open, the more motion blur, as opposed to a fast shutter speed, which creates a sharper image. Typically if you're shooting in the middle of the day and there's a lot of light, you can close your aperture down to about 5, 6, which is a pretty standard size and get away with a faster shutter speed. If you're shooting in low light, you'll want to open your aperture up to let more light in and you'll want to use a slower shutter speed. This will also allow more light to get into your video. I just wouldn't use too many fast motions or else you're going to get a lot of motion blur. Head on to the next lesson and we'll talk a little bit more about exposure.
13. Why Shooting Darker is Always Better: So I've been sick for a little while, so I might be a little bit nasally. Sorry. If you can get over that, then we're going to be talking about why shooting darker is better than shooting brighter. Here's what I mean. In some scenarios you will come across a shot where you're trying to properly expose your subject and your background, or the sky, or wherever it may be, gets really blown out. This happens to me a lot when I'm shooting mountains and architecture and things like that, where I'm outdoors. Being blown out means that there's so much light that you're actually losing the image behind it. In this case, it is always better to underexpose just a little bit rather than to overexpose. Because when you underexpose, you can always bring detailed back out of it later in post with brightness or exposure effects. But once it goes too bright, there is no bringing it back. Once you've lost the detail behind the image, you can't recover it. So log this tip away in the back of your mind where you will definitely need it because it will happen one day where you're like, ''I don't know what to do. Do I expose for the sky? But now my subject is too dark. Do I expose for my subject? But now my sky is blown out.'' Just go a little bit darker. You can always bring those shadows up later while you're editing. Not too dark because then you will lose your image. Just a little bit, but a little bit brighter is way more catastrophic than a little bit darker. Remember that. Also, reviewing your footage in the middle of the day on your camera or your phone can be extremely deceiving. I've done it plenty of times where I'm looking at it going, ''Yeah, that looks about right.'' Then I get home later only to realize that I was completely wrong. It was way too overexposed. Sometimes out-of-focus. Trust me, it happens to the best of us. When you're outdoors, try and cover yourself with a shirt, or a towel, or a friend, I don't care and when in doubt, underexpose just a tad. Onto the next lesson.
14. How Frame Rate and Shutter Effect Exposure: This lesson is on how frame rate and shutter speed affect exposure. I know, one more thing to worry about. Frame rate and shutter speed both affect exposure in the same way. The higher the frame rate or the shutter speed, the darker the image, the lower the frame rate or the shutter speed, the brighter the image. The more light comes in. But shutter speed and frame rate are not the same thing. For you math junkies out there, a shutter speed of 400 is actually one- four hundredth of a second. For video that's 30 frames per second, that shutter is open for one-four hundredth of a second, 30 times in one second. You're probably thinking, Del, why are you throwing all this math at me? This is too much, this is supposed to be artsy, slow your roll. Lucky for you, you don't have to remember any of that math. All you have to remember is that the higher the frame rate or the shutter speed or both, the darker your image is going to be and the lower the frame rate and the lower the shutter speed the brighter your image could be. Here's an example, here's the exact same image with the exact same lighting conditions, except one is at 30 frames per second and the other is at 240 frames per second. If you want to capture something to slow down later in editing and you want to capture it at 240 frames per second, then consider casting more lights into your scene or shooting outside on a bright day. I'll show you how to change frame rate and shutter speed on both an iPhone and a DSLR in the next section. Now for shutter speed. Here's the exact same picture, except one of them is taken at a one second shutter speed and the other is taken at one-one hundredth of a second shutter speed. See how the faster shutter speed is way darker? To compensate on a DSLR, just open up your aperture a little bit more and let more light in and you can keep that fast shutter speed. If a fast shutter speed is on your video, you won't have a whole lot of motion blur. If it's slow, you will. All right, let's talk about how to change these settings on your phone and your DSLR.
