How To Get Your First Filmmaking Job - Filmmaker Pro

1. Intro To Filmmaker Pro: [MUSIC] Welcome to Filmmaking Pro. I'm Mauricio Celis, and in this class, I want to be teaching you how to get your first film-making job fast so you can quit your 9:00-5:00 job that you hate and enter in the video industry. Whether you're a beginner or intermediate, I think you'll definitely get a lot of value out of this class. I will be discussing what's geared by, how to use your gear, how to record audio, how to light up your scene, how to make your image look cinematic, storytelling, editing, building a portfolio, and reaching out to clients. For my introduction, since you guys are watching this video, which I appreciate it, I'm going to give you a few tips for free. Yes, free. Let's begin. When you're first starting now, before you even start buying gear, think about what kind of videos you will love to shoot. This can save you a lot of money and time. For an example, if you wanted to shoot real estate, you need a wide-angle lens and a camera body that does well in low light. If we want to shoot sports, you need a telephoto lens to capture the action and fill in your frame. If you want to shoot feature films and your goal is for one of your films to featured in Netflix, you need a cinema camera so you can get the highest quality. First decide what genre of film you want to shoot before buying the gear. But then, you're probably thinking, how am I supposed to pick if I've never shot anything before? Well then I recommend buying a cheap camera kit like the Canon SO2 with the 18-55 millimeter lens. You can try out all of these genres of videos, you can make a decision because now you have experience and can choose which one is your favorite. Next is cinematic. How can I make my image more cinematic? Well, it's mostly done by lighting and composition. Lighting to give the look and emotion of your film. Like if you want to make your film feel moody and dramatic, then a dark blue could be the best for you. If you want to make your film look happy and dreamy, then having more light will be the best. There are many types of lighting styles, so there is no right or wrong answers to this. Which is the best part of this career? You are the artists. You are telling your story your way. If you want to do it like this, no one can tell you it's wrong because this is how you want to express yourself. This is how you want to tell your story. Sure, there maybe better ways, but you decide how you want to do it. Other than lighting, composition is a big deal in cinematography. How you place your subject and how you compose your image is important on making your film look more cinematic. Those are just parts of the things you'll learn in this class, but there's so much more like the settings on your camera, movement, drone, audio, sound design, music, transition, color grain and much more. Also, I will be teaching you what clients in jobs look for when hiring a videographer. I've been told multiple times by other people that they are impressed by my work with only having a few years of experience. They've been told me that my work is up there with other filmmakers who have 10 years of experience. That's insane. This shows that you practice and do it every single day, you can get your first job in a matter of just a few months. If you're interested in making money shooting videos, make sure you purchase the full subscription, and I'll see you guys then. [MUSIC] 2. Gear// What Camera To Get: [NOISE] What's up guys? In this video, we're going to be discussing cameras. So what camera should you get? Well, it depends on the brand, your budget, and the specs. If you have no money to spend, you can use your smartphone. Phones these days are becoming better and better throughout the years. If you had between $400-$800 to spend, I recommend getting the Canon SL2, the Sony a6400, or the Panasonic Lumix G7. If you have around $2,000 I recommend the Canon EOS R, the Sony A7c, or the Panasonic GH5S. If you have $5,000 to spend, I recommend getting the Canon R5, the Sony A7S III, or the Blackmagic 6K. When buying your first camera, make sure you check the release date especially if you're buying a used. You don't want to buy a camera that came out several years ago. Make sure you do some research and find a newer updated version that came out recently. I have a video later in this class discussing resolution. But typically, what this means is how many individual pixels are on the screen. You need a camera that can at least shoot 1080P because that is the standard resolution. Most cameras these days can now shoot 4K, which is a good and bad thing. The good thing is that you'll have a much better quality but the bad thing is that when you're editing, it will slow down your computer taking longer for you to finish the edit and also it has bigger file sizes, which you need more storage space, which will be more expensive. Next on the list is frame rate. If you're buying an older used camera, make sure your camera can shoot at least 1080P at 60 frames per second. This means that you can shoot in HD and slow-mo. You definitely need that option to shoot real estate, weddings, and action sports. All of the newest cameras can now shoot up to 60 frames per second, so you don't need to worry. Some of the most expensive cameras can shoot 4K at 60 frames per second, like my Sony A7S III, and even more expensive cameras can shoot higher frame rates like up to 1,000 frames per second. This is super slow. Next on the list is sensor size. There are four main sensor sizes you should know, full frame, APS-C, micro four-thirds, and smaller than half. So the bigger the sensor, the better your camera will be in low light because it provides higher ISOs. You also get more depth of field or background blur and your image will be less compressed, meaning it will be a much better quality. For an example, 4K on a full frame will be better than 4K on a smartphone. Yes, the resolution is the same, but the 4K on the full frame, will look a lot better. Also, depending on what camera you get, you need to make sure you get the right lens for your body. For an example, if you get a Canon SO3, you have to get a lens that fits that camera, which is the APS-C. If you have a full-frame lens and put it on a crop sensor camera, it will crop it in and then also vice versa. Next on the list is color. Which camera provides the best color straight out of camera. Canon definitely has the best color in the market. But recently Sony has been stepping it up, like the Sony A7 III their color is probably as good as the Canon colors. If you don't want to spend too much time color correcting, I recommend either getting the Canon or Sony. Next on the list is autofocus. Since I'm a one man crew and I shoot my tutorials by myself, I need a camera with great autofocus. Canon and Sony are the best ones so far. They both have great features like face tracking, eye tracking, and many more. More expensive cameras don't have autofocus because they're built to have another person dedicated to pulling focus. Last thing on the list is the function. Does the camera have a flip out screen so you can film yourself? Does it take great photos as well? Does it feel good in your hands? Is it too big, too small, too heavy? Does it fit on your stabilizer? Are the menus easy to learn. All of those questions you need to ask yourself before buying your first camera. Buying an expensive camera is worthless if you don't know how to use it. So make sure you learn and master the settings and techniques I'm going to show you in this class. A camera is just a tool to help you tell your story or sell a product. Don't focus too much on gear. Buy the equipment you need, then start learning the basics. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [NOISE] 3. Gear// What Lens To Get: What's up, guys? In today's video, I will be teaching you about camera lenses. I will be discussing the sensor fit, zoom versus prime, focal length and the brand. This is definitely one of the most important piece of gear, it's up there with having a great camera body. If you think about it. You spend thousands of dollars buying a great camera body, but then you put a cheap lens on it. It's like buying a Lambo with no engine, then purchasing a Toyota engine and you put it in the Lambo, why? You spent thousands of dollars of your body and you end up buying a crappy engine, that's not even a Lambo in my opinion. Anyway you get the point. Make sure you invest in some high-quality glass. First thing on the list is sensor size. You got to make sure you get the right lens for your camera body. I already talked about this in the previous video, but typically when buying a lens, make sure it fits on your camera. When you buy a lens, in the description it says this lens is for full frame or a crop sensor. Although you can't get a crop sensor lens and put it on a full-frame body, but it will cause vignetting on your image. Then the opposite, if you get a full-frame lens and you put it on the crop sensor your body, it will crop it in, like for an example, my Canon 80D is a crop sensor camera, and this SIGMA lens is a crop sensor lens. When I zoom in to 50 millimeter, it actually is 50 millimeter. But if I get my prime Canon 50 millimeter lens which is built for four frames. It has a 1.6 crop, making it a 80 millimeter. It's not the end of the world because you can do the math and find the focal length you want. Next on the list is zoom versus prime lenses. Which ones should you get? One of the difference between the two is that the zoom lens, it comes with multiple focal lengths. Like for example, a 24-70 will be considered a zoom lens because that lens covers focal lengths between 24-70, so you can go from wide to zoomed in, really quick. This is great for filmmakers that shoot weddings, live events, documentaries, and travel videos. Another pro is that you can save a lot of money by not having to buy multiple lenses. Like if you just buy zoom lenses, all you need is a 16-35, 24-70, and a 70-200. That covers from as wide as 16 millimeter all the way to 200 millimeter and you only need three lenses. But some of the costs is that there is a limit on how low your aperture can go. I have a separate video later in this class talking about aperture, so I'm not going to go into full detail. But typically what aperture does, the lower the f-stop, the more depth of field and the light you will get, because the lowest it will go is a 2.8. Unless you have Canon's RF lens, the 28-70 F2.0, but it's super expensive. Next is prime lenses. The biggest pro on prime lenses is the f-stop. These lenses could go as low as F1.2. Imagine how much depth of field and light you will get from this prime lens. The con of this lens is that you only get one focal length. You can't zoom in and you literally have to get closer or change lenses to get your shot. If you're just starting now, I highly recommend getting zoom lenses then later in the future you can get prime lenses. I forgot to discuss focal length that's why I got a haircut and the setup is different. But anyway, next on the list is focal length. There are three different categories: wide, standard, and telephoto. Wide angle lenses are good for landscapes, real estate, or if you want to capture more of your scene and frame. The 16 millimeter lens I mentioned earlier, this is a great lens because you can easily go from 16 millimeter to 35 millimeter really quickly and the standard lens is the 24-70. You can get wide and you can zoom in all the way to 70 millimeter. You can pretty much use this lens for any journalist video. Last is a telephoto lens, which is a 70-200. This lens is great for scenarios where you can't physically get closer, so you have to zoom in like if you're shooting action sports, concerts, or wildlife and much more. Last thing on the list is the brand. What brand should you get? Well, you should always get the original brand of the lens. Like if you have a Sony camera body, I recommend getting the Sony lenses, but I know they're super expensive, so these are the brands that I recommend. SIGMA is probably the best third-party brand and maybe even better. Not only are they high-quality glass, but they are super solid and also the price. These SIGMA lenses are literally half of the price of the original brand. Some other companies I recommend are Tamron, ZEISS and Rokinon. Other brands I don't recommend, try sticking to these companies that I listed. Those are all the things you need to know when purchasing a lens. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. 4. Gear// What Mic To Get: What's up, guys. In this video, I'm going to be talking about microphones. I'm going to be showing you the different types of mics, audio test, and price. There's basically four different types of mics, a shotgun mic, a boom mic, a lav mic, and a studio mic. Having different types of mics works best in different scenarios. The first mic I got is the shotgun mic because it's super versatile. It's great for running gun shooters. Even low in cash, I recommend getting this mic. The mic I own is the Deity D4 which cost me $90. There are other options like the Rode VideoMic pro-plus that costs around $200. Not only can you use this as your shotgun mic, but you can also use it as a boom mic and a studio mic. It doesn't do the greatest in all of these categories but is a great micro startup. Next mic is a boom mic. I don't have a boom mic, but this mic is used on a stand like this, and you have to connect it with the XLR cable and the audio interface like this. The one I've seen other creators use and recommend is the Rode NTG5 costing at $500. The best audio interface I've seen is the Zoom H6. Next mic is a lav mic. This mic is great for scenarios where the talent is going to be moving around. I use this mic when I'm out in the field shooting a tutorial. So it doesn't matter where I go, the audio is going to stay clean. This mic I'm using is the Tascam DR-10L costing at $200. The last mic is a studio mic. This mic is used more for talking headshots like this for podcasts, voiceovers, singing, and recording instruments. The mic I use is the Rode NT USB costing at $170. It's super easy to set up. It comes with a pop filter and a USB cable. All you're going to do is connect your mic, then bring your laptop or computer. Plug it in, open up the voice memos app. If you're on a Mac, adjust your settings and start recording. As you can see, each one of these mics has a different purpose for different scenarios. Just like having different lenses, they all have strengths and weaknesses. That is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [MUSIC] 5. Gear// What Tripod To Get: [NOISE] In today's video, we're going to be talking about tripods, model parts, sliders, and gimbals. I'll be discussing what they're built for, how to use it, and when to use them. Tripods are probably the most common used gear in filmmaking. Every filmmaker owns a tripod because it comes in super handy. Tripods are built to have a static shot, like in interview, a talking head shot, shooting a moving subject so the viewer focuses on just that, or a timelapse. But just because you're on a tripod, doesn't mean you can't add movement or be creative. Here are a couple of movements that you can do from a tripod. But first, make sure your tripod has a fluid head with a handle, so you can do these movements. First one is a tilt, either a up or down. Second is a pan, either a left or right. Third is zooming in using your lens. Fourth is using keyframes and posts, whether that's a digital zoom, a side to side, or up and down. Fifth is a focus pull. This is technically not a movement, but you're using focus to add motion in your shot. You can get super creative with just a static shot. Let me show you a couple of examples. First one, clone yourself. Second one, the masking. Third, [NOISE] the disappear, and forth, the jumpcuts. [NOISE] There are so many other creative ways you can utilize your tripod. Next on the list is how to use it. It's pretty easy. All you got to do is place your camera on the tripod, make sure it's nice and tight, extend the legs, make sure it's level, adjust your fluid head, and that's it. You can now begin shooting. Last on the list is, when to use them. I already talked about this, but typically you want to use a tripod if you're not planning on using a lot of movements, like an interview or a scene where it makes sense depending on the style of your film. [NOISE] Next on the list are monopods. It's like a tripod, but instead of having three legs, you only have one leg. You're probably wondering, why should I get a monopod when I already have a tripod? Well, for starters, a monopod is a lot lighter and easier to carry around. Also when shooting the hyperlapse, a monopod is much easier to shoot on, because when you're shooting the hyperlapse, you're taking a hundreds of photos and turning it into a video, and when you're on location, it's much easier to pick up a monopod. Another thing is if you purchase a monopod with a wide feet, it can stand on its own, so you can use it as a tripod. The last thing you can use it is as a gimbal. If you want to add a bit more movement to your shot, you can pick up your monopod and get those smooth shots. Sure, they're not going to be as smooth as a real gimbal, but there are a couple of tricks. First, check every camera or lens has stabilization. If it does, turn it on. Second, do the ninja walk. Third, walk super slow, and forth, add warp stabilizer in posts. That's it, you got yourself a smooth shot without using a gimbal. [NOISE] Next in the list are sliders. There's definitely a time and place for this specific equipment. Typically, sliders have much smoother and slower movements. This is great for interviews, music videos and scenes where you want such little movement. I currently don't own a slider, but there are two types of sliders. A manual slider, what you physically have to move it yourself, and a motorized slider, where the slider pretty much does all the work for you. Slow movements is not my type of shooting style. I like having intense movements on my shots, and I do that either handheld or a gimbal. For sometimes when I'm shooting a commercial, a slider would have been nice to have. The last thing on the list is a gimbal. This is used for situations where you want to add movement and keep it steady. You can pretty much use a gimbal for any genre, like real estate, music videos, commercials, documentaries, events, and weddings. Any type of video, a gimbal will come in handy. I currently own the DJI Ronin-S, and I absolutely love this gimbal. It's super easy to use and set up. I'm going to quickly show you how to balance a gimbal. First, attach all the pieces correctly, then remove the quick release plate, attach your camera on the plate, put the camera with the plate back where it was. Now, we're going to start balancing. First, start with the tilt axis, which is on a right side of the gimbal. Your goal is to have a balance to the point where you can move your axis and it will stay put. Start messing around with it until you find the sweet spot. Next, is a row axis which is in the back of the gimbal, just like your tilt axis has to stay put whenever put you move it. The only difference is now side to side. Last is your pan axis. Tilt your gimbal to the side and start adjusting the bottom part of the gimbal. Again, has to stay put. So start adjusting the axis until it doesn't move. That's it. You have efficiently balanced your gimbal, and now you can start shooting. As you can see, each one of these equipments is used for different situations. You can't just say one is better than the other one. They're built different. You figure out what you're going to be shooting most, and then just go from there. