Smartphone Videography: Creating Amazing Video with your Smartphone from Start to Finish

1. Introduction: Mobile Videography: Creating Amazing Video with your Smartphone from Start to Finish: What if I told you that you can make videos like this one with your smartphone that can compete with the results of much, much more expensive cameras and all just with a phone right in your pocket. The problem is just that most people's results look more like this. My name is Dennis and I'm a freelance video creator from Germany. And by now I have taught almost 30,000 students here on Skillshare, on different topics all around filmmaking, production. On top of that, I still work as a freelance videographer here in Germany. And one of my personal learnings of the past five years in my own career was that gear is not the most important thing, despite what everybody else tells you. And that is precisely why in this class, I want to teach you how powerful even just our everyday smartphones have become and that you can create amazing videos, amazing images without the need for expensive cameras anymore. But as I said already, there are many things along the way. We're a bit of experience and a few tips can make all the difference. To really get the best out of your smartphone camera, you need to know the most important steps to get nice image quality, vibrant colors, great audio quality, and also learn the super simple and yet amazing lighting technique that is perfect for those. We want to get good results with little effort. So in this class I will cover all of the things you need to know to make amazing videos with your phone. I will give you a behind the scenes and kind of over the shoulder look to not just see what to do, but also why to do it and how exactly to do it. And it's really my goal with this class to sort of demystify a lot of things that you might think are too complicated to master. Things like camera apps, stabilizers, the exact cameras settings you need, the composition of your shot, audio quality, and even the most feared topic of lighting. And after finishing this class, you will be able to recreate a shot like this one right now by yourself and all in a way that is fit for beginners. You don't need to have any pre-knowledge to get started with this class. That sounds good to you. I'm really excited to see you inside the class. 2. What you need for this Class + Class Project: Welcome to the class smartphone videography. I'm excited to see you here, or at least know that you're there. Unfortunately, I cannot personally see you yet. But anyway, as the name of the class says, I want to share with you everything you need to know to start making amazing videos with just the camera in your pocket, your smartphone. And I want to just give you an overview of the things you might need, the items, the products that you might need in this class to really follow every bit of it. Now the first thing is, of course your phone. It doesn't need to be any special phone or even the newest iPhone or anything like that. Just any phone that was released, I would say in the last maybe two to five years will probably do the job. Now the next thing is a tripod. A tripod is going to be very helpful. It's not actually necessarily ready to participate or to learn the things in this class. But I just think making all of those different settings and learning about composition. And definitely when you get to build your first shot with your smartphone camera, it will come in very handy and I have linked and affordable tripod down below. And the gearbox for you to check out. Tripods for smartphones are generally much cheaper and much smaller than the ones for big cameras. So I really recommend you check it out. Now in terms of the lighting, you can definitely start out with nothing but sunlight there as well. There's no need to have anything specifically bought beforehand. But however, for later on, I do recommend that you get a simple and cheap set of softbox, softbox video lights that I've also linked down below for you to check out. Last but not least, you should at some point invest in a microphone solution for your videos. Again, this is not critical for now for most of the class because it's mostly all about image quality and the things you can do visually. But as I teach you in the lesson on audio, audio is really important for professional videos, or really any videos that you want people to watch for any more than 5 s. And just because it's so important, I have also here a link below my personal favorite microphone solution for you to check out. Now, other than those things, you really need nothing else but your creativity and focus when we get through the lessons. And I'm sure you will be rewarded with great looking and great sounding videos right, from your smartphone. Students Project. Now guys, this is the exciting part. The student's project in this class is going to be really hands on and it's going to be relevant in pretty much every single lesson of the class. I really want you to take your phone and follow along with all the changes, all the steps, all the things that we learned as we build our shot and learn how to build a shot with nothing but our smartphones. So just work through the class. And at the end of the class, I would like you to upload a short video of yourself in a typical talking heads situation like mine right now, and that you have created by yourself with the knowledge that you hopefully learned in this class. Just remember when you do this, pay attention to the correct settings and nice lighting situation according to what you have right now. If you could just use daylight, that's fine as well. And you can really make cool things happen with daylight only. For extra points, extra, extra points, even a good audio solution if you want, I will give my personal feedback to every single entry and I'm excited to see your results. 