15. Shot Composition: Intro: We have made it to my favorite part of the course. Shot composition for cinematography, feels good. Hands down, the most important part about shooting great video is learning the rules of shot composition. Seriously, it is more important than the birth of your first-born son. If you've taken my last course on photography, you'll know that I say that shot composition is the make it or break it between professionalism and amateur hour. You can have all the fanciest gadgets and equipment in the world for shooting awesome video and you could still shoot like your great aunt [inaudible] with a Razor flip phone. What is shot composition? Well, in order to know that, we have to know what is a shot, and a shot is just a frame that's arranged with objects and shapes that are used to make up a composition. Shot composition is just arranging that frame with these objects and shapes with purpose. You have to shoot with purpose if you want to be a good cinematographer. In these next sections, we're going to be talking about perspective and vantage point, and the 180 degree rule, and lead room, and headroom, and all these things. We're going to be talking about how you can use all these to help tell a story in your cinematography. Trust me, this is material you do not want to miss. It is extremely valuable. Pay attention, enjoy it. I'm going to make it fun. I'm feeling good, this is a good section. Let's do it.
16. Perspective and Storytelling: In this section, we're going to be talking about perspective and storytelling. Perspective is all about angles and camera position. If you don't like your shot, a simple change of prospective can get you what you're looking for. A lot of people tend to change their camera position so many times before they actually find something that they like. They're just hovering around like a cheetah stocking a gazelle waiting for their shot. I know this because that's what I look like. But to avoid this guessing game, you can learn the types of perspective and just think about the feeling of the shot that you're trying to get. I'll explain. First, you've got low angle. Low angle brings your viewer back to a child's perspective where your subject is much more superior at this angle. In a sense, low angle is like a child looking up at their parents, literally and figuratively. Kids look up to their parents and same with us when we look at a subject when we're shooting. When we look up at the subject, it's more important at this angle. We value it more. It's basically like being an ant in a jungle. Everything that you look at this angle has power. Just get as low to the floor as you possibly can. Or if you're shooting really high architecture, you probably don't even have to get on the floor. You can just shoot up at it. But sometimes you might have to lay on the floor to get the perfect shot. I do it all the time. You're probably going to look like an idiot when you do it. But whatever, I mean, the best video comes from doing things that other people aren't willing to do. You don't see a lot of tourists laying on the floor trying to get that perfect angle. Separate yourself from the tourists. Next is high angle. High angle can make your subject appear a lot smaller, and it can add a lot of depth to your video. You can use this angle to make your subject appear weaker and powerless. It's like an antagonist rising over a protagonist, and being powerful. Don't hate me. That angle makes you look weak unless you're trying to go for that. In travel videography, what I do is use a high angle to add a lot of depth to my scene and make my subject, which might be myself, look a lot smaller, like I'm an ant in a jungle, much like low angle does, but from a completely different perspective. It's showing how big the world really can be because it exposes a lot of the ground. It really just depends on what story you want to tell. Drones are really good for high angle. If you've got a drone, I definitely advise using it to get this type of angle. But if you don't, you can use a ladder. You can stick your hands in the air, stand on a friend shoulders for all I care. I can achieve this angle when I go on a hike and you get to the lookout point at the top. I mean, this angle is found in a lot more places than you'd think of. Next is first-person point of view. This is a great perspective for bringing the audience into your shoes. This perspective is like you're looking through the eyes of the person who's experiencing it, and it can add a lot of realism to your video. A GoPro is the most obvious choice for this type of perspective. I use this when I'm doing action sports like surfing and skydiving and things like that. You don't need a GoPro to do this perspective. You can hold the camera where your eye is looking, but you are limited to what you can perform while doing this. That's why I like the GoPro. I don't really shoot entire videos with this perspective, but I do sprinkle them in on my regular edits to keep my viewers on their toes and make them feel they're really, there. Lastly, we've got close-ups, medium, and long shots. The difference between these shots is simply moving your camera closer or farther away from your subject. But remember that every single shot helps tell a story. Think about your entire scene first before you determine how far or close you need to be to subject. Let's say that you're shooting a conversation between two people. A close-up is used when things get really serious or intense and the conversation gets really heightened. We use close-ups to move in on their face. But more importantly, their eyes. Their eyes are the most important part. It's what gives away the most emotion. The closer the shot is to the eyes, the deeper it's going to feel. Is this deep enough. Also, close-ups are great for product shots and macro shots. If the conversation is fairly calm and normal, you can use a medium shot to keep the viewer at a distance and just simply establish who's talking. It all depends on where you want the viewer to look and why. The reason for us getting close is what's so important. You need to be close when things are intense and you need to be far when they're not. But long shots are a different story. Long shots are used to show a subject in relation to its surroundings. This type of shot is used to make your subjects stand out from the rest of its environment. Much like this shot that I got of my friend, Alex, while we're out in Peru in the middle of the desert. The amount of negative space in the scene really helps the subject pop out from the rest of his surroundings, and the distance gives so much depth to the scene. You can really see how vast the environment really is and how small the subject is in comparison to that environment. You could do this with a high angle as well. To make things look even deeper, you add an entirely new perspective to a long shot by using a high angle with it. You can mix and match these perspectives. Now that we've covered perspective and how it helps you tell the story of your scene, now we need to talk about vantage point and how it can help you. Head on to the next lesson.