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [NOISE] 6. Gear// What Lights To Get: What's up, guys? In today's video, we're going to be talking about lighting. I'm going to be talking about the different types of lights, price, quantity, quality, and features. First is the type of lights. There are a lot of different types of lights that produce different results. Like this Godox light I have. I'm using it as my key light, and I'm using a softbox to make the light look more natural and flattering. You can also use this light as a rim light. You can put this cover hood to only light up a certain spot, which is the back of my head because I don't want this light to spill on my background. Next light is a LED panel. This was my first ever light I got. It's super versatile because you can use it as a key light. Is not the softest light. If you want to make it softer, you can get something white like napkins or a piece of paper and just tape over the light. Another way you can use this light is a backlight. This light comes with panels here, so you can take [inaudible] and bring some color in your shot. Last one is a tube light. These are made for situations where you're lighting a product and you don't want a huge reflection showing on your product, so it uses light to make it look natural. You can also use this as your practical light, meaning you can use this light on your shot. I'm sure you've seen this light on music videos and commercials. Next is price. I'm going to be showing you the best budget lights. For your key light, the best light I recommend is the Godox SL-60W. The newer light or the newer LED panel. There are more expensive lights like the Aputure 120d, the Falcon light, or the GVM LED panel. Next is quantity, meaning the brightness of the light. Typically when you put your softbox in front of the light, is not going to be that bright because the whole purpose of your softbox is to spread the light making it softer. When you have no softbox, the light is in one direction, making it brighter but harsher. When you buy cheap lights, sometimes you get a bit of color tin, and you have to end up color correcting it in post. But with the more expensive lights, you get a true white color to your look. Next is quality, meaning hard versus soft light. Typically when you're lighting a person, you want to use a soft light, but that's not always the case. Sometimes hard light can be a good thing. Great examples of hard light would be any dramatic scene when they're using ambient light, backlight to make a subject silhouette, or a spotlight. These are just some of the examples, and there are plenty of more ways you can use this lighting technique. Last thing on the list is features. Make sure you do your research on the light before purchasing it because not all of the light can do these features. I'm going to tell you. Ask yourself these questions. Do you want the light to be dimmable, bicolor, RGB, having controller, you want to take batteries, or do you want to plug it in an outlet. Not everyone is going to want the same features. The things that I want on the light maybe you don't need. For an example, I want a light that's bright, dimmable have the option to use soft or hard light, and a controller. First, as we solve these questions so you can find the perfect light for you, make sure you find the right light because this is what makes your film look cinematic and professional. Just by changing the light it can improve the production of your videos. That is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. 7. Gear// Do You Need A Drone?: [NOISE] Do you need a drone? If so, what drone should I get? What specs do I need to get the best quality? Do I need a license to fly? All of these questions I'm going to be answering. First, do you need a drone? Well, it depends. If you're going to be shooting in real estate and that's the only type of video you want to do, then that's a big yes. You definitely need a drone. The agent is going to request it for sure. As for other genres of video like music videos, commercials, feature films, events, you could get away with it but most of the time the client is going to request a drone and just to be safe, if you want to keep your client happy, then I recommend investing in a drone, so just in case you need it. Next thing on the list is the type of drone. What drone should you get? Well, DJI definitely makes the best drones out there. Depending on your budget and what the drone offers, here are my top three drones I recommend. If you're on the budget and all you want is a drone just to have one just in case whenever clients asked for one and you don't really care about the quality for now, then I recommend that DJI Mini 2, coming in at $450. If you have a little bit more money to spend and are willing to invest more of the quality, then I recommend the DJI Mavic Air 2 coming in at $800. If you have a much higher budget and want to get the highest quality possible, then I recommend the DJI Mavic 2, coming in at $1,600. Next thing on the list is specs. Well, typically you want a drone that can shoot 1080p at 30 frames per second. But now that technology is getting better and clients are expecting better specs, I recommend getting a drone that can shoot 4K at least 30 frames per second, and 25 minutes of flight time, at least 25 megapixels for photo and focused tracking which means the drone has built-in presets to follow you without having to control it yourself. Last thing on the list is a license. If you're going to be flying commercially, meaning you're getting paid, you need a FAA Part 107 license. It's an exam you have to take and you have to pay $160 to take the exam. I personally don't have a license because I rarely fly my drone but in the future when I start getting more clients I'll probably get my license or I can just hire someone who is licensed so I don't have to take the exam and maybe they have a better drone like the Inspire and they already have the Mavic Air 2 or the Mavic 2 so that way I don't have to pay for the exam and buy another drone. It's a lot easier, but that's pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. 8. Tech// Resolution & Frame Rate: [NOISE] In this section of the class, we're going to be discussing the tech side of film-making. In this specific video, we're going to be talking about resolution and frames per second. Resolution is the detail and quality of an image. A 720p footage is going to be softer and have a lower-quality look than a 4K footage, why? Well, because 4K has more pixels, the standard 4K has 3,840 pixels horizontally and 2,160 pixels vertically. While a 720p has 1,280 pixels horizontally and 720 pixels vertically. When getting the camera, makes sure it can shoot at least 1080p. 720p is outdated,1080p is a standard resolution as of now in 2021. But with no doubt 4K will eventually be the standard resolution. A lot of TV programs, shows, movies, computers, televisions are now using 4K. I recommend getting a camera that can shoot 4K as well. But you're probably asking is 4k worth it? Or should I just stick with 1080p? Well, pros of choosing 4K is you get a better quality image, you can digitally zoom in posts without losing quality and your work can stay up to date with a standard resolution. Cons, the file size will be larger, slowing down your computer when editing and taking up more space in your hard drive, which will be more expensive. But I think 4K is a great investment, it will be worth it long-term. Next, we're going to be discussing frames per second, it's literally how it sounds like, it takes a certain amount of still frames per second, turning it into a video. When you're choosing a frame rate, whether that's 24, 60 or 120 frames per second, you're literally choosing the mountain photos to appear in your image, making a motion image, or what we call video. Depending on where you live, it will depend on the standard of frame rate. The two most popular ones are NTSC and PAL. But since I live in the US, I will be using NTSC in this video. If you choose NTSC, your options will be 24, 30, 60 and 120 frames per second and if we choose PAL, your options will be 25, 50 and 100 frames per second. Now let's talk about when and why to choose a certain frame rate. 24 frames per second is what I call normal speed, because it's not slowed down and it is what we normally see in real time. Right now I'm shooting at 24 frames per second because I'm not planning on slowing it down and it looks cinematic. A lot of Hollywood movies are shot at 24 frames per second for the amount of motion blur. 30 frames per second gives a broadcast few twists smoothing out the emotion of your image. I rarely shoot at 30 frames per second, but if I ever shoot at 30, I will use that option if they want to go for that broadcast news report look. I also chose this frame rate if I want to slow it down by 80 percent, which is slightly slower than 24. 60 frames per second is slow motion. I choose this frame rate if I'm planning on slowing down, which is 40 percent slower. I normally choose this option when I shoot real estate, weddings, burial or chars where there's a lot of movement. A 120 frames per second is super slow motion, this is 20 percent slower. Not a lot of cameras have this feature, but definitely a unique option to have in your camera. I've seen many people who shoot at 24 frames per seconds, then slowing it down, never, ever do that. It will be super choppy and unprofessional, but what if you don't know that you're going to slow it down later on posts, then I recommend shooting everything as 60 frames per second. I'd rather shoot everything at 60 frames per second, not slowing down the footage and having this smooth broadcasts look, than shoot everything like 24 frames per second, slow that down and have choppy footage. Keep in mind, depending on the frame rate, your shutter speed will be different on each frame rate. I talked about shutter speed later in the class, particularly when your shutter speed does, it affects your motion blur and the reason I brought up shutter speed is because when choosing a specific frame rate, your shutter speed has to be double the frame rate. For an example, if you choose 24 frames per second, your shutter speed must be one over 50th of a shutter to get the most natural motion blur. When choosing 60 frames per second, you have to choose one over 25 of a shutter. Make sure you learn these techniques and have your reason why you are choosing a specific setting. So that is pretty much it. If we have any other questions proofread, hit me up. [MUSIC] 9. Tech// How To Expose Your Footage: [MUSIC] In this video, we're going to be talking about shutter speed, aperture, ISO, picture profile, and white balance. Exposing your image is used with three settings, your shutter, aperture, and ISO. Shutter speed. Shutter speed affects your motion blur. The lower the number, the more motion blur you will have. The higher the number, the less motion blur you will have. Think of it like this, when shooting video is basically taking still frames and turning them into a video. Like in the previous video, we talked about frames per second. Each frame your camera takes, the shutter speed is taking a photo with a specific shutter. When you take a photo with a low shutter speed, there is a lot of motion blur and when you bring up your shutter, your photo is sharp, and it freezes your action. It's the exact same thing with video, but you're now taking multiple photos and turning them into a motion image. But keep in mind when you bring down your shutter speed, it receives more light into your sensor, making it brighter. When you bring up your shutter, it makes your image darker. There's a rule in filmmaking about shutter speed. Typically, when you shoot at a certain frame rate, you have to double that frame rate to your shutter speed to have the most natural motion blur. Humans naturally see motion blur. If you wave your hand back and forth, you will see motion blur. For an example, if you shoot 24 frames per second, your shutter must be at 1/50 and when you shoot at 60 frames per second, your shutter must be at 1/25 of a second. Yes, you can shoot at a much higher frame rate, but it's not going to look as natural. When you're shooting outside on a sunny day and have the proper settings at 24 frames per second shutter speed at 1/50, your aperture wide open that F2.8, and your ISO as low as possible to avoid noise, it's overexposed, or it is too bright. There are three things you can do in this situation. You can bring up your shutter speed and have that jitter, unrealistic look. Bring up your aperture and everything in focus, or keep ISO settings how it is and get yourself an ND filter. I'm not going to go into full detail, but typically what ND filters do, it makes your image darker, so you can keep the settings you want to have that cinematic natural look. [NOISE] Next on the list is aperture. Aperture affects the amount of depth of field or background blur in your image. The lower the f-stop, the more blur you'll get, the higher the f-stop, the less blur you will get. Also, keep in mind when shooting with a low f-stop, your image will be brighter because your aperture is wide open, letting tons of light into your sensor. The higher the f-stop, your image will be darker because your aperture is almost closed, not letting a lot of light through your sensor. That's why lenses with low f-stop are more expensive because it gives you a more depth of field which everybody likes, and it lets in a lot of light, making a great lens for low-light. You'll probably hear a term like a fast lens because when your f-stop is super low, you're forced to bring up your shutter speed to around 1/2,000 of a second, so you can properly expose your image. Next on the list is ISO. ISO basically gives you extra light. For this setting, it's the complete opposite. The lower the ISO, the darker it is, the higher the ISO, the brighter it is. When you're in this situation where there isn't a lot of light, and it's too dark, this is where your ISO comes in handy. But be careful not to bring up your ISO too much because it will cause noise and grain in your image. There are some cameras that are going to do better in low light. For an example, a full-frame camera are going to do better in low light because of the bigger sensor size. Also, depending on the brand you get. Sony tends to have more cameras that do better in low light, especially the Sony a7S III. Since this camera only has 12 megapixels, it will do better in low light. That was Sony's overall goal for this camera, since it's a dedicated video camera. Next on the list is picture profile. Picture profile is the type of image. For an example, on my Sony a7S III, there are multiple picture profiles, but I can tell you the top four picture profiles I choose and why. The first one is SLOG 2. I choose this profile when I'm shooting in low light. The second one is SLOG 3. I choose this profile to get the most dynamic range. The third one is CINE 3. I choose this profile to get the most natural colors straight out of camera. Lastly, number 4 is HLG 3. I choose this profile to get the best dynamic range, but less flat. It's in-between a standard and a log profile. [MUSIC] Last thing on the list is white balance. White balance is the color temperature from your camera. When adjusting your white balance, your goal is to have your whites look white, not too blue or not too orange but white. How do you do that? You may ask, well, it depends on the lighting. First, let's talk about your options. It goes from as low as 3,200 Kelvin and as high as 6,000 Kelvin. Thirty-two hundred Kelvin gives you a blue look and 6,000 Kelvin gives you an orange look. Typically, when you're indoors, the lights are using are 3,200 Kelvin light, so you got to match that by choosing the 3,200 Kelvin option in your camera. When you're outside on a sunny day, typically you'd be using a 5,600 Kelvin. When it's twilight hour, you'd probably be choosing 6,000 Kelvin. Think of it like you're adding a filter. You're either adding a blue filter or a orange filter. Your DSLR gives you presets built-in like daylight shade, cloudy tungsten, and white fluorescent. Another option you can choose is auto white balance. This option lets the camera choose what it thinks it's best according to the light. This is a great tool to use if you're just starting now but eventually, you'll want to learn how to use it manually. Unless there's a show where you're going from inside to outside and the colors are changing. If we set it to manual, your indoor shot will be set properly, but once you go outside, it will be too blue. Another reason you can use auto is if you're vlogging because you don't really care about the production of the video, but you want to tell your story, and you don't want to spend too much time adjusting your settings. Those are the only two reasons I can think of when it's appropriate to use auto white balance. Other than that, I recommend you learning how to set your white balance manually. That is pretty much it. Those are the main settings you need to learn when you're out shooting. I highly recommend learning these settings really well because if your white balance is off it would really be difficult to correct it in post. Or if your exposure is off, you'll probably get a lot of noise in your image. Make sure you get it right on camera. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [MUSIC] 10. Tech// How To Shape Lighting: [NOISE] [MUSIC] In this video, I'm going to be showing you the different types of lighting techniques. These are the lighting techniques that I use and I've seen in movies. [NOISE] First one is Rembrandt lighting. This originally came from a patron named Rembrandt. He uses lighting technique on most of his paintings. What does lighting do? It creates depth on the talent's face, creating shadow on the opposite side. It also creates this triangle lighting shape on the talent's cheek. A lot of Hollywood movies use this type of technique giving it a more dramatic look. Also, depending on the position you place your camera. If you place it on the bright side, it's called the broad light. If you place it on the dark side, it's called the short light or dark side. This is the lighting technique that I use on all of my videos. I just like the way it looks, it's not too dramatic and it's not too flat. Second technique is the front light. This is by far the least cinematic lighting technique from all, because since the lighting is right in front of you, there's no shadows on the talent's face making it a flat image. This technique is used more on beauty commercials, comedy shows, because their goal is not to make it look cinematic, rather more natural. Third technique on the list is split lighting. Half of the talent's face is dark and the other half is lit up. This technique is used on dramatic movies or scenes making the actor look more tough and mean. Forth technique on the list is top light. What this lighting does, it gives the subject half shadows in the eyes and they call it raccoon eyes. Typically, this is used for scenes with artificial lights, like a light bulb spotlight, or even the sun outside, making them more motivated. This look can give a dramatic look to the actor, and making him look like the bad guy of the movie. Or if you can soften the light, they can have more of a natural look like an overcast day. It can also lit up an entire set. Fifth technique on the list is the bottom light. This technique is used more on horror films, giving them more of an evil look to it. This lights up the most unflattering look of the talent's face, like the chin and under the nose. But if you're going more of a hard look, then this is the lighting you should go for. Sixth technique on the list is back light. This will give the talent have silhouette look to it. This is good if you want to introduce a character but not fully yet, and having more of a mystery look to it. Or if the talent is doing some sort like dancing, running and things like that, this lighting is perfect for that. Seventh technique on this list is the rim light. I use this light to light up behind me so I can separate me from the background. These lighting can be used to introduce a character but not showing the entire face yet, giving more of a mystery look like the previous lighting we talked about. As you can see this shot, the back of my head is the only thing lit up, and it can give a cinematic mystery look to it. Last but not least, the eighth technique on this list is color light. This can enhance the look on your subject, giving more contrast. You can add contrast by lighting, depth, and color. You can get super creative with the color lighting, and it's endless what you can do with this technique. I'll just show you examples on screen right now. Depending on the story of the film and or scene, lighting could definitely help you give the appropriate look to tell your story. All these lighting techniques have a purpose, and you should have a good reason why you're using it. Don't just pick a certain lighting position just because it looks good, have a reason why you're doing it. If you learnt something out of this video, make sure you like, subscribe. I'm out [MUSIC]. 11. Tech// How To Shoot Outdoors: [MUSIC] Hard versus soft light. What's the difference? We're also going to be talking about natural light. But first is hard versus soft light. Hard light is using light with no diffuser or softbox, making your subject have deep shadows and bright highlights, while a soft light is the complete opposite, it gives your subject a much more soft and flattering look. Notice how the shadows are gradually blending in, it's not a hardcore like the other lighting technique. By achieving this soft look, all you're going to do is place a diffuser in front of your light or you can get a softbox and attach it to your light. Some of the gear I use to create hard light is a Neewer LED Panel, the Godox SL60W with no softbox, and the Neewer Round Light. The gear I use to create soft light is also the Godox SL60W, but now using the softbox. Also, use the Neewer Round Light but I keep the brightness at 10 percent to avoid hard light. When to use hard and soft light. Well, 95 percent of the time you'll be using soft light on people's faces. It gives you a more natural and flattering look, but a great time to use hard light is in a dramatic scene. If you use hard light directly above you, it will create this moody, dramatic, and tense look. Another way you can use hard light is recreating a silhouette look. This technique is super simple. All you're got to do is point the light behind your subject or point it at the background. Next is natural light, there are three things you should be aware when shooting outdoors. Number 1, the time of day, Number 2, the direction, and Number 3, the weather. Time of day. Depending on the time of day you choose, it will give you a different look. For an example for portraits shooting at noon is probably the worst time because not only the sun is directly above us, but it will give you a hard light. The talent's face is not going to look flattering and you'll be able to see every detail on the talent's face. It will cost unnecessary shadows on the talent's face, or what we call raccoon eyes. Avoid shooting at noon, but what if you are forced to shoot at noon? What can I do to have the best lighting? Well, there are three options you can do. First option is find a shaded area to have even lighting. Second option is bring a diffuser, and the third option is to use a reflector. This will fill in the shadow parts of your subjects so it's more even. Shooting at noon isn't all bad, it's great for landscapes because of the hard lighting which creates contrast and the law of saturation on your image. It's also great for sun flares, drone shots, and golden hour, which brings me to the best time of day to shoot, which is golden hour. Golden hour happens before sunset and after sunrise. This is by far the prettiest time to shoot because it creates this golden yellow light on your image. Take a look at these two shots. One was taken on a cloudy day and one at golden hour. As you can see, the one taken at golden hour is a lot more beautiful. I always try to shoot at this time when shooting landscapes. Next on the list is twilight. It's also referred to blue hour. This happens before sunrise, which is called dawn, and that happens after sunset, which is called dusk. This is the best time to shoot real estate, to show the lights in the house while still having some ambient light. This is also a great time to shoot silhouettes of your subject. Lastly is nighttime. Before I get into the shots, you can get make sure you got the right gear. First, make sure you got the right lenses. I already talked about lenses in a previous video, but what is this? It's a one focal length lens that has a lower aperture, which lets in more light. Another big thing to look at is the camera body. Full-frame cameras are going to do better in low light because of the bigger sensor size. Now let's talk about the shots. Shooting at night gives you a whole another feeling and vibe like depression, loneliness, flashbacks, and a tragic scene. But you can flip that around and change it completely like freedom connection, a happy ending, and fun. Shooting at night can be difficult because of the low light issues. What you can do is fake the night look, so pretty much you can film at daytime, I recommend an overcast day. In your camera, you could change the white balance to have a bit more blue look like 4,000 Kelvin, and underexpose your image a bit. Then in post-production, you can color grader a footage to have this night look. This is much easier and a lot less work because you'd have to deal with lighting your scene onset. [NOISE] Next let's talk about weather. We're going to be discussing sunny, overcast, and rain since these are the main types of weather that I have in my State. A sunny day is what I call normal, especially here in California, almost every day is a sunny day, so there's nothing special about it. As for a cloudy day, I guess super-excited. A cloudy day can be a great opportunity to shoot time-lapse because you can't create movement. An overcast day is the best time to shoot portraits. The cast create a big diffusion in the sky. Remember earlier when I talked about lighting people's faces, you need to put a diffusion in front of a light to create a much flattering look. Well, that's exactly what clouds do to create a big diffusion in the sky. Lastly is a rainy day. I have yet to shoot a film on a rainy day, but I've shot a couple of photos. A rainy day is a great opportunity to shoot reflections. I shot a couple of photos downtown using portals as reflections for my subject and it definitely enhances the photo or it can enhance your video. You can also use this opportunity to create texture on your subject by the drips of water like a car, a bench, buildings, and many more. As you can see, there are many different lightings you can choose for your videos. But be aware, don't just pick a certain lighting just because it looks cool. Have a reason why you're choosing that specific light to tell your story or to have a certain feel to it. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [NOISE] 12. Tech// How Set Up Your Audio Settings: [NOISE] I showed you what mics to get, but now I'm going to show you how to use it and how to get the proper settings to get the best quality. The first mic is Deity D4, which is a shotgun mic. I don't use this mic anymore because I upgraded to much better one, which we'll talk about in a second. But this mic is super simple to set up and doesn't need much adjustments. All you got to do is put the audio cable on the output jack in your mic and connect the other end to your camera audio jack. Turn on your camera and you're all set. The best thing about this mic is that it turns on whenever you turn on your camera, so you never have to remember to turn on your mic, especially when you are running gun shooter. To get the best quality, there's literally only two steps. On your mic, there is a switch, for me it looks a old shape heart. But what this does, it allows you to get audio from the front and the back of your mic. If you notice, the backside also has another mic. By switching it to dual, you'll be able to get audio from both sides. Right now I'm using that the Deity D4 with the front side only. If I turn it over, it's going to sound muffled because the audio is only coming from this side. Now I'm going to switch it to the double. Now this is it house sounds like when they have the double switch on. As you can see, it could get from the background and when I switch it over, it could also get the backside because I have the audio or the mic from the backside turned on, so it's going to capture audio from the front and the back. Honestly, I don't think I've ever used this feature. I just let the mic come from the front side because it sounds a lot more crispy. Also when you're shooting outside, you're going to capture a lot of background noise, so I just keep it at the front side to capture just my speaking voice. As for my camera's settings I have Sony A7S III, and have my audio level at nine. I find that a perfect spot because it's not too loud or it's not too quiet. You want your audio levels to sit between negative 18 dB and negative six dB. If it's too loud, you're going to hit that red mark and once you click that, you can't fix that audio. It's too distorted and not usable. But if it's too quiet, you'll be forced to bring up your audio and pause and it will cause noise. Just like when your footage is underexposed and you have to bring up the exposure in pause, you get noisy footage, same goes with your audio, but instead, you'll get background noise. Now, obviously you want to get the audio right in camera, but how to choose between having the quiet or loud audio? I would choose the quiet track because you could bring that audio up and add a base filter to reduce background noise, and post. It's not the best quality, but at least it's usable and you don't have to risk losing it completely. Once you've got the settings correctly, it's now how you place it. For a shotgun mic you want to have the mic between 6-14 inches from your mouth. I found that that is the best distance to get the best quality. If you're too close, then it's going to sound distorted and if you're too far, you'd get a lot of background noise and some echo. Next on the list is the newest mic, which is the Rode NTG. This is actually built as a shotgun mic, but I'm actually currently using it as a boom mic. This mic does have more button switch, but still very simple to use. On your mic you could see three buttons. The first one is the low and high filter. What this does is it gets rid of the low frequency noise, like traffic outside, all the rumbled noise on your mic. This feature will benefit most if you're shooting a talking head shot like this. I have that set as 75. The next button, it actually it has two features. The first one is it reduces negative 20 decibels, basically just making it a bit quieter. This will be great if you're shooting a loud concert. The next one, it allows you to have two tracks: one normal track and the other one, a much quieter track about negative 20 decibels lower. This is a good backup in case your normal track does peak. You can replace it for the lower track. You can have this feature on just to be safe, but I usually have it off. The next button is your power button. But just like the previous mic I showed you, this mic turns on when you turn on your camera. Last is this now. This is the gain level. Most of the time I keep it around nine or 10 depending on the situation. For the cameras settings, it's the same thing. I keep it at nine with the levels between negative 18 dB and negative six dB. For the placement, pretty much is the same thing as the previous mic, 6-4 inches from the mouth, and I don't point it directly towards my mouth, but down in my chest. I do that so I don't capture those weird mouth noises like this. [NOISE] I point it out a few inches below my mouth. Next, let's talk about the TASCAM, which is the lav mic. First, let's talk on settings. I'm only going to show you the most important settings that you need to know. The first one is the mic gain. I have that set at medium for the low cut which gets rid of the low rumble noises. I have that on limiter. I also have that on. It basically keeps your audio from picking. Auto level, I have that turned off and you'll see why later on. FS sample, I have it set at 48 kilohertz, because most cameras are recorded with that exact setting, so it will be much easier to sync up in post bit length. Set that up to 24 because it will basically give you the best quality. File type, set that out about mono. This will allow you to have an audio on both through left and right channels. Dual record, I have that set at negative 12 dB. This will give you two tracks, a normal track and a quieter track. That's why I set my auto level off because I will have two tracks and sometimes when I have it set to auto, the audio gets a bit loud in the middle of the clip and I get a bit noise. That's why I have the auto feature off and that's why I recommend having two tracks for backup. Track inc. I have that turned on. What this does is when you're recording audio for more than 15 minutes, it will make a separate track. Last thing on the list is power save. I have that turned on because sometimes I forget to turn on the mic, so when I stop recording and for some reason I forget to turn it off, it will automatically turn it off after 10 minutes without using it. I can save battery. These are the most important settings you need to know. There are other features on there, but I will just leave them the way it is. Next on the list is the Rode NT USB, which is my studio mic. I use this mic, when I do voice-overs or sometimes when I do tutorials. It's super easy to set up. I have this mic in the stand, it's clamped into my desk so whenever I need to record a video or audio, I can easily grab it and begin recording. Next, you need a cord with a printer to a USB cable. It comes in a box, but it's just way too long, so I got a shorter one that's six feet long. After you have the cord connected to the right place, I adjust the settings on the mic. The bottom one is for the volume gain to monitor the audio levels and make sure it sounds crispy clean. The top one is for the audio levels. I set it pretty low between Level 0 and Level 1. Finally I open up them Voice Memos. If you're in the Mac, it comes absolutely free. I do some tests, check if everything's working, and then I finally begin recording. For this mic, it's built for you to get close to the mic. It has a pop filter for when you use words like [NOISE], it won't distort it. Investing in different mics is super beneficial because they're built for different situations. If you're in the budget and you could only choose one mic out of all of these, I would honestly choose the shotgun mic because not only you can you use it as a shotgun mic where you put it on top of your camera, it could also be used as studio mic like this, or as a boom mic like how I'm using that right now. It doesn't do the greatest at all of them, but it's definitely a great tool to start off. Then after that, I'll go with the lav mic and then with the studio mic, and then with a legit boom mic. You can have the greatest mics in the world, but if your settings are off and you don't have the basic knowledge then might as well just don't get a mic. Use the built-in mic in your camera and just set everything to auto. That's just my opinion. But that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. 