3. Why Even Film On a Smartphone?: Why are smartphones and amazing tool to get great looking videos? In this lesson, I want to take a quick look at why you should even use your smart phone as a camera instead of just using a real camera. And reason number one is that smartphones are just much smaller than any professional video camera, and that includes even the smaller mirrorless cameras. And this small size brings a lot of benefits with it because you can literally take out your phone out of your pocket and hit record. No matter in which situation you are, there's no heavy camera body. There are no big lenses, no extra batteries that you need to carry around. And the fact that you can take it out of your pocket brings me to point number two. And point number two is that you just simply always have it with you. This can be a huge deal in terms of how likely you are to film today, because there doesn't need to be any big amounts of preparation or planning involved. Your phone is with you always. You don't need to think about charging it. You don't need to think about putting it in your back because you will always have it with you. Point number three is that phones have a really impressive image quality, especially in the last couple of years. And not only for its size, but even in comparison to much, much, much more expensive cameras, it even went so far that under ideal conditions really make great images with a phone that do not need to hide from a real comparison with the footage off an actual camera, sometimes even a cinema camera. And number four is simply the ease of use. You do not need to learn how to use your phone anymore, because everybody knows that already. Just think about for a second what is needed to get a video camera running. You need to have extra batteries. You need to think about lenses. You need to have a bigger tripod. Perhaps you need to have an external monitor. You connect your microphones, maybe with a chunky XLR cable and so forth. There's a lot that goes, or at least potentially goes into a setup like this. Now obviously since we do videos anyway, we need the same general elements on a phone as well. But either they are already internally there, like e.g. the battery or if not, then they're just much smaller anyway, and much easier to put together in general, it is much easier to set up a fully functional cameras setup with a phone compared to with the camera. Now, like I already mentioned things that we'll need for our camera, but I don't need for smartphone or lenses, batteries, XLR cables, big tripods, SD cards, HDMI cables. There's just a lot of things that can be added to a camera setup like this. Number five is that there are a lot of functions within a phone that cameras, even modern cameras, might not even have. E.g. you can upload your footage directly from your phone into the Cloud or put it onto your MacBook with AirDrop. For those of you who have iPhones, there's amazing stabilization and many of the phone cameras, or at least in the camera apps that you can use. And you will learn more about apps in a class later. And you can even add things like teleprompter functionality without even needing anything else. But just your phone. Number six is simply, you already have it. There is no need to spend loads of money for cool camera if you don't want to or if you can afford it, you just use your phone that you have already and you're good to go. Now, all of those reasons are just to say filming with your smartphone has become a valid option for anyone who just wants to make creative videos for YouTube, even marketing videos for your own business. And if it wasn't just for the look of it, that it would look weird. You could probably even make professional videos just with your phone. But since it does look a little bit weird to come up with a phone when people pay you for making a video for real client work, uh, cameras necessary, I would say. But for anything else, you can really get the job done without any problems. And all that being said, let's move on to the next lesson. 4. How to Film Yourself on a Phone: How to film yourself on a phone. One big problem when filming yourself with your phone is that the better camera to shoot with is on the outside of the phone, on the back of the phone. But here's the problem. The screen that you need to monitor the image on at least one you're filming yourself is on the front of the phone. So no matter how you turn it and twist it, It's not possible to film yourself with a better camera. And at the same time see what you're filming on the screen of the phone. At least not without any help. Now at this point, we could just set the shot and the way that we believe it will fit and then go back and forth until we found a framing that looks great. But let's be honest with each other, that is super time-consuming and it's not a smooth way of making videos. And you're probably not going to want to make any more videos after the third one because it's so annoying. So how can we handle this problem? Well, I have to say the most obvious way is probably just to stick with the front-facing selfie camera and forsake the better image quality of the camera on the back is definitely the easier route to just use the front-facing camera. However, there are tools for this purpose specifically because we're obviously not the first ones