17. Types of Vantage Point: It's time to talk about vantage point. Vantage point is one of the simplest and most resourceful things that you can find in your surrounding to help focus your viewers attention. Seriously, this automatically bumps your videographer points 10 folds. Vantage point is a point or an area of focus created by leading lines. Your eyes liked to be guided so as a cinematographer, we use lines in everyday life to help steer or lead the viewer where we want them to go. These leading lines usually start at the outside of the frame and travel inwards to a single point or area. Aside from guiding your eyes swiftly through your video, they're also really good for connecting the foreground to the background, the foreground being the closest area to the camera. Think of these lines as bait for your eye. When your eye catches them, they lead you from one part of the image to the next, and they do this all before your brain even has time to realize what's going on. It just happens like that. It's what determines a good image from a bad one. These lines can be found in streets, in buildings, in trees, in mountains, in water, literally everywhere. They're often just the line of contrast between light and dark areas like this image, or it's the line of contrasts between colors like a green tree line against a blue sky, like this image. There are two different types of leading lines. There's geometric and there's organic. Geometric lines are found in cities and urban areas where there's a lot of straight and obvious lines to follow like the tops of buildings and railings and streets, things that are perfectly lined up. If you live in a city, you probably see them every single day and you never thought to use them in your video until now. They're great tool for composition in your video because they make everything so symmetrical and well-balanced and on the contrary, we have organic lines which are a lot harder to follow sometimes. They tend to bend and to curve a lot more than geometric lines. They are like this instead of like this. They could be a mountain range, they could be a river bend, they could be a line of trees, really anything out in nature that points you into a single direction. Vantage point is a great tool for storytelling because it can help tell the story of where your subject is going or that there's an unknown journey ahead of them by using leading lines that lead off into the background. The most common form of vantage point is a road. There are roads everywhere. If you don't live near a road, I'm sorry, you need to get out of the middle of Kansas and come to where things are better. Sorry, Kansas, I've never been. If you can find a road, you can find vantage point, and if you can find vantage point, you found sweet video. If you can't find vantage point anywhere, which I find super hard to believe, if you can, you can use your own arm and a first-person perspective to get this type of shot. This will also help add some depth and some realism to your shot, but you should really only use this if it fits the story of your scene. You don't want to just throw a shot like this in randomly with a corporate video or a wedding video, it just wouldn't fit.
18. Rule of Thirds: All right. You guys are still with me? Because now it's time to talk about rule of thirds. Rule of thirds was created by a painter named John Thomas Smith back in 1797 while he was out writing a book on Rural Scenery. There's your history lesson. So with that boring crap out of the way, moving on. His concept was to split your image into nine different parts and most importantly, three different columns. His idea is that placing a subject on the left or right third, either on the line or in the space, would create tension for the viewer and make the image a lot more interesting. In my humble opinion, he was dead wrong. But this old dude staring at cows and tall grass was totally onto something. Because rule of thirds ended up balancing multiple subjects in the same scene and allowed the viewer to receive the composition as a whole instead of one single centered point of focus. A lot of paintings in the late 1700s were of portraits of people sitting usually in the dead center of the frame. If you're a history or an art buff, you'll probably be like, well, not all of them. Whatever. It doesn't matter. There were a ton of portraits and the rule of thirds totally disrupted that point. It carried over from painting to photography and now into videography and it's awesome. So, whatever. I'll show you an example right now. In this example, your eye doesn't immediately rest on the subject. It does see the subject, but then it explores the rest of the image and it looks at everything as a whole. With multiple subjects and great backgrounds, you really can use rule of thirds to balance everything out. In shots like this, it's best to give the viewer a few seconds to gather the rest of the image before moving on to another shot. Rule of thirds is also great with storytelling. If you're using a subject that's human and they're looking away from the camera. Rule of thirds can help you show where they're going and what environment that they're in. Remember how I asked you to turn on the grid earlier for your phone or your camera. Well, this is to determine the exact rule of thirds. It shows each of the three columns. But this is videography, not math. No one's going to care if you're a little bit off. You can put them in the column, on the line, between two columns. It doesn't matter, just get close. That's it for rule of thirds. Head onto the next lesson.
19. The 180 Degree Rule: Time to talk about the 180 degree rule. Much like closeups and mediums, the 180 degree rule is also used in conversations between two people. Think of it like you're the third wheel on a date. You're just watching two people have a conversation and maybe thinking about signing up for eHarmony. If you're watching the person on the right talk, they should be looking to the left of the camera, and if you're watching the person on the left talk, they should be looking to the right of the camera. This gives the impression that they're talking to each other. The 180 degree rule is a classic movie rule for a reason. The rule states that if you're watching a conversation, you need to stay on one side within 180 degrees when switching the camera between two people. If you go beyond the 180 degree, because your hatty fatty brain thought, "Man, this might be a cool angle, " you've now broken the 180 degree rule, which will throw off your audience and they're going to get immediately pulled out of your scene. You'll end up going from a shot like this over to a shot like this, and it's just not going to match up. It's going to look like somebody's talking to one person and then all of a sudden they switch and start talking to somebody else on the other side, as opposed to going from a shot like this, over to a shot like this. This is what matches up. It looks like these two people are talking to each other. I encourage rule-breaking in almost all aspects of life, but this is not a rule I encourage to break ever. Just trust me, do not break it. That's the rule. Move on to the next lesson and I'll see you there.
20. Lead Room and Head Room: Since we're on the subject of people, I want to talk about lead room and head room, and I'm going to make it as quick as possible. Head room is exactly what it says it is, it's leaving enough room for the head. Too much head room, and your subject is going to look really small and the composition is going to get thrown away off. Too little head room, and will pretty much just going to be staring at a torso and the top of your head's going get cut off and nobody likes their head cut off. It just looks sloppy, unbalanced, and just the mark of an amateur. Don't do it because remember, the eyes are the most important, so we want focus on the head. Now, lead room is used in movies when you have a human subject and people are acting. It's basically the amount of space that you leave on either side of the frame so that the subject has room to exit. Or you can also use it when the subject needs to adjust their position to talk to someone else, much like this shot. It's important to follow rule of thirds when you're doing this because leaving the appropriate amount of room can keep a nice, well-balanced shot. If you leave too little lead room, it's going throw off the entire shot and it's going to look really unprofessional. Lead room is also used in shots that have a lot of movement when your subject is moving in one direction. But we're going to talk about that next, in the next section on movement. Let's talk about it now.
21. Cinematic Movement: Intro: Movement and why cinematography needs it. This is my second favorite section and I'm pretty pumped about it. Photo and video are different for one simple reason, movement. It ain't called motion pictures for nothing. The more you move the more interest and realism you add to your shot. Next to shot camp, movement is by far my favorite part about cinematography because I love to shoot travel videos and music videos and things that involve a lot of movement. Movement isn't just about adding flare and style, it's also used to help tell a story and take your viewer from scene to scene as seamlessly as possible. It doesn't matter if you're shooting a scripted short film with characters on a plot, or if you're just shooting a recap of your vacation. Everything requires movement to help tell the story. In this section, we're going to be talking about all the different types of movement, when to use them, why to use them. We're also going to be talking about stabilized versus handheld footage. This is good stuff.
22. Handheld Vs Stabilized Footage: A lot of people may tell you that handheld footage is amateur, and it needs to be stabilized. They're half wrong, half right, both? I don't know. If the scene is intended to be hectic, like a car chase, or you're running away from something like the hungry grizzly bear that I talked about earlier, you're going to want to take the viewer on the ride with you and have a shaky footage. If it's not intended to be a hectic scene full of action, then shaky footage looks pretty amateur. There are plenty of ways to stabilize footage. If you've got a DSLR and want to stabilize that, you can use a Glidecam or a Ronin, or if not, you can make your own Glidecam by just having a regular tripod for your DSLR and attaching weights to the bottom of it. The weight at the bottom is what helps stabilize rough movements when you're holding the camera and walking. Having weight keeps these all nice and even. Just grab the tripod just below the camera and walk swiftly with one foot in front of the other, moving from heel to toe, heel to toe, heel to toe. If you're shooting on an iPhone, then my all-time favorite way to get really stable footage is DJI 3-axis gimbal called the Osmo mobile. This thing is seriously fricking awesome, not even kidding. They don't pay me to say this, I just really like the Osmo mobile. The difference between the two is night and day. The unstabilized versus the stabilized is amazing. It's electronic, so it can compensate for any amount of human error that we make while walking or running or tripping, whatever it is. It also comes with the software on the app called Active Track. You can select whatever object you choose, and it will constantly keep the camera pointed at that subject no matter where you go. This is how I do those crazy zooming hyper lapses. A hyper-lapse is just a time-lapse that's moving. Seriously, you can actually turn your head around backwards and not even look at it, and just trust that the Osmo is going to stay pointed at whatever subject you choose. Again, if you're shooting on an iPhone, this is a must-have. It is the first thing that I'll make sure is charged, It's the first thing that I'll put in my camera bag. It is well worth it. Now let's go over the different types of movement that you can add to your shots.
23. The Types of Movement: Let's talk about the different types of movement. I'm just going to jump right in. First, we have a dolly. A dolly is just a film term for a push or a pull out. This is done without zooming the camera. It's done by moving the camera forward or backward physically. A push in is great for building suspense in a scene. You can do this with people or architecture or whatever it may be. Whenever you push in on it progressively, you're closing in the scene and adding importance to whatever is in the center of the shot. It could be a door, it could be a person, it really doesn't matter. Whatever you're pushing in on, you're adding a lot of importance to while a pull out can be used to reveal a scene, or more importantly, the depth in that scene. As we pull out, the scene grows larger while the subject grows smaller. This tells a subtle story about the subject fading into their environment or maybe being a small piece to an even larger puzzle. A push in or pull out will depend on what the story is of the scene that you're trying to shoot. If you're not sure, just try them both. It's always a better option to have more video. A push in or a pull out can both be used to achieve a really cool vertigo effect by counteracting it with an opposite zoom. A vertigo effect is that style where the foreground or maybe your subject and the background are sizing differently. If you're pushing in on a subject, you can pull out the zoom at the exact same time on your DSLR to achieve this effect, or if you're pulling out, you can push in on the zoom at the same time. This might take you a few tries to get, but if you can do it, it's really cool. If you're shooting on an iPhone, I typically do this by doing a normal push in and then in editing later, I keyframe the scale to go down as I'm pushing in, or if you're doing a pull out, I keyframe the scale to go up at the exact same time. If you do this right it will achieve the exact same effect as pulling in your zoom on a DSLR. Basically the science behind a vertigo effect is that it's just a continuous change in focal length as you're pushing in or pulling out. It goes from a wide to a telephoto, or a telephoto to a wide. This was popularized in the movie Jaws by Steven Spielberg, but it's been around for a while. Next, I want to talk about the revolve shot, the rise up and the drop down. But first, you have to understand point of interest. Think of your camera being attached with a string and a ball at the end. Wherever that ball is placed, it doesn't matter where you move your camera, that ball is going to stay in that exact same spot. The camera is fixated on this one point. This is the point of interest. Wherever that spot is, is what your subjects should go. If you're doing a revolve shot and moving left to right, your subject should be your point of interest. You're evolving around your subject. The revolve shot is great for product shots and showing all sides of your subject. It adds a 3D element. A rise up can be a really good transition from a low angle to a high angle. It can be used when you want to transition your subject from being tall and confident to being weak and scared, or you can simply use it to reveal more depth in a scene. Remember, we talked about high angle showing a lot of depth because it shows a lot of the ground. A drop down is pretty much the exact opposite. It's when your character goes from being weak and scared to being confident and tall and strong, like when they go from being kicked down to regaining the throne, or let's say your characters facing away from the camera. A drop down can reveal what they're looking at. This is an awesome shot for when your character finally makes it to their final destination and they're looking up at it in awe. It's where their journey has finally led them. Remember, it's a transition shot, so it should be motivated by the story and their surroundings. Also, a rise up and a drop down can be done without using point of interest. Basically the point of interest just goes straight up or straight down with the camera. These have really similar effects to using point of interest. It just depends on which one fits your scene better. Next, we have a pan. This is where your point of interests moves from left to right, but your camera stays in one spot. Honestly, this is the easiest and most used camera movement out there, and I rarely use it when I'm shooting professional video. It's basically just the tourist movement so that you can show [inaudible] where you are. On the contrary, you've got lateral movement, which is where you're just strafing the same direction that your subject is moving. Strafing is where you're moving the camera and the point of interest at the exact same time, when you do a movement like this, you can choose to leave your subject in the dead center of the frame, or you can leave some lead room. Remember how we talked about lead room earlier? It's used in movement as well. When a subject is traveling, we leave lead room so that we can see what's coming. If they're walking right up against the edge of the frame, it's going to be a little weird, leaving no lead room at all is really awkward and unbalanced. Scoot your tissue and get ahead of them.
24. Bonus Technique: Starting and Clearing the Scene: Want to learn something cool.This subject is on Starting and Clearing the Scene. I want to make this one quick. So starting and clearing the scene is a technique that I use in my videos all the time. It's basically just a fancy pass by a transition where you stitch one shot to the next with an object. This type of transition takes a little bit of time in editing, but if you shoot it right, you can get really creative with it. All you really need is an object in your surroundings that's big enough to cover the camera and has some room to move behind it. Just look for trees, buildings, light posts, and any other tall object in your surroundings. I usually begin by setting and locking my focus and my exposure onto my subject. I start the scene by hitting record, showing my subject. I get behind the object and then if you want, you can move behind another object. This is one of those times where you keep the point of interest on your subject. If you do it right, you could stitch two shots together to make a seamless transition. This type of shot looks great when the camera is stabilized. So a gimbal is going to be your best friend here, but you don't need it. I just recommend it. You can do this with almost any camera movement. It doesn't matter if it's a rise up, a drop-down lateral movement. But when you're first starting out, I recommend using a revolve first, let's talk about drones now.
25. Lighting for Cinematography: Intro: Let's talk about lighting. Why is it important? Knowing how to lighting properly is such a commonly overlooked skill. Probably because when the lighting is good, it goes unnoticed. The scene just looks like a quality scene and you just sink into the content. But when the lighting is bad, it definitely goes noticed. People will notice the low production quality immediately and be less trusting in your video. If I would have really poor lighting, like this, while trying to explain a professional concept to you, you'll feel way less inclined to trust me, as opposed to good lighting. Good lighting shows that the company or person has put time or money into their delivery. Lighting can also be used to set the entire mood of a scene from high contrast, the style of lighting for suspense to fantasy, dreamlike lighting, to happy and bright lighting. Changing your lighting setup, or even just changing the angle of your camera to get different lighting, can affect your entire shot. This is why lighting properly is about lighting purposefully. Lastly, good lighting saves you time and editing later. You'll thank yourself. The worse your lighting is, the more time you're going to spend an editing letter, boosting the exposure, pop it out the shadows, changing the color temperature and all that. It is just going to waste your time because it's still going to come out subpar. In this section we're going to be talking about shooting with outdoor light versus shooting with indoor light. Shooting in low light and even white balance and color temperature. Let's do it.