13. Shooting// The Importance Of Storytelling: In this video, we're going to be talking about storytelling. Telling the story through a visual imagery is very important. I'm not going to be talking about screenwriting like a feature film because that is a whole separate career and I don't have any plans diving deep into scripting or screenwriting any feature film. In this video, we'll be talking about the basics of storytelling. Your number one goal should be to create emotion. No matter how great your gear is, how expensive they are, the beautiful shots is not as important as telling a great story that people can feel. When creating a story, figure out what you want your viewers to feel. For an example, a travel video you want them to feel inspired, motivated, adventurous, and entertained. A realistic video, you want them to feel warm, welcoming, peaceful, and comfortable. For a commercial, you want them to feel like buying excited, convince, and impressed. Depending on your style of film or story you want to tell it will be different for each genre of video,. But these are the main feelings each of these videos will make your viewers feel. Number two is how can you tell your story? Well, there are two main things you should know and that is the flow and shot. The flow is how you edit your video. For example, a fast-paced style of editing will have an intense, quick and aggressive field and the slow pace will have more of a calm, peaceful, and usually beautiful field to the video. Another way you can tell your story is by the type of shot you choose. For an example, if you want a subject to feel strong and dominant I will choose a low angle shot and the complete opposite of that is a high angle shot making a subject look weak and frightened. Spend time on choosing the right angle to tell your story and don't confuse the audience. Number three is music choice. Music can make your film ten times better. Make sure you spend time on choosing the right music. It makes sense to spend as much time finding the song or even more time than shooting and editing the actual video because you spend hours or even days planning and shooting your video and to just end it with an average song is just a waste of time. You could have found a great song and turn your video from a okay video to an amazing video. Also, songs naturally have stages like an intro, rising action, climax, falling action, and outro. Pacing the music to your video will be a bit easier. Number three is color. Depending on the story you're telling, it would depend on the color grade you choose. For an example, a warm tone will fit best for a happy, peaceful, beautiful, and hot view. A cotton will fit best for a dramatic, intense, cinematic and action field. These are just my opinions but you can definitely choose any color grade and have your own meaning to it as long as you have a good reason to back it up. Some other color grades, you can choose are desaturated teal and orange saturated and a dreamy look. Number four is stages. There are five stages when telling a story. The background or intro, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution or outro. The background is used to show where the scene is going to take place, like a wide-angle shot or a drone shot. This is a great way to introduce your location or time of day. Well, you can completely scratch that off and have a mysterious intro by having detail shots or a dark lighting technique to now fully introduce your character. Doesn't make the audience feel curious on who this character is and why they're mysteriously introducing this character this way. Stage two is the rising action. This is where this scenes starts to happen and can also introduce the character depending on how you started your intro. It can also be a scene where something important is going to happen and you want your viewer to wonder what will happen later in the film. Stage three is the climax. This is where the scene everyone was waiting for, whether that's a beautiful shot showing the product being used or if it's a film, this is a great time to begin solving the problem of the film. Stage four is the falling action. You need to ask yourself this, what can I put there that I can keep the viewers engaged? If you are was shooting a short film, this is usually when the characters in the film are solving the problem. Finally, stage number five is the resolution. How do you want to end your video? Well, it depends. A wedding video, you want it to end it with a couple being loved and happy. A realistic video, you want a drone shot showing the entire property, preferably at dusk showing the viewers that the video is almost over. Any product video is showing the product with the logo and a call-to-action. Each video is different, but these stages can work with any type of genre. As you can see, having a great story is very important when shooting video for clients because having a great story equals emotion, emotion equals happy clients. Happy clients equals money in your pocket. Money in your pocket equals more clients. Keep in mind when shooting the video for a client, your main goal is to make them more money or document their day that they're willing to pay you. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [MUSIC] 14. Shooting// How To Pre Plan Your Shoots: [MUSIC] In this video we're going to be talking about pre-production. I'm going to be showing you how I plan my videos. There are other ways you can do it, but this is how I do it. Maybe by seeing how I plan my videos, you can get an idea on what works best for you. Number 1 is the idea concept. Whether you're doing a video for a client or a passion project, brainstorming idea and figure out where you'll go for this particular video. Whether you want to say product, a service, or tell a story, write down your thoughts so that way you got options to choose and can pick the best idea for that video. Number 2 is inspiration. When I already got my idea, I started finding inspiration from other film-makers. I watch a couple of videos and write down the shots I like. For an example, this sparkling ice commercial I recently shot, this particular clip I got the idea from Austen Paul on YouTube. There's other drink commercial that were two clips in particular. The first one was the can opening and the other one was more of the style. I added texts of the flavors of the drinks, and I got the idea from a YouTuber named Daniel Schiffer. There's nothing wrong with getting some inspiration from other creators as long as you don't copy them exactly how they do it. Number 3 is the shortlist. When I'm watching other film-makers, I write down my favorite shots. I also write down others thoughts I have in mind or what I've seen in other genres of video. I try to make a longer list than I need so I can have more options in the editing room. Also, sometimes you have a show in mind and once you're onset you end up not being able to do that particularly shot because maybe the location is too small and there isn't enough room, you forgot to bring props or a specific gear, or the talent can do a certain move and that usually happens when you're shooting a fitness commercial. I have multiple shots in your list in case you can't do certain shots for some reason. Number 4 is music choice. By this point, I already have the type of music I want and the mood of this commercial. For an example, for this sparkling ice commercial, I wanted an happy song with a slow and chill intro with a strong beat in the middle of the song. The place where I get my music is Epidemic Sound. I absolutely love this music platform. They has some of the best music for commercials, and you can also download sound effects like brushes, impacts, risers, and many more. When finding the perfect song, what I do is I find a playlist from Epidemic Sound, and I just go through each and every song. I sometimes even go through the genre and mood of the song. I then download 2-3 songs and listen to it multiple times. I picture the shots I listed with the song like if I'm editing the video in my head, It's what I call shoot to edit. I'm organizing and imagining the flow of the music with the video I'm planning on shooting. When you shoot to edit and makes it much easier when you're out shooting because you already know what shots you want to get. It also makes it easier when you're editing because you already know the flow. You have it all organized, and all you got to do is place those certain clips in the right order. All you got to do is now add sound effects, speed ramps, text if needed, and just cut by the beat. These are the steps I take when I plan a new commercial or a passion project. Hopefully you can get an idea or learn something from my process. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. [NOISE] 15. Shooting// Composition & Angles: [NOISE] In this video I'm going to be discussing composition and angles. Each composition and angle has a purpose and meaning to it, so make sure you pay close attention and have a reason why you chose that particular shot. Before diving into the different types of compositions, I want to talk about filling in the frame. So many beginners neglect this rule of filling in the frame. When you ignore this rule, your videos become amateur and boring. Here's an example of a clip not filling in the frame and then shot of the subject almost filling in the entire frame. This makes it a bit more engaging, interesting, and more professional because it captures all of the details of the subject. As for the first clip, the subject is way too far away. There's too many distractions and there's unnecessary things in your shot. Always try to fill in your frame unless you're doing it on purpose and you want to show the landscape. Ideally, you want to use this shot when it's showing a beautiful location and want to show the viewers how smart the person is compared to the landscape. When it's possible, try getting close or zoom in. But also it's not just within your frame, it's also what is not in your frame. For an example of this shot of me in my office, there are so many things in the background that distract the viewer. You can either get rid of the things in the background or bring down your aperture to have a more background blur to it or you can also do both. Ask yourself, this, does my background help tell my story, or is it a distraction? If it is get rid of it right away. Next on the category is composition. Composition is the way elements of the scene are arranged in the camera frame. Basically how you place your subject on frame to make it look as beautiful and enjoyable to look at. I'm going to be discussing the top five compositions, rule of thirds, symmetry, leading lines, patterns and straight lines. First one on the list is rule of thirds. Basically when composing your subject, you want to place it in these four quadrants. When you're shooting someone looking away from the camera, you want to place the subject either on the right or left side, depending on where they're looking, you want to make room in front of them, giving them leave room, not behind him but in front of them. Ideally, you want to use his composition when someone is looking at something or talking to someone, let's say you're shooting two people talking to each other. Let's call this guy Talent 1 and this guy Talent 2. For Talent 1, I will be framing him on the right side and Talent 2 will be frame on the left side. How cinematographers bring these types of scenes is shooting over the shoulder, still applying these same principles, but now you're adding the other Talents shoulder to add depth and to fill in more of the frame. Another way you can use this composition is when you're shooting a landscape, where you place your horizon would depend on how much you want to show. For an example on this shot, I put the horizon on the top third to show more of the cars passing by. For this shot, I placed my horizon on the bottom third to show more of the clouds. Make sure you pick the right framing to tell your story and what you want the viewers to focus on. Also be aware of headroom. You don't want to give them too much space or cut off their foreheads. Typically you want to place their eyes on the top third to properly frame your subject. For tighter shots, you want to place their eyes on the top third and their mouths on the bottom thirds. As for framing, I'd prefer to cut off their foreheads instead of their mouth, especially when they're talking, even though they're not talking, I still prefer to show their mouths in the frame because it definitely looks a lot better than if he showed their foreheads. Number 2 on the list is symmetry. Symmetry refers to material being organized in such a way that it conveys a sense of unity through the repetition of one or more elements. Basically an easier way to put it is having equal size from the right and left side of the frame. Like for an example, this talk in headshot is very symmetrical because we have the floating shelves and the light bulbs on both sides. It would be weird if I was placed on the right side and having more leading room. That's why I placed myself in the center. Sometimes it makes sense to have the horizon in the center like for an example, this shot of the pier. I place my subject and my horizons on the center because it's very symmetrical. You don't always have to put your subject on one of the thirds. There are some situations where I've placed things in the center because it looks a lot better. Number 3 on the list is depth. There are so many ways you can use depth. I show you other ways on other videos in this class, but in this section I will be discussing two ways. One way you can use depth is lowering your aperture. By lowering your aperture, it will create depth in the background, or what we'd call is depth of field. I always use a low aperture because I like having that background blur. If I raise my aperture to, let's say F22, everything is unfocused and it will not create depth. Another way you can create depth is having something in the foreground just to make your shot more three-dimensional and interesting to look at. Another reason why you want to use this technique, especially when you're in a wide focal length, it creates movement. Take a look at these two shots, on the left, I'm not using any depth and it looks like I'm not moving at all. As for the clip in the right, I did something in the foreground and it's obvious that I'm panning side to side. Also it just makes it 10 times better when I add something in the foreground. Number 4 on the list is leading lines. When shooting in landscape, I always try to find leading lines. This makes it pleasing to the eye and those natural lines always lead to the subject. As a cinematographer, I always try to find bridges, pathways, trails, and fences. Also when shooting people, you can place the talent near a place with leading lines. Those lines can lead to the viewer's eyes and to the main subject. Lastly, Number 5 on the list is patterns and repetitions. When using patterns on buildings, walls, or even the landscape, it's super pleasing to the human eye. I also use shapes to frame my subject. It just makes it more interesting and more satisfying to look at. Now that we've talked about the composition, Let's move on to angles. I'm going to be talking about 10 main angles that cinematographers, filmmakers use. A drone shot, a wide shot, cowboy shot, medium shot, close up shot, extreme close up shot, low angle, high angle, cutaway, and POV. When it comes to telling your story, having multiple angles can either help or take away your story. Usually when you're shooting a cinematic film, you need to have multiple angles to tell your story and has your film keep the viewer's attention and just make it less boring. For an example, here's a short film using all these angles. Check it out. [MUSIC] [NOISE] As you can see, that film told the story very clear. Yes, I use a camera that can shoot 4K with color grading, sound design, black bars, music, and transitions. But it was mainly of the angles that I used. But sometimes using a lot of angles can take away your story and make it more confusing. For an example, if you are going for a more slow paced, lonely, and sad feel to it, using multiple angles is probably not the best choice. Let me show you an example, check it out. [MUSIC] As you can see, it was a bit confusing. We're going for a slow and sad film where the pacing and flow of the video doesn't really match the emotion and what the viewers are feeling. Now let's do that again for this time only using one shot, check it out. [MUSIC] Now that's a lot better. Using one wide angle shot defines that this character is lonely because of its mass subject in a big environment. Now let's talk about the angles I used in this film. First one is the drone shot. I love using a drone shot to establish the place or to get a different perspective. Second one is the wide angle. This angle could also be used to establish a location, but mainly filmmakers use this angle to show more of the landscape. Three is the cowboy shot. The cowboy shot gets its name from its popular use in Western films. It was used to show the cowboys gun in his waist while still showing the full body. It's in-between in a wide and a medium shot. Speaking of a medium shot, which is the fourth angle on this list, a medium shot is used to make the viewer feel like you're close to the subject. This is also a great use for interviews since this is the angle that we normally see when we're talking to someone. Number 5 is the close up shot. Close up shot is used to get tight shots of the subjects face to get the expression and emotion. It's also used to get some of the detail shots of a subject, but still be able to see the surroundings of it. If you want to achieve that look, you have to bring up your aperture so you can see more of the background and it's not so blurry. Six is the extreme close up shot. This shot is used to get a very specific detail of a subject. Whenever I use this shot, I really wanted the viewer to pay close attention to their specific spot. Since usually I'm zoomed in all the way at 70 millimeter, it creates a shallow depth of field, making the subjects stand out from the background. This shot is produced by having a tight focal length, like a 50-100 millimeter. Numbers 7 is a low angle. This angle is to make the subject look bigger, dominant, and more powerful. It's also used to show the subject wander around the beautiful location, showing the subject and the location in the background. Number 8 is the high angle. It's literally the complete opposite of the previous angle. It makes a subject look a lot more smaller, weaker, and vulnerable. Number 9 is the cutaway shot. A cutaway basically interrupts a continuously scene by adding something completely different, still adding to your story, a cutaway can help transition from one scene to another smoothly, and it can also show a completely different angle from another perspective. Lastly, Number 10 is the POV shot or point of view. A POV shot creates an angle of what the character is looking at. This is a very interesting angle to show, especially when it's a film where there's a lot of action. Sometimes there's like crazy and trippy effects involved in this angle. Like for an example, you can make the character feel drunk, high, dizzy, and many more. You could definitely get creative with this angle. This is also used in sports and action scenes to bring the viewers to a whole another perspective. This angle is usually shot in a wider lens to show more of the surroundings. Those are the top angles you will see in films and you will commonly use. As you can see, involves all of these ingredients to create a cinematic film. Do not ignore these depths because your films will probably not look professional and you will not get any paid clients. Make sure you really mastered these two principles and practice all those shots I just taught you. Don't just watch this video and forget about it, write notes in your journal and go out and start applying it to your next shoot. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. 16. Editing// How To Start A Project: [MUSIC] What's up, guys, in today's video, and in the next four or five videos, we're going to be talking about post-production, the editing side. In this specific video, I want to be talking about organizing your footage, creating folders, how to start a project, all the features you need to know in Premiere Pro, and keyboard shortcuts. This first lesson on the post-production side is a must-know because this will drastically improve your skills, and you could begin editing quick, especially if you memorize those keyboard shortcuts, and you customize your keyboards that works best for you. Everybody's different, I'm going to show you my custom keyboard shortcuts, and why I chose those specific shortcuts, and I will tell you what each feature does, and everything, and why I chose it, so that way, you could implement that into your keyboard shortcuts so that we could finish edit all your videos much quicker, let's begin. I shot a headphone commercial, just for fun, just to show you how I plan these commercials, these films, these videos, and then I'm going to run you down from choosing the topic, pre-planning, creating a shot list, a storyboard, and then after that, I could tell you why I chose that shot when we're editing, and then the music choice, the flow of the video, how I want it to play out. Right now, let's go to our folder, and right here I already have the commercial, which is the headphone commercial, and I have a folder footage, these are the footage that I shot, and the music. Right now let's open up Premiere Pro [MUSIC]. When you open up Premiere Pro you're going to get a page that looks like this, and all you are going to do is go to New Project on the left, and then you could title it, I could title this, I don't know, headphone commercial, and then browse, and then choose where you want these premier files to save. I already know where I'm going to save it, I'm going to save it in my Premiere Pro folder. I'm going to go to save the premier files, commercial, and it looks like I didn't create a folder, so I'm going to do that right now. I'm going to go over here, and create Premiere. We can do that again, and find the folder. This video is going to be a 1080p sequence, I shot at 4K, but I'm going to put it in a 1080p sequence, that way I have room to crop, and just the quality comes out better overall. What I'm going to do is just get the assets or the footage, I'm going to get the footage, and music, just drag, and drop. What I'd like to do is, I like to label these by color, for footage, I always label them in blue, and then music, I always label them as yellow. You can label them wherever you want, and to do that you could even create your own custom colors, and to do that, you could go to Premiere, present, preferences, and labels, and you can just customize your own color however you want. I'll talk about this in the keyboard shortcuts on every number on my keyboard is a different color, every time I create a new folder for Premiere Pro, I label it on each color. Then to begin a project, to have a sequence, since I mentioned that it's going to be a 1080p, and this footage is shot at 4K, I'm going to have to create my own sequence, every time we do a sequence, I create another folder right here, new bend, and I just labeled this sequence, and I put that in green. What I do is go up here to file, new, sequence, I go up here at digital SLR, 1080p, and 24. That creates a 1080p sequence with 24 frames per second. What I do is just drag the footage, drag all the footage, and there is your first step. As you can see, it's crop in because we're getting a 4K footage, and doping it in a 1080p sequence, it is going to be zoomed in, that's okay, we can just zoom out at 50 percent, and we could just copy all of the sequence for every footage, just like this, and we could get the rest of these, and just copy the exact same sequence. Now, that we've got all the footage, I want to talk to you guys about some of the main features that you knew are now in here. What we have here is the timeline, this is where you're going to spend most of your time when editing, this is the place where you're going to put all your footage, all your sound effects, music, assets, titles, transitions, everything is done in here, and if we go to the right, this is your audio levels. Make sure that when you're doing a talking headshot, in this case, we're not going to be doing a talking headshot, but like for example, a talking headshot like this, you want to make sure your audio levels is around 12 to six, that's like the sweet spots, so you can have that crystal clean audio. On your left is just like other features, I don't normally use these, I have shortcuts which I'm going to be telling you guys later on. Right here in the left is your project pin, this is where you're going to put all of your footage assets, and just organize it like, oh, I have it here, I have the sequence, I have the footage, music, eventually I'll have sound effects, and we could label that and color it, put a red. Then we could have titles, we could label that as green, or maybe blue, and then we can have another one for assets, we could label that as green. Also in this folder or this bin, you have the effects panel, you have presets, you have audio effects, you have audio transitions, video effects, video transitions, and all these stuff. When you buy a preset or a transition on a website like motion or race toy blocks, typically, this is where it's going to be placed. At the top it is your effects control, this is where you control the effects of your footage, for example, we go click on this footage, you could scale it, get zoomed-in or zoom out, you could adjust the position from left to right, up, and down, the rotation, and all these stuff. Also when you color correct, you also have this panel appear in here, and then you have this other ones like audio clip mixer, your Lumetri scopes, this is where your color correct. Speaking of color correct, there's another panel right here where it's color, I don't know why it disappeared. If you don't have this Lumetri color scope, you could go up here to Windows, and just click on Lumetri scopes, and that will appear, I don't know why it's appearing like this, it normally appears bigger. This is your Lumetri scopes, this where you're going to be looking at when you color correct, and we'll talk about it later, but this is where I look out when I make sure my skin tones are accurate, is that too saturated, too desaturate it, there's enough contrast is not too overexposed, underexposed, the colors are just right, this is where I monitor, and make sure that my color correctness is on-point. Then we have the Effects panel, this is where you add Leno acids or motion graphics, audio, it's pretty self-explanatory, it is where you adjust the audio, make sure it's sounding crispy clean, captions, there's the captions panel or section. I've been using this lately for social media, I'm not going to be talking about this in this video because we're not going to be using it. Well, if we want to create those subtitles, captions that you've been seen in TikTok or Instagram, there is the place to go. Those are the sections that you need to know. Now, for the keyboard shortcuts, I will be showing you how I customize my shortcuts, and why. We want to customize the shortcuts or know how I did it, you go to Premiere, and keyboard shortcuts. If you want, you could screenshot this or take a photo of this, and maybe copy exactly how I did it, but the reason why I did it like this is, it makes it easier for me, it makes my editing flow go much smoother, much quicker that way I don't have to keep going to file, and finding it, I just click. The ones that I recommend you putting in your keyboard shortcuts is right here. Q, I have the ripple trim, basically what that does is, the footage that I want to start or the part where I want to start is right here. What Q does or I think it's ripple, it cuts what's before it, and it starts from this point. If I started from right here, if I press Q, it deletes everything before that, and it starts from right there, and if you're a beginner, you'll typically just go to C for cut, cut that part out, delete this, and delete that. That's like three steps right there, instead of doing that, all I got to do is just press one button , just like that. For the other one, which is W is the exact opposite, once before it, it cuts right after. We go right here, we want to cut this part out, all you got to do is press W, and if you want to delete what's in-between, for example, if I don't want this video or this clip completely, I could just press R, and that deletes the whole clip, and it merges the clip before, and the clip after together. This is what I mean, if I press R, it does everything for me instead of having to delete this, and bring those clips together. The ones I mentioned, W is ripple trim next ahead to play ahead, and R is ripple delete, make sure you put those keyboard shortcuts, and to your keyboard. Remember, I mentioned that on my numbers, I have every color, well, here are all the colors that I have, one having a royal blue, two red, three yellow, four green, and so on. You can see all the colors I have, and I try to mix the colors so that way they don't look similar, I tried to have from dark to saturated to light, that way, all of them look different, and I don't get confused in which one it is. Just other random ones like the type tool, the mark in, mark out, the pen tool link. Link is when you link two clips together, and then other ones, just like the hand tool, the audio gains, the match frame, the redo, the cut, razor tool, all of these I recommend you putting into your keyboard shortcuts so that way you're editing, post-production goes smoothly, and you finish your edit much quicker. That's pretty much it for this section, those are all the things you need to know. In the next video, I'll be talking about sifting through the footage, how to pick the right footage, why I chose that footage, reasons why I deleted specific clips, and just running through the sifting process. I'm also going to be showing you the plan I have for this video, why I chose that plan, and just how I'm going to execute this video, that way it makes sense. It's good for marketing, it's good for businesses, and what you need to look forward to when you're editing these projects for other companies, if you have any other films questions, please let me know [MUSIC]. 17. Editing// How To Sift Through Your Footage: What's up, guys. Welcome to Part 2 of the editing side of filmmaking. In this video, I'm really talking about how I sift through my timeline, what clips to pick, why I picked that particular clip. Just like creating the flow of the video, the story, and just the pre-planning on creating a commercial. This video or this commercial is going to be simple. It's going to be a headphone commercial. The main reason or the main purpose of this video is, so a video creators or even professionals in the workplace, we tend to get distracted by all this sound and noise on this environment. The point of this video is to create a commercial. Wearing headphones could help you get focused into your work. It gets rid of all the distractions. It's noise canceling. I want to create a commercial that gets rid of that and it helps you stay more focused in task. I'm going to be scrolling through choosing the best of the best footage. For this first clip, I think this clip was just like a test. This is a test. We could get rid of that. This is the very first clip. For the intro, I started off with me opening up the laptop. Let's see. I think I do multiple times. Usually, the last try is the one. Let's go back, right here. The reason why I want like this is I want to make it feel like I'm about to sit down. We could start off from right here, and this is where the keyboard shortcuts come in handy. Right now I want to press Q because I want to delete everything that's behind me right here, that's behind this clip. If I press Q, look what it does. It gets rid of everything that I don't want. Maybe I could go back again right when I'm about to sit down. Like this, I open up the laptop. As you can see, my face is going crazy, I can't focus, I have a lot of work to do and I can't focus on my work because of all about the distractions. I just scroll. All this is usable. Right here is when I begin doing that part where I'm going crazy and I'm about to reach for my headphones. Maybe we can keep this part. Maybe just cut this part, make it shorter, and get the part where I start to get stressed out. Let's see, I do multiple takes when I begin doing the face expressions. Right here. You can see my face is like I have anxiety, stressing out, frustrated because I can't focus. This is why I pick up the headphones. Wait, I have another one. I like the one with the shirt better. This is the better clip. I reach for the headphones. Then that's when I start nodding my head, going to the beat, getting focused, going with the flow. That's one clip. Then I decided to get a medium shot. I probably don't need me of opening the laptop in this angle, but it's good to have it just to be safe because I mainly use this shot for my facial expressions. We can just cut this part and just make it shorter so that way we don't have a lot of unnecessary footage right here. You can start my face getting into it. This is a close-up shot, me opening up the laptop, just so I can have different angles. Let's see. We can start from right here. Play that out. This is only going to be used for a second. That's pretty much it. I want a shot of opening up Premiere. Because this commercial is going to be pretty short, maybe like 15, 20 seconds, somewhere around there, I don't want any unnecessary clips. That's about it. That's all we need. This next clip is going to be a clip of me. I'm going to mask a clip in this black rectangle, the sequence, and I'm going to zoom in into a video that I shot in the past, going with the music, a fast beat video and just representing that when you have a good noise canceling headphones, you get in the zone and you actually focus and you could get creative. You eliminate all the distractions, and that's what I want to to do. I want to make you feel like you're vibing with the music, you're vibing with the video, you're vibing with the editor in this video, and that's what this clip is about. I want to get a clip. This clip I did move a little bit where I'm going with the beat of the music. I'm enjoying it, but I also don't want my shirt to go past this rectangle because I'm going to be masking it out and it's going to take a lot longer for me to keyframe each and every movement. Something like right there. That's the shot. On this clip of opening the Premiere, I'm going to zoom in because I don't want all these distractions. We can go all the way to 100. That's a good thing about shooting in 4K and opening up a 1080P sequence, is they have the flexibility to zoom in and you won't lose that quality. Technically, this shot is 1080P because I'm zooming in, and 4K OB if I zoomed out to 50 percent. But I want the viewers to focus on Premiere Pro, so I'm going to zoom in. The great thing about it is that you can scale and position it how you want it like this. I might zoom in a little bit on this one, but we'll see. For this clip, I got a shot of me moving my feet to the beat. I did multiple ways of me lifting my foot to the beat. I might get just a generic one of just going like that. Or I'll have two options, but we'll see. That's all I need. I only need three seconds. We could cut that. We could find the other one of faster beat, this one. We could cut that part out and then we have the other one. I think I want to keep all three of them just to have the flexibility. In this shot, I did wanted to get a shot with my dog moving his head around, but I didn't get that shot, so we're going to have to eliminate this shot entirely unfortunately. This shot, I wanted to get a close-up of the headphones, especially on the logo right there. I wanted to get a shot of me moving my head around and nodding my head to the beat. We could go right here. Also, I'm paying attention to my eyes because if I look down, I'm looking literally down right here, but I want to look at my laptop, which is right here. I need to pay attention to that as well. Right here, this is where it starts. I only need a few seconds. This shot is a shot of me turning on the headphones, then I might put some titles of this is Bluetooth and this is noise canceling. I think the last shot was right there. We can start from right there. That is pretty much it. I have two minutes of footage, and that's all I need. After I have the clips I want, I sift through it. Usually, it's longer. I usually have to go through an hour, two hours, four hours, eight hours worth of footage, and I always condense it down. For example, if I have eight hours worth of footage, I condensed it to, let's say, four hours. Then I take that four hours, I condense it now to an hour, and then I condense it down to half an hour. The less clips I have, the better, so that way I don't have to go through every single clip, or the shaky clips, the footage where it's looking down, the autofocus, unnecessary clips maybe because the shot wasn't good, it was out of focus or it was overexposed, whatever that may be. I always get the best of the best footage and I make sure I have the right footage to tell my story, or to tell the story of my clients. I want to be showing you the music choice that I chose and why I chose it. I have two types of music, one, a fast beat song, and one, a slow song. Here's why. Let me show you the sounds first. I think this one is the fast one. This song is the fast one, and this going to play out almost throughout the entire video. Then I had to slow song, which is right here. The reason why I have this song is because when we're editing and we get in the zone, we have this loud, intense, fast-paced music and we think that we're so cool, editing great footage from sunset or at the beach or downtown LA with the buildings and they look so beautiful. But reality on the outside, we're just a guy in a laptop. That's why I chose this slow pacing song. I wanted to make a joke about it. When you have headphones, you're in the zone with no distractions, no one is dragged him unless they remove your headphones. That's just the whole purpose of this video, and why I chose these two songs. Right now, I would be choosing the sound effects because this commercial does require a lot of sound effects, especially for the beginning. The distractions I'm going to put traffic, I want to put another TV sound, the radio, auto adjust. Other stuff that I could think of are fine, that's a distraction in the workplace or in your home, or maybe someone mowing the lawn or the dishes or just stuff like that, something that you hear on a regular basis that's distracting and I'll be right back. Now that you've found your sound effects, it's time to paste this video together. For my intro, I'm probably not going to be talking a lot on this section of the video. But, I'm going to be showing you literally step-by-step on how I edit it. I'll try to explain my thoughts and my process and what I'm doing the best way possible, but mostly just going to be huge as watching me edit. What I'd like to do here is, let see, let me figure this out. For the music, thankfully that the fast pacing music has a slow intro. For an example, this, not that part but for here. But like I said, I'm going to start it off with the loud music or louder environment, the distractions. I'm going to get a lot of sound effects and place them right here so that way it sounds natural. Here's what I mean. If you see down here, this is all I have, I only have two sections of the audio portion, but I want to make more. When I do that is click "A" for add tracks. If you go to audio, I'm going to add maybe five more, Because I'm going to add way more sound effects. Then right here, let's see. Let's bring those over here. I'm going to use the close-up shots, but we'll see. I don't think that's necessary, the close-up, because it's fast. Then cut it. Right went to open it. Right there. We'll take this out. Then I'm capturing the one where I get stress right here. Partly to get the close-up shot. The more I think of it this close-up shows necessary. Whenever I'm not sure of the shower, I usually just enable it and I add the shortcut as deep. Basically, not hiding the eclipse, eliminating the clip. That way I don't delete it completely. If I wanted to come back to it or I have second thoughts or I changed my mind absolute right here. Then maybe on this shock we'll have the white. Now it occurs smoothly, there's no jump cuts. Let's see. Right there. That we'll go over here. Then I need to get the shower, I turn it on. Sometimes these audio clips is I'm not going to use the audio built-in from the camera, I can just delete it. You can press "L" for unlink, and then just remove the audio because I want to be adding my own audio piece to it, same goes with this one. That's it. Now, we're down to deal with that, and they can mess up our timeline. Then I could just cut the good part. It's already 18 seconds, so we need to make it a bit shorter. I definitely want to condense this, maybe over here. This and then I grab the headphones, I turned it on, and grab the medium shock then I put them on like that. I start nodding my head, and then I go to the other shower where I open the premiere. Where is it? Open the premiere? I think is this one, unlink it. Then we get that footage. Could these over just like that. The commercial, maybe 30 seconds, a little bit longer than I wanted to but it's fine. This one, it slowly picks up. Actually, I feel like I don't really need to show premier open up. We can probably eliminate that, or we could just hide it like I did on a little clip. Just go like that. Then here's where the clip is good to zoom in. It'll have a little montage for two seconds. I wanted to delete some of these unnecessary shots, maybe copy this clip, find that part, and then find this part because I really wanted to get my shock like that. Put it in here, scoop this just like that. Then right here is where the montages would come out, and then I'll be going with the beat. Let's see. Maybe my far and then that one. I could begin putting the song. So this is where I find my feet moving to the beat. Let me find one. Let's see. Good thing I kept the three samples. So that one. Maybe the first one fits. Let's see. This one, this is going to be the video showing like the Montage. Let's see. I want it for six seconds, to 23, to 28, something like that. Maybe less. Up to 28 for now. Then hit to the beat. Then we'll grab the headphones. Then we'll grab another one. Close-up. I might zoom in. That's the good thing about shooting 4K that you could zoom in. Maybe right here. Then right here is where we shift songs and we shift the mood. Still the same mood, the character is still in the same mood and the same feeling, but the viewers are seeing it differently. Here's what I mean. So what I'm going to do is maybe find a sound effects, where it's like the rumbling sound where it makes a mistake. Let me show you instead. That sound, like that record scratch that you see in cartoons. We're going to cut that song abrupt. We're going to add the other song which is more of a slow song. Maybe put it a little bit quieter like 10. Or maybe what we could do is get rid of that song completely and use the same song, but lower it so that we only hear a little bit from the headphones, say 20 percent. Maybe more. Let's raise it up 10 so we can play with the bass. I'm going to be messing around with the bass. I think I'm going to take it out. We're going to go up here into the Effects panel and go to Audio Track Mixer, go to this little arrow that says "Show/Hide Effects and Sends", click on that. Since I don't want to mess with the previous audio, we're going to put this in the second track. Obviously, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm going to find a filter that makes that audio take away the bass. You know where you blast out your music or you blast the volume from your headphones and then from the outside, you could still hear it. I want that sound or that feeling. I think what you need to do is take out the bass. I'll come back and I'll show you guys. I'm back. I did find the exact filter. It's a bass and band-pass and this is what it sounds like before. So I found the perfect filter. This is exactly what I was looking for. Then next what we're going to do is put in the sound effects. So starting from the beginning, we're going to put the sound effects. Let's see. Let's start from the baby. I want to put a fade on all of these. Let me not end in. Let's make this bigger and let's turn off the baby sound. This is all going to be quiet. Then, right here, that's when it rises. So I'm going to bring this down very low. I need to add another one like this. It's going to be extremely low. I want that part to be super quiet. More quiet. I want it to be quiet to super loud. There you go. Perfect. Maybe a little bit louder. So all the sound effects are going to end at this point. I'm going to add a whoosh or a riser to hype the headphones like, when you put these headphones on, you're getting in the zone. There's no distractions, you're going to focus on the work that you need to get done, and you're going to do it good. So next one is maybe city traffic. We can get like any point of it. Then we could add more tracks and maybe bring some intensity. So maybe we could shift from right here to more quiet. Then we could add that one, that ringing sound. Maybe I start it right there. What we could do is cut all of these and make like I'm in my own thoughts or I'm like thinking. What we could do is get all these. Make these a bit more quiet like 20 percent. I want to echo this and then we could do a small whoosh. Yeah, that was perfect. Maybe this one can be a good one. I'm going to be messing around with the sound design and how I want it to look and sound. On the next video, I'll be discussing on what I did with the sound design and why I did it, as well as the color grading, the titles, the transitions, any of creative stuff that could be added into this video. If you have any other further questions, please let me know. 18. Editing// Adding Transitions, Color Grading, Titles, & Music: What's up guys? This is Part 3 of the editing section and in the previous video we talked a little bit about sound design but I really didn't show you the process or the final result. Now that I'm almost finished, I feel like I still could add a little bit more. I'm going to be showing you what I did with the sound design. Not only that, but I'm going to be showing you the fun stuff; the color correcting, color grading, animations, transitions, titles, the outro, stuff like that. I'm going to be showing you what I have so far with the sound design. As you can hear, I have all the ambient noise like auto distractions. That's like traffic, babies crying, the TV turned on all the way up, the lawnmower, just stuff like that, and right there there's a whoosh that goes into the talent's head like I need to concentrate or I need to focus and I can't because if all these distractions in his head, in his mind. He's frustrated, he's stressed, and he's trying to find a solution, but he's going to find one just right now. Then you can hear that heartbeat and then back to reality. You heard that, Bluetooth. Then we're in action. As you can see, it transitions from light. This character or this editor being in the zone with his project or what he's editing but in reality is just a person in a laptop, that's it. As filmmakers, editors, content creators, we get in the zone we were editing the video, we go with the vibe, with the music, or the emotion of what we're producing, which is a video. We try to get in the zone but in reality, this is how we look like. We're vibing into the music, but we look ridiculous and funny. That was the whole purpose of this video is that these headphones are meant to cut away distractions and to get in the zone and they're super high-quality. That's why I created this little short story and, yeah, I also added some other things like this. With this clip what I did is I grabbed another short commercial I did a few weeks ago and I basically added in into my laptop. This is the original clip and this is what I did to it and it's pretty simple. All I did is I went into the effects. I searched the corner pen and what this does, it allows you to adjust the clip so that way it fits perfectly into this sequence from a laptop, and then after that, I added a zoom transition so that way it feels like we're going into the commercial or to the ad and then towards the end, that's about it and then I'm going to add a sound effect on the zoom so let's go find one. Let's see, Sound Effects. Then we could grab any of these. Maybe this part is too loud. Put it down to five. Same with this one. There you go. I realized on this second row on the audio file, I took away the base for this clip. That's why it's sounding like that but I put it on the third row and it sounds perfect. Let's now adjust it. Then towards the end, I want to add another whoosh or another rise effect. Let's see. Something like this. We should probably make it a bit quieter. Number 10. We're almost there. Maybe two stops. There you go. Here's where I want to add the logo, so we could do that right now. Go to Assets or Misc. I haven't put it yet. I grab the logo which is somewhere over here. Right here. Thankfully, they have a PNG file. Here it is. I'll see if I want to us check it to have like a slogan or something so I went to the website to get that logo. Yep, they do have a slogan, so it's make your life better and let you live smarter. That's what Boltune does. We're going to make a title sequence. I made another folder like how we mentioned. The title is blue and all these other folders had their own colors. We're going to go to Titles, New, and then Legacy Title and we can just name it, I don't know Slogan. Then we could add the title right there. Paste the other, or paste the slogan. For fonts, I mean, I'll choose a simple font. Make it smaller. Let's see, make your life better and let you live smarter. Like that. Drag that over here. You could cut to the logo. Maybe it's a bit too late. Really great. They're trying to get the B, and we just fade it up. Maybe a bit smoother. So what we could do is go to the effects and then go to audio transitions, crossfade and exponential fade. This fade, quicker and just a lot smoother. There you go. Now that we got the sound effects, the sound design, the music right, it's time to color grade, or actually color correct. Color correcting is super easy. As you can see, this clip is flat. The reason why I did it, I shot out like that is to get more dynamic range. I shot him with 4k and 10 bits, so it will be pretty easy. The first thing I do is just add contrast and then I'll go to the curves. I add a bit of highlights, and I add some shadows. Then I lift up this part in the middle to add a bit more contrast. That's pretty much it. But my face is too overexposed. I'm going to bring down the highlights. Not too much. Maybe like right there. Maybe add a bit more shadows. That's looking pretty good. That is what color grading does. Basically it just turns your flat image just adding more contrast. I just add the LUT that's already here. I've been using a lot of this LUTs which is the SL Big Minus Blue. It makes that teal and orange. I tone it down to another 20 percent and that's it. Then I maybe correct my skin tones, I go to the HSL secondary. I grab my skin tones to make sure it's looking orange and not too magenta, not too green. I just grab my skin tone because skin tones do get a bit complicated. I'm just grabbing every part of my skin, the light, the dark, the mid tones. Then I blur it. I go down to my correction and my skin tone stands in the mid tones. I just lift that up a little bit more yellow and it's looking pretty good. You don't want your skin tone to land too yellow, like this, or too red or magenta. You want to be like right in the middle and it's looking pretty good, but I think I'm going to add a little bit more yellow. That is looking good. You don't want it to look too yellow like this, or too magenta like this. Right in the middle and as for color grading that says about it, color correcting and color grading. After that, what I do is I go to my Effect Controls and I just copy the color gradient style and I just apply to all of the clips like this. Then I just go make sure all of them are selected. That's about it. That's good. I'm going with color. Then just double-check if none are overexposed or underexposed or is too contrast here, or too saturated. Maybe this one is a bit too underexposed. So what we can do is just bring it up a bit. It is going to cause a bit more noise, but I don't really care. Then this one, I see that there's my forehead is overexposed, but that's fine because I was exposing for the headphones. You could try but I doubt it. That's fine and that's pretty good for color grading. For transitions, the only transition I have is just this one [inaudible]. I feel like that's all I really need. Titles. Maybe this one we could add it like Bluetooth or something like that. Maybe add on the corner, want to make it obviously blooper. I want to add the logo. See editing and then trying to find it. This is why you need to organize all your files so that way it's easier to find. That way you're not spending half an hour finding a clip and asset, a sound effect. Make sure you're organized and label your files, your footage, your assets, just to make it easier for you. Then assets is right here and Bluetooth, there you go, easy. Then we'll scale this much smaller and that is looking pretty good. Then we can make the blue part just a bit brighter so that we can stand out. The way to do that is go to the Effects. Go to RGB Curves. Grab that effect and put it in the clip and then just make it brighter. Go to the master and the white and you just make them brighter. Pretty [inaudible] simple. We're going to add little transition on the Bluetooth logo. You could go to effects and add some plugins. If you want, you could leave your comments down below. If you want these plugins or LUTs or any of the effects that are I'm using, please leave your comments down below of you. Like to have this [inaudible] give them to you for free, no charge. Just because you guys are watching this video and your are supporting me and supporting this class. I'll be making more online courses if you want that you can leave the comments down below. Maybe something involved with content creation like social media. If you're interested in that, please let me know. We're going to grab the presets. I've a go-to preset that I have in the Zoom. Let's see how that looks. For this one, you need to make a [inaudible] and have two or 10 keyframes. What I mean by that is, hold shift and click to your right. That will give you a five frames, one, two. You plug in and you drag your transition. That gives it that transition right there. You could play around with all of these. It just takes up the whole space. I speed it up. First I nested, so that way it's a whole separate clip. Then I speed it up, maybe like 140. Maybe a little bit faster, 160. That's pretty good. Right here, I want to add something like you get in the zone or something like that. See if I could figure something out, but then also get in the zone. That sounds like the slogan from AutoZone, get in the zone, AutoZone. Don't use that one. You zone in. Yeah, I could do that. You will zone in. I've noticed that this part, after I put on my headphones, I want to have something like boom, but I don't know what. Maybe I could transition to a wide one and then maybe we can add some overlays. We could add some light leaks for this to take out the black. All you got to do is click on the clip, go to the Opacity, Blend Mode and change from normal to screen. That makes black transparent. Since I'm not really a huge fan of this part on the left side, like using the door, the backpack, I'm going to flip this overlay so that way the light leak is on this side and it could cover a little bit of the backpacks and the door. How to do that is go to the Effects. If you want to see the effects right here, you could click on this right arrow, click on it, and then click on the "Effects" or you could type it out. You could click on "Horizontal Flip", drag that into clip and then it automatically flips your clip. There you go. I might tone down the opacity a bit, so now it's not too strong. This is more of like a storyboard commercial, I don't really show the product itself. It's not like those commercials that you have been seeing on Instagram where they have cool transition, these cool shots, these cool trick shots gotten there, that stuff. It's more of a storyboard, something that you will probably see on TV. I know the setup in the sense is not the best, but if I was paid to do this commercial, I'll definitely hire an actor. I will get a better location. I will pay attention to the audio, making it crispy clean. The music choice, the storyboard, telling a story, having emotion. I will spend more time on that, but this is just to show you guys of how I edit, how I come up with ideas, how I execute it, pay close attention to the sound design. As you can see, sound design, there's 12 rows of sound. As you can see, audio is half of the [inaudible] experience. I want you to spend a lot of time on the viewing, but also on the audio experience. Then for exporting, it is pretty simple. First thing, every time I edit something, I always save it manually just in case. Premiere offers this feature that auto saves your file or your project every 5-10 minutes, so you could customize. I can show you right now. We could go to Premier Pro Preferences and Auto Save. I haven't said that it saves every single five-minutes because Premier Pro is known for crashing. It does crash, especially when you're involved with 4K footage, 10-bit, RAW, ProRes, whatever. Or if you add a lot of effects, it can crash Premier Pro. Make sure you have this set every five minutes and maximum, you could set however you want. I just have it, it saves for 25 times and then also I like to manually save this. Actually, I go to File, Save As, and then I just put this is the third one. Then to export it, it's a command M for the shortcut. I will leave everything like H264 Match. Then just title it, maybe Headphones Commercial - Final. I always like to save it in the desktop so that is easier to find. Then I always go right here where it says Basic Video Settings Match Source. I click on that and then I scroll down where it says [inaudible] settings, I raise that up to 15 and then make sure this bottom left where it says Use Maximum Render Quality, make sure that's clicked and that's about it. I don't really focus that much in exploring. If you want your video to come out high-quality, it's all on camera and the lighting. Because if you're shooting in 720 P, it's not going to come out as crispy and as sharp and clean than if you shoot at 4K, 10-bit, ProRes, RAW and all that stuff. It's all about what you do on camera and also how you light up your set. After that, it's an export and that's pretty much it. That's how I shoot a commercial from pre-planning to filming, to pre-production and to exporting. That pretty sums up on my process and how I edit these videos. On the next section, it's probably the most important one. You can have all these skills. You can know a lot about camera and these tech stuff and editing, but if you don't have the business sight, then all of this is completely useless. In business, the people who are great at marketing, wins. You could be selling the crappiest product but if your marketing is good, then you're going to win. If you have both, if you have a great product or service and your marketing is on-point, then you're definitely unstoppable. Nobody could stop you because you got the marketing side, which in this day and age, it's very important. There's free marketing resources in social media. But on the next session I'm going to be talking about the business side, how to hit up clients, how to find companies to hire you, what these other businesses look for when hiring a videographer or filmmaker, how to grab their attention, how to get the first shoots. If you have no experience shooting, I'm going to be teaching you how to get your first gig, get your first shoot, all that stuff. That way you are not a struggling artist, you're not a starving artist. That way, you could do this full time and be able to do what you love, which is shooting and editing. That is pretty much it. I will see you guys in the business side. 19. Business// How To Get Your First Client: [NOISE] Now that you learned about the filmmaking side, it's time to learn about the business side of things. Look, I understand you didn't get into filmmaking to learn about business, marketing, and operating the company, but these skills are very valuable to learn. You don't have to be an entrepreneur and own your own business, but you could be an in-trepreneur and help the founder scale and operate his or her business. An in-trepreneur refers to a businessperson finding an entrepreneur who owns a business and helping them scale it. Essentially becoming business partners, but you're not really attached to the company as much as the owner. If the company goes bankrupt, you could pretty much just bounce and not have to worry about it. Obviously, that's messed up, just leaving your business partner with all of this messy stuff that gets involved when going bankrupt, but if you're tired for working for that company, it's a lot easier to quit without worrying all the investments and sacrifices. Not as much sacrifice as the owner because he had to build a company and put in investments for that company in the first place. Tip Number 1 is master your craft. It doesn't literally mean to be a master at it and be the best in the world. It means to master it good enough that people are willing to pay for it. This means having to put in the reps on a daily basis and for hours a day. Don't just pull out your camera for 20 minutes, edit for two hours and call it a day. No, it's going to take you a lot longer to truly master the skills. I've had people tell me, how did he get to good or how did he achieve that cinematic look, or how can I get clients? Then I asked them, how long have you been doing it for? They say about a month, thinking that's a long time. Well, a month of work is not a long time. How do you expect people to pay you with their hard-earned money to a filmmaker who's only put in a month of work? This takes a long time to master. I didn't get my first paid gig after a year of having clarity and deciding whether I wanted to do this full-time. This is just booking a paid gig, I still need to find more clients so I can go full-time, and there was still a lot of work for me to do. Don't get discouraged and keep practicing what you preach. Speaking of practicing what you preach, when you're watching these tutorials, have a notebook out and start writing some notes, or if you're watching a video talking about the settings on a camera, have your camera out and follow along. Don't just watch these videos for entertaining purpose and not apply what you just learned. A lot of people consume content rather than actually creating the content. You know why 90 percent of the people in this world are consuming instead of creating? Because it actually requires work and not many people are willing to put in the work and time to do this. If you want to be like the rest of this world and just watch this video and not do anything, then do it, [NOISE] but if you want to beat the other 10 percent, then you need to actually master the skills and put in the reps because practice makes improvement, not perfection, but improvement. Tip Number 2 is create a portfolio. Once you feel like you've mastered a few basics and have created demo videos here and there, it's time to actually create content that's needed for marketing. As a filmmaker, you have to think to yourself, what kind of videos would I enjoy doing, and what industry actually needs video? You need to trial several videos for you to know what industry you would enjoy most so we can avoid burnout and figure out what industry needs video so you can make a living out of this. For an example, real estate and wedding videos are always a high demand because there's always homes being built to sell in the market, and couples are constantly getting married. These two industries are by far the most consistent gigs you can get because they always need video. On the other hand, there are other industries you can get involved, like commercials, events, corporate, music videos, and social media content. Yes, some of these are a lot harder to get involved, but you can make the most money if you stay focused and consistent. Once you know what industry you want to pursue, it is time to create some videos. For an example, if you want to get involved into product videos, you can begin doing commercials from the comfort of your own home. You can get any product line around your home. Obviously, it can't be any product. It has to be a product where there's demand for video or what people actually want to buy. It can be coffee, an energy drink, protein shake, a watch, shoes, clothing, products that not only look great on video but a great product to brand and create content around it. Don't just create five commercials and put these five videos in your portfolio because your first videos are going to be your worst. I recommend creating 15-20 videos and picking out five of the best out of those 20. Don't put every video in your portfolio, only put your best work. Tip number 3 is marketing yourself. In today's day and age, it's so easy to get seen and heard. You could do that by uploading social media content. With TikTok's success, these other massive platforms are replicating TikTok's algorithm. We're talking Instagram, YouTube, and possibly Facebook might release some short-form content like what these other platforms are doing. What makes TikTok different from the rest is how you get noticed. You can upload your first video ever and have more chances on going viral than these other platforms. It's designed to push your content to a new audience every time you upload a new video. You can pretty much just use social media to market yourself. Now, it's not guaranteed that you'll lock in a client consistently, but I recommend utilizing social media as an extra marketing strategy. Also, figure out other ways to consistently bring in leads. Speaking of getting leads, that's one of every filmmaker's biggest problem. Yes, you have to get the skills, knowledge, and build a portfolio to show the clients that you're capable on doing this job, but you have to know about marketing, sales, negotiating, and bringing value. That's where the business side on this class comes in handy. I'll talk more on that in the next video, so make sure you keep on watching. Tip Number 4 is the free-to-fee method. When you're first starting out, you have to offer your services for free. It's a must because nobody knows you, nobody has never heard of you, and you haven't shown anything for your portfolio. It's your job to show off your skills and prove to these potential clients that you've mastered your craft. This brings me back to my first point on mastering your craft. Make sure you know what you're doing when you get onset and know exactly how to expose your shot. You got the audio locked in, you know how to properly light up your subject, you know the purpose of each and every project you get yourself into. Booking the first gig is always the hardest. Think about it, you're reaching out to someone on the Internet, convincing him to meet up to shoot a commercial for their business. On their perspective, what usually goes in their mind is either fear, anxiety, skepticism, untrustworthy, and somewhat of a nonchalant attitude. In order to get their intention and booking the gig, you have to let them know that you're willing to do a video for free just so you can get the experience, have a video for your portfolio and potentially work with them in the future. If you do a good job, then you have mastered the first step. Yes, you have to sacrifice just a little portion of your time, but in return, if done right, you can begin your filmmaking journey. As you can see, having some business knowledge is a must if you want to become a successful freelancer, start your own production company, or even work for another business. These aspects are extremely valuable and it doesn't hurt you to learn about it. Well, that is pretty much it. If you have any other further questions, please let me know. [MUSIC] 20. Business// What's Next After Booking A Paid Gig: [MUSIC] In this video, I'm going to be discussing the things you should keep in mind once you locked in your first gig. Whether it's a paid gig or not, this will apply to whichever situation you're at. Tip Number 1 is clarification. When you're on a call with a client, ask them questions about the project so you can set expectations. These are the questions that I always ask my clients: What will I be shooting? Who is your targeted audience? Do you have a video sample for inspiration? Where will this be distributed? How long do you want the video to be? How many videos do you want? How many hours/days of shooting will it be? Will this project require hiring more people? When is the shooting day? When is the deadline and any other special requests? By asking these questions, this will give you an idea on how they want the final result to turn out. This can also help your clients get clear on what they want and truly need in this project. So it's a win-win for both parties. When you're discussing the project with your client, mention this from the get-go. Ask him to get crystal clear and what they want you to include in the video. Because when I deliver rough cuts for approval and they want me to make any big changes, there's a fee for revisions. I personally charge revisions after the second round. I offer two free revisions. It's all about communication. If there's anything in their minds regarding to the project, let them know that you're always open and willing to hear their ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Clients like it when they're heard and they are allowed to add their concept in the project. Tip Number 2 is preparation. Once you've asked all of these questions, this will give me an idea on what gear to bring. Make sure you bring the appropriate camera, audio, lighting, lens, and more. You know if you're shooting a real estate video, you need to bring a gimbal and a drone. It's just a must. If you're shooting a product video, you know you need to bring a slow-mo camera, lots of lighting, some stands, and maybe a slider depending on how your work. Also, if you're renting out gear, make sure you learn how to use it and test it out days before the actual shoot. You don't want to show up on the shoot and not know how to use the gear that you rented and end up having a bad experience with a specific equipment just because you didn't spend two hours learning how to use it. Once you got the gear handled, make sure you know the schedule of the shoot. Like for an example, if it's an event, knowing the schedule of the event is a must. Ask them to send you the schedule so you're prepared and ready to capture the day and you don't miss some of the important moments. Not only does this give you prepared to have the right gear ready but it also gets you prepared mentally. I've been in situations where the plans have drastically changed and I wasn't prepared mentally. When you're mentally prepared, you have the shot list in mind, the story. If it's an interview, you're ready to direct the talent and having time to figure out where you'll be standing to get the best angles. So please be prepared and it also looks good on you that you know the schedule of the shoot so you can be somewhat in control of the actual shoot. Tip Number 3 is contentment. This is by far the most important aspect when it comes to business and in general, and that's being a pleasure to work with. People do business with you when they know, like, and trust you. Don't be this negative, selfish, person with the ego. That will stop you from doing business with people and no one's going to want to refer you to anyone. One of the most powerful ways you can get clients is by word of mouth. When someone refers you to one of their clients, partners, friends, family members, or colleagues, I can guarantee that they will at least give you a chance and allow you to present your pricing package or your business. But I cannot guarantee that you will lock in the deal. Maybe that comes to budget-wise, availability, or they found someone else that meets their style. It has nothing to do with you not being great at it. Some clients just prefer a specific video style and that's totally fine. But just be easy to work with, be kind, helpful, caring, thoughtful for others. You can take criticism and you're actually good at what you do. Some clients are willing to do anything to have you film their event or their video and here's why. Let me tell you an example of what has been happening to me lately. Last year in 2021, I reached out to an entrepreneur named Nick Long. I asked him if I can shoot the event that they were hosting for free. I was doing the free fee method like we talked about in the previous video. Then he finally gave me a chance. I met the team and once I was there at the event, I was being friendly and easy to work with. I wasn't giving them a hard time or wasn't making them even harder for them to hire me again. After the event, I decided to overdeliver, which is one of the tips. They only asked for a recap video of the whole event, but because I wanted to stand out and really get this job, I delivered a two-minute recap, three quote cards, and two soundbites for social media. They were blown away by the results. They were blown away that they invited me for the second event a month later. After the event, I was paid $300 and then after a week of discussing, I was officially in their team. But that doesn't stop there. I was working with him for a few months and started getting their trust. Unfortunately, they had to let me go due to budget-wise, but a few months later in February of 2022, they were hosting their first ever event of the year and they asked me to film for that event. I offered my pricing but couldn't move forward because they were tight on budget. After a few days, I was thinking I should be thankful for the opportunity they gave me last year by giving me a job in the first place, introducing me to new friends. Since you guys gave me a job to begin with, that paid the bills, allowed me to make a living on something that I enjoy doing. I was surrounded by mentors, I met some of the nicest people. You guys gave me travel opportunities. They allowed me to talk to someone when I was in my darkest place in my life. I was willing to help them with no charge. I didn't care about them paying me. I just truly wanted to help them from the heart because all does this thing called the law of reciprocity. When you're willing to help someone because you're a great person and you have a big heart, the other person is also willing to help when you need it, and that's what I did. After that event, Nick wanted to help me out by giving me more work. He connected me with this guy and he's hosting an event in St. Louis, Missouri. I am getting paid $3,000 for that event to shoot one recap video and 10 social media testimonials and all travel expenses are paid off. That's the power of contentment or being a pleasure to work with and also just being a great human being. A lot of these clients are willing to fly you out just because they know, like, and trust you. You see how powerful that can be? Lastly, Tip Number 4 is overdeliver, what I just talked about. I already talked about this, but essentially when you're delivering a project, think about how you can impress them. How can I make them want to hire me? If they don't hire me, it's their loss for losing someone that they can add value to them and potentially scale the business. I always over-deliver to clients I truly want to work with. Maybe that's the business they have and what it stands for, their goals and plans, they're impactful or we've build that connection and I truly like them as a friend and I want to help them get known. Whatever that may be, always overdeliver. This will impress them and want to work with you. Filmmaking is getting extremely competitive and you have to do something that makes you stand out. When booking is shooting gig, make sure you apply these into your career and I promise you if you actually implement this, you will get clients and open up so many opportunities. Whether that's on big-budget projects, paid travel gigs, going full-time in this career, and other occasions. Not only is it important to master before booking the gig, but also master the aftermath. In the next video, I'm going to be discussing the importance of building relationships and networking. But that'll be it for this video. If you have any other questions, feel free to let me know. 21. Business// Your Network Is The Secret To Getting Clients: [NOISE] Building relationships is the key factor for success. I don't care who you are or where you're at your career, networking is a powerful thing and you can potentially meet new friends, partnerships, clients, employees, collaborations, and investors. There's a phrase in business about relationships. If you want to be successful, it's not just what you know, it's also who you know. Your net worth is a reflection of your network. You may be a very skilled filmmaker with expensive gear and years of experience, but if nobody knows you and you're not networking, you're missing the biggest aspect when it comes to building a successful business, and that's people knowing you. A lot of filmmakers miss this part of it because they only focus on the creative side and don't improve on the networking side. That's why masterminds are extremely powerful and they're super expensive to join. Some masterminds you actually need to qualify. You need to be making a certain amount of annual revenue, have x amount of employees, and actually be a successful CEO generating profit in your business, but once you're finally at that level that you qualify for mastermind, you know for a fact that every person you interact with is a high achiever and can potentially give you advice, ideas, you can partner up, or build something amazing. With the power of two minds colliding, you could build something extraordinary. Also when talking to someone, don't jump straight into business. Get to know each other before discussing ideas and projects that you can do together. Find out if you guys actually like each other's personalities and are a great fit for collaboration. Most of all, build that friendship, build that connection and become more than just business partners, but actually become friends. If you're getting started in business in 2022, we are so lucky that we have social media, the Internet, and technology that wasn't available 20 years ago. We have so much free and valuable resources in today's day and age, and we should be taking advantage of it like joining Facebook groups. I've actually gotten a few paid gigs from Facebook groups. Do not underestimate groups in Facebook. It's actually the same thing as masterminds, but you're meeting people online. Maybe not everyone you come across in these Facebook groups have a successful business, but you can meet someone who have somewhat of a decent company. Building relationships online is a lot harder since you're not talking to them face to face or you guys are not in-person. You're just behind the screen. It's a lot more difficult to trust a stranger in the Internet. What you should do is have a genuine conversation and build that relationship. Once you've been chatting back and forth, maybe you can hop on a Zoom call to virtually meet each other, and eventually once you build that trust a little, then you could meet in person and finally work together, and that is the power of networking. The reason why people quit or end up not moving to the next level is patience and consistency. Not only does it take time to master those skills, but to actually profit from your business, it can take years to do that. We're in the business of having to learn the camera, creativity, storytelling, and marketing, and that's impossible to master those skills in six months. You just can't do it. You can maybe cut your learning curve and get there a lot quicker if you're smart about it and invest in education like online courses and maybe a coaching program, but it still takes time to master the skills you need to build a successful business. Another reason why people fail is not being consistent. They don't shoot at it every day and learn every single day. They watch a lot of YouTube tutorials, gear reviews, montages, and way too much Netflix. Sure we're human beings and we need our break once in a while, but if you're consuming content for hours and not learning, you will fail. It's absolutely simple guys. It's all about putting in the reps and being disciplined. You're not going to get there without sacrifice, hard work, being comfortable, and not networking. The more you work, the luckier you will get. If you want to get new clients, you're not going to call five people and lock in those five people. You will need to call at least 50 people a day so you can potentially lock in those 4-5 people out of the 50. Consistency and discipline is what you must do. [NOISE] Well, there you have it. I hope you got some value out of this video. In the next video, I'm going to be talking about what to charge, how to create a package, what to include, and how to stand out from your competitors. If you have any other questions, feel free to let me know. [MUSIC] 22. Business// How Much Should You Charge: This is the question that many filmmakers ask, how much should I charge? Well, that depends. I can't really tell you how much you should charge. Because I don't know where you are in your career, what your skill level, how many clients you generate each month, and what you include in your package if you do offer more than one service. But typically, you should price it by hourly. How much do you think you're worth per hour? When you're a beginner, maybe start between $10 to $20 per hour. If you're an intermediate, you can price between $20 to $40 an hour. If you're at a professional advanced level, you can charge starting from $60 up to $100 per hour. But you're probably asking how do I know which category I fall into? Well, that's a good question. It doesn't really come to experience, although that can help, but it boils down to the results you can offer to your clients. They don't care about your experience, the gear you use, how you edit their projects, where you edit their projects, what software you use, but the end result and the value that you offer. If you master marketing and paid advertisements early in your film making career, or realize how important this is that you hire someone with more experience to help you, you can easily be in the professional advanced category in your first two years in business. You could be charging $60, $70, $80, even $100 per hour in the beginning of your career. Figure out how you can help your clients profit from this investment, and that will determine how much you should be charging. But if you're shooting weddings, real estate, action, sports, or social meeting content, it's hard to give them results because for weddings, you're not creating the film for results when you're documenting their special day to create their memories. In this case, you have to think, am I generating consistent clients per month, that I'm overworked, and can't take any more clients? Well, that means you have to increase your price and take on less work, or are you barely getting any work and you don't know when your next gig is? Then you should be charging a lot cheaper. Maybe anything with the client offers because you don't have a strong portfolio, you need more marketing and experience. So start low and once you have the ball rolling and started getting clients, without having to cold e-mail them, you can slowly start to raise your prices. Next on the list is creating a package. Most filmmakers offer pre-production, the filming and editing, and that's it. Then later clients figure out the marketing aspect. But I think you should be adding marketing into your package. Here's why. A lot of clients don't know what to do with that video. They think by just adding that video into social media, the platforms are going to do the work for them and generate leads, traffic, and sales, which that can happen, but it's highly unlikely. I recommend learning about paid advertisements or at least hire an expert to help your clients get the results they want. So we can ultimately charge more for your packages. Remember what I said in the beginning? If we can offer them a profit and help them generate more money than what they paid for your package or for this investment, they're going to rehire you again. I definitely guarantee it. Let me show you how I price my packages and what I include. So I offer three packages, a bronze, silver, and gold package. The Bronze, I offer a Facebook campaign. A Facebook campaign is a paid advertisement, utilizing a system that makes it extremely easy for the client to book in a car and potentially work the client. That comes at a total price of $1,450. The Silver package, I offer the same Facebook campaign both width 16 reels, shots, and edit it. You can repurpose this on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts, totaling the price at $2,450. Lastly is my gold package. I offer the same Facebook campaign. This time I offer 28 reels and four YouTube videos, totaling the price at $4,450. For most people that seem super expensive. But if they look at it at an investment standpoint and they offer a great product or a service, then the prices make sense for the value they'll be receiving. Next on the list is workflow. This indicates the rules, boundaries you separate clients, so things go by smoothly. You don't overwork yourself and you set expectations when the clients work with you. I created a PDF that sets all the rules about deposits, revisions, raw footage, canceling issue, and more. I recommend you doing this to not only look more professional, but you let the client know on how you operate. If you want this PDF for reference, so that way you can use it for your business, make sure you leave your comments down below with your email and I will email you the exact PDF I send to my clients. Last thing on the list is standing out from your competitors. What makes you different from everybody else? Is it how you work, how you price your packages, how you deliver, or how you represent your clients. There are many filmmakers in the world, but only a few build a sustainable business. A business that's profitable and valuable. But at the same time, there's never been a perfect moment to become a filmmaker. So many businesses and entrepreneurs need a video for marketing. Marketing is always going to be around and it's up to you if you're willing to adapt. There's always new things coming like TikTok, entities, and the reverse. I still think TikTok is relatively new. A lot of people don't realize how powerful their algorithm is. Let's now begin talking about entities and the metaverse. Those are extremely new. The point is if you want to have a successful video business, your work either has to be the greatest people have ever seen, you have connections, or you're doing something completely new. Learning about business and knowing what's going on in the world when it comes to economics is very important to succeed. In the next video, I want to be sharing my final thoughts and comments. If you have any other further questions, feel free to let me know. [MUSIC] 23. Conclusion: [MUSIC] This is the final video of the Filmmaker Pro class. In this video, I just want to talk about my final task, my conclusion, any comments, last advice that I can give you guys. Some of the things I want to talk about is implementation. Actually apply these into your career, whether that's the business that we just talked about, the skills that we're on the camera, the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and so on. Because you could be watching this entire class, but after you're done watching it, you're not going to know anything about it. You didn't take any notes, you didn't re-watch a video, watch the video like two or three times so that way you can actually dial in the information that you just soaked up. It's super difficult to actually remember. We just learned if you don't write about it, if you don't re-watch it, if you don't actually follow along like the settings that I gave you how to properly expose your camera or how to have the perfect settings. Make sure you have your camera out and actually follow along. Then also if I talk about a technique, a camera movement or a editing, keyboard shortcut, or something wherever that may be. Make sure you actually do it right after you watch the video. Watch it two three times, and then after that, go out and start shooting. If I talked about let's see, how to get the proper settings, I actually go outside and start messing around with the camera. Also play around indoors because it's different. Obviously indoors is a lot darker, so you need more light, you need maybe a better, faster lens, you need to increase your ISO. If you're outside, you definitely need to decrease your ISO, increase your shutter speed, maybe add a ND filter, stuff like that. Make sure you learn the basics and you actually practice. It takes time guys. Like me explaining how to expose your image manually to a newbie, a beginner, they're going to be confused. They don't know what f-stop is, I have to teach them like what f-stop is, what I saw this. In order for them to know how to expose their image. Make sure you learn the basics and you master it. Also practice doesn't make perfect. We're never going to be perfect. It's impossible for us to be perfect. Me being in this industry for four years, I'm still learning, I'm still improving. I could still get better. Practice does not make perfect, it makes improvement. Just have the mentality that I'm always going to get better, I'm always going to produce better, higher-quality videos. I want to be better than when I was yesterday, a month ago, last year. I look at the videos that I shared last year, they're not horrible, but I could definitely do better. Like the commercials, I want to get into product commercials or product videos. Every year I make like three or four super high-quality videos. I always replace my old ones from my portfolio and add new ones. I will only want to add the best of the best of my work into my website or portfolio. Always have the mindset that you're never going to be perfect, you're never going to be the best, or you're never going to stop learning or you're not going to have this mindset of like, oh, I learned everything about filmmaking so I'm going to stop. There's always new technology and new gear to learn, new techniques, strategies, and you just have to be willing to adapt, that's just why we got into in this industry. There's new cameras coming out, new softwares that make our lives a lot easier, a lot quicker. We just need to learn all those things or we could hire someone. Hopefully, you get to the point where you could hire someone, and you don't have to learn everything because it gets overwhelming. Just learn the things that you enjoy doing, and that you're actually good at, so that way you don't burnt out and you actually get to do this for a very long time. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but you've got to take action. If you want to be a filmmaker, you actually have to create films like a client is not going to magically like knock on your door and offer you $1,000 to shoot their commercial. That's just not going to happen. You have to work for it. You have to actually put in the hours, and you have to just take action and you got to be uncomfortable because it is uncomfortable learning all these skills, and it gets overwhelming and you actually have to do it. You have to put in your ribs, put in your time, and master the skills that you need so that way clients could actually pay for your work. In this business, it's a horrible rejection. At first clients are going to reject you because I don't know, maybe they already have a videographer, they already have a production team that they're working with, and you're like this new video guy that doesn't even have a portfolio, and it's shooting their first ever video and only has a few months of experience. Obviously, they're not going to hire you. You just got to have those skills. You're going to create and produce high-quality video that people actually want and people are willing to pay for. You probably going to get like 10 noes, if you like cold call people, you're going to get rejected as so many times. Also it just builds, it just makes you stronger, makes you tougher. That way in the future you will be able to handle rejection. That is pretty much it for this class. I hope you got so much value out of this. I promise if you apply these aspects, or these tips, or these strategies that I just gave you, I can guarantee that you will get your first filmmaking job or your first paid gig. My first gig was $100 and that took me almost a year to get, and it was a real estate video, and I was offering my services for free. I was doing a pretty free method for a very long time and I still do that method. Don't think just because you have ten years of experience that you should stop doing this pretty free method. This is never going to stop. There's always going to be new companies being built, new opportunities, and you're not always going to have that experience. You always need to offer your services for free, so that way you could get those opportunities and build your portfolio. Well, that is pretty much how. I hope you guys had so much value out of this class, and I guarantee that you can get your first film making gig if you apply this into your career. I hope I see you guys next time. [MUSIC]