to notice the problem. There are mirrors specifically made to help out with this issue. Now, I think they're technically made for DSLR cameras are just real cameras in general that don't have a flip out screen, but there was really no reason not to use them for your smartphones as well, since they don't have flip out screens either, the only thing to look out for is that those mirrors are usually attached to a so-called cold shoe mount. Now that is the little slight and mount on top of most cameras that you probably might have seen. But as you can see, my phone doesn't have one of these and yours probably neither. Now the question is, how can we use it anyway? Well, you can purchase a phone cage like this one to hold your mirror on top and even have more space for different accessories like microphones if you want doing it this way, you can film yourself in an easy way with your phone cameras on the back. And I do want to say, of course you can achieve the same by just putting any mirror behind your phone and put it in the right angle that you can see it while you sit in front of the phone. But as you can imagine, that can be a really wonky solution. But it's definitely possible. I do want to mention it because I don't want you to feel like you need to buy yet another accessory every single time to make it work. Now, quick recap for this lesson. There's a problem with filming yourself with your phone when you want to use the better camera, because it's just not possible to check the shot and also film yourself with the camera at the same time. So there's a beautiful solution that we can use, which are those mirrors that can attach to our phone with the help of a cage, and that's the way we can handle this. Now if you have any further questions for this lesson, drop it below in the comments and I will make sure to get back to you as soon as I can. 5. Camera Apps: In this lesson, I want to talk about camera apps. And the first thing to ask ourselves is, do we even need a camera app, or is it just unnecessary extras that we can really also live without? And the answer is, of course, you could live without. You can make videos with just nothing else but the internal camera app on your phone. And they will, generally speaking, look good. So you might ask yourself at this point, why are there even camera apps out there to begin with? Well, the answer is something that you really want to pay attention to because it is necessary for lots of the following things I will teach you in this class, you see some of the most common beginner mistakes are really due to the limitations of the smartphones internal camera app. Okay. Did you understand this? Because one of the crucial things for good results, of course, is to have the right camera settings. And at this point, if you don't know anything about camera settings, don't worry, I will explain it in a later lesson in the most beginner friendly way that anybody could really understand it. But just so you can hear the terms already, we are talking about camera settings like shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and some others. And the problem is that most of those so crucial camera settings for a high-quality video can not even be changed in the standard camera app of many fonts, which is actually kind of crazy. But we have to remember those phones are made for everyday people, not for filmmaking, people that really want to have the perfect manual control over everything. But the point is that they can only be changed with the help of a special camera app that extends the functionality of the standard smartphone app. I know there's some phones, there are some phones that offer this manual control already out of the box, but at least with my iPhone and I think many other phones, this limitation is still the case. But that being said, this is not the only reason why I believe that a camera app can be really helpful for any video creator that uses the phone. So let's take a look at one specific camera app that I like very much and recommend as well, to show you some of the ways in which camera apps makes sense. And the app is called filmic pro. Now this is not a free app. You will have to pay for access to this app. And I want to just say a quick disclaimer beforehand. I'm not in any way affiliated with filmic pro. I just really like this app. I think that's the overall best camera app of the ones that I've tested myself. But I will go into more detail why and a few other alternatives later on in this class. So let's take a look at the interface. We can see a lot of buttons and options. The first thing is like I said, that you can now change all the important camera settings, like white balance, shutter speed, ISO, and so forth, that we will take a longer look at in the lesson on camera settings. The next thing is that the app gives me even more helpful tools and information about the image I am recording. This might seem unimportant to you right now, but as soon as you try to get consistently good results and care about things like exposure levels and those kinds of things. Many of those tools will prove Super helpful to you to check focus. Like I said, measure exposure to check the audio levels and much more. There are really a lot of things that we can see on the screen now. Now the most important thing for me personally to use are the waveforms to see quickly when anything is over or underexposed. And the audio meters that tell me if my audio levels are okay. Now there is a specific reason why filmic pro is my favorite camera app over some of the other apps that are actually even cheaper and have basically