26. Shooting Outdoors with Natural Light: Shooting outdoors with natural light. Shooting outdoors can be a bit of a challenge. You always have limited sources of light and nine times out of 10, the sun is all you've got. Sure you can lag around lights and extension cords and balances and light stands and all the crap with you but who wants to do that? That's why I rely on resources in my surrounding area, different camera angles, and a shower curtain. I'll get to that one. The very first thing to know about shooting outdoors is the best time to shoot. The best time to shoot is golden hour. Golden hour is the hour just before sunrise and sunset when the light is lower and softer and so much less harsh. The lighting is also warmer and much more evenly displaced. There's a reason sunsets had been watched since the beginning of time. They're beautiful and they can make any shot that much more appealing. You can also use the sun as a backlight to separate your subject from their background. If you're shooting during golden hour, this can add a really nice orange glow around the edge of your subject. You can also adjust your exposure to get a really nice silhouette effect. Golden hour is the only time to make this look really cinematic. But by changing your shooting angle to the other side, you can now fill your subject and your background with light. It all just depends on what you're going for in your video. But a simple change of camera angle makes a world of difference. So even if you're just trying to take the perfect selfie, just try standing near a window where there's more light, Instagram pro tip. If you're shooting around noon and the light is extremely harsh and directly overhead, this is where the shower curtain comes in handy. The shower curtain helps diffuse the light and make it a lot softer. Diffusing, meaning that it's breaking up the light rays and evenly displacing them onto your subject, you can get a cheap shower curtain anywhere. I got mine at Walmart. It's the white one, don't get the frosted one, don't get the clear one, get the white one. All you have to do is spread the shower curtain above your subject to diffuse the light. Here's what it looks like before the shower curtain with the harsh light versus with the shower curtain above the head of our subject. See how much more evenly displaced that light is. Ideally, the best time to shoot outdoors is on an overcast day where the sky acts like a giant shower curtain and it diffuses all the light. If you see an overcast day, take advantage.
27. Shooting Indoors with Controlled Light: This is Shooting Indoors with Controlled Light. Back when I was in film school, my lighting professor used to say that we were painting with light. I thought he was trying to pull some dead poets society crap and be all like poetic about it. But he had a point. You really do have to paint your scene with light. Like I said earlier, we have to light purposefully. Proper indoor lighting is the best way to achieve high production quality. You can do this with a three-point lighting setup, which is where you have a key light that's placed off to one side of the camera that provides you with most of your light. A smaller fill light on the opposite side that fills in those shadows and the backlight which gives a nice edge to your subject and separates them from the background. With the right positioning you can do this with simple household lamps or even windows. Obviously, you have to wait until the right time of day to use a window as a key light or you can do my version, which is VLOG lighting. This is where you put two lamps on either side of the camera to evenly fill in the face and one light on the floor back behind you that points up at your background. It's legitimately what I'm using right now, three household lamps, not even kidding. I didn't spend more than $15 on bulbs. The floor lamp gives a nice like vignette effect back here. A vignette is when you have faded dark corners around the frame of your image. The only thing to know about doing this VLOG lighting setup is having the right color temperature bulbs, which we're going to talk about next.
28. Color Temperature: Understanding white balance and color temperature. A very important part about getting the right lighting is understanding what white balance is. White balance is what we set on our camera to counteract different color temperatures from certain light bulbs, or lighting conditions if you're outside. Color temperature, in a nutshell, is how warm or cold your scene looks. If you're lighting your scene with tungsten light bulb, which is the most classic common light bulb, it's kind of an orange-ish color that's found in most households, this is going to give you a very orange tint to your scene. The color temperature of tungsten light ranges from about 1,000-4,000 Kelvin on the scale, Kelvin being a unit of measure for absolute temperature. A lot of newer fluorescent bulbs that are more energy efficient emit a color temperature of about 5,000-6,000 Kelvin. It's a lot colder. This color of lighting is great for studio lighting. It's actually what I'm using right now with the light bulbs right behind my camera. It's giving my face a nice neutral white look. The one behind me for my background light is just a regular tungsten light. You can find both style of light bulbs at any local Walmart or home improvement store for like 5-8 bucks, way better than spending $80 on a professional lighting kit. Now, 6,000-10,000 Kelvin is basically the range of our blue sky. Most stores don't even sell a bulb this color unless it's like a party bulb, which is tacky, so don't use it. Another thing to know about buying bulbs is the wattage and the lumens. Check the lamp that you're putting the bulb into to see what the maximum wattage is and make sure you buy a bulb below that setting. Last thing we want to do is start a fire and it won't be my fault because I didn't tell you that. You can also see how many lumens the bulb puts out, which is basically how bright the bulb is going to be. It's usually better to buy a bulb with higher lumens because you can always cut down the light or diffuse it with, say, the shower curtain that I talked about earlier. Just put more layers of shower curtain in front of your light to dim it down as much as you need. I don't really think I need an example to show that. If you don't want to go spend $5-8 on different bulbs, you can work with what you've got at home. You'll just have to change the color temperature later in editing. Most editing programs have a temperature or a cast lighter that you can drag back and forth to adjust the white balance in your shot. You don't have nearly as much range as just buying better bulbs, but anything helps. They also have lighting kits on Amazon that you can buy, but I'm a do-it-yourselfer and I kind of enjoyed making my own lighting setup. The bulbs I'm using for my fill lights, which are the ones on either side of the camera to fill in my face, are 1550 lumens. They're also 14 watts and about 5,000 color temperature. The one I'm using, the light in my background, is a regular tungsten bulb. It's about 2700 Kelvin, 500 lumen, and about 9 watts. I just use regular cheap lamps that I can find at Walmart or Target to power these bulbs. If you'd like to make your own lighting setup for vlogging, you can use my recommendations, and just start playing around, and see what you like. I'll put my bulb settings again on the screen right now.
29. Visualize the Scene: Location scouting is about finding the most well fitting and best looking places to shoot. It can be fun and it can be a huge pain in the neck. Location scouting is one of those things that you don't want to do if you're on a time limit. One of the things I've hated is being on a family vacation or something where I have to go somewhere soon and I'm rushing all of my locations, I end up coming out with crap. The only real time limit you should have is trying to catch golden hour before the sun goes down. There are some things to ask yourself before finding the most fitting place to shoot. The first one is, what does the lighting look like in your vision of the scene? Is it sunset? Is it soft and romantic? Is it contrasty and dark? Or is it white light? Is it warm light? The answer is going to matter for when and where you shoot. The second question to ask yourself is, what type of shot composition does the scene involve? Will it looked best with vantage point, is it a low angle or a high angle? Close up or long shot, also going to depend on where you shoot. The last question to ask yourself is, does it involve movement? This will determine how much space that you need to get the shot and what's in your surrounding area that might prevent you from getting that movement? Does it have objects to start and clear the scene with? Does it have room to do a push in or a pull out? These questions matter and they're going to make your location scouting process that much simpler. Just write down your requirements for movement and shot composition, and just hop in the car and go explore. The goal is to find a place that checks off everything on your list. You might need to try two or three places before you find the right one. Be patient and don't set an alarm clock.
30. End & Thankyou: That is it, guys. We have made it to the end of the course. Congratulations. It is all done. I encourage you to go out and practice. Make a lot of mistakes because that's where you're going to learn the best. We've gotten a lot of information in the last, I don't know how many hours this course is going to be at the end. I've got some notes at the end of this course that you should print out and keep with you for when you need to look back at all this stuff. Guys, every rating and review helps my credibility grow and it matters so much more than you think. I would greatly appreciate it if you did. If not, it's cool. If you want to leave me some feedback, you can do so publicly or you can private message me. I'd be more than happy to make changes wherever necessary. Once again, congratulations. I cannot wait to see what type of stuff you guys put out. If you find me on social media, feel free to tag me in some stuff. I hope you guys enjoyed it. See you on the next course.
Dale McManus, Photography, Cinematography, Music