the same functionality like the Moment app, which is also really amazing and I would recommend it as well. The main difference for me is basically just one single setting that filmic pro offers that the other ones that are checked out did not have to that extent. And that's setting is a really big strength of filmic pro. And that is the stabilization the camera app offers without the help of any Gimbels with a technique that I had not seen before, but more on that also in the lesson on stabilizers and Gimbels. Alright, so let's do a quick recap of this lesson. You have learned that you can make videos without any special camera apps, just with your smartphone right out of the pocket. But if you do want to get the best out of your smartphone in terms of image quality and so forth, then a camera app definitely makes sense. I have shared my personal favorite filmic pro with you and already outlined a few of the features that we will cover more thoroughly in the coming lessons. Now as always in this class, if there's any questions so far, feel free to drop them in the comments below, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. 6. White Balance: Camera settings, one, white balance. In the last two lessons, we talked about how powerful and helpful a specialty camera app can be. One of the main reasons why a camera episode crucial for smartphone videography is the ability to change the camera settings. Now, let me walk you through those settings and why they are important and how you can actually change them in the app filmic pro. And first, let's take a look at the single most important setting that is probably responsible for most amateur looking videos out there. And that is white balance. Now, sometimes white balance can be a little bit confusing, but I want to try to explain it to you in the most simple way. White balance basically regulates the color in your image or the colors in your image. If the setting is correct, then your image will probably look the way it's supposed to look. The colors will look the way you want them to look. The most cases that will result in white things, e.g. really being white in the image. And that is also why it's called white balance. And the goal with white balance, at least in principle, is to get an image that resembles real life, that resembles the shot as you've seen it when you make the shot, real life and the colors in your video should match. Now if you check the camera settings in your phone or on your camera, also, white balance is measured in Kelvin. Now this is also the measurement for color temperature. And don't worry, it's not gonna get too technical. But that is a clue for us because correct white balance in 99% of the cases, the color temperature of your main light source, your key light if you will. So for instance, if it's a typical video light like I'm using right now, this will be at 5,600 Kelvin. If it's a tungsten colored light, it will be at 3,200 Kelvin. Got it. And if not, if there's any more questions on this specific topic, just again, drop me a question and I would love to answer you specifically. Now, the problem with smartphone camera apps is that they often only allow the use of auto white balance. I'm talking about the internal camera apps, not filmic pro or anti like that. And that means the phone determines what a good white balance is for better or for worse. And another problem is that it also keeps adjusting the white balance continuously During the clip as you are filming. And that is a real problem in terms of color correction. Or even if you don't do any color correction, then in terms of the continuity of your luck, because the colors will keep changing in your frame all the time depending on what's exactly in front of the camera and the camera thinks, Oh, now a different white balance might be the right one, now a different one and so forth. You get the idea. And to solve that problem, we need our phone to give us the authority to change the white balance. Okay, so let's say the proper white balance for this shot would be 5,600 Kelvin, which is also the color temperature of my key light here, but it is now at 3,200 Kelvin, then this is what it would look like. So I go to my phone, I change it to 56 600 Kelvin. And this is what the shot now looks like. And so we end up with a shot that looks basically the way it's supposed to look. And by the way, if you would like a beginners class on all of those fundamentals of videography for really any cameras, including your smartphone. Then check out the link in the description that brings you to the class that already held well over 10,000 students on Skillshare to improve their videos. So finishing up this lesson, let's recap what we learned. In this lesson, I taught you what white balance is and why we need to get the setting right. I also told you that white balance and 99% of cases just means match your white balance to the color temperature of your key light source. Finally, I refer you to my additional classrooms Kosher for more depth of information, especially on topics like white balance. Now if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer you in the comments and I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Frame Rate: Camera settings to frame rate. In this lesson, we will talk about frame rate. My favorite way to explain frame rate is this German, we call this DOM and Kino. And really I find this so fascinating and it's so perfectly illustrates what videos actually are. They are also called motion pictures because they are, in fact nothing else but pictures in motion, single frames that follow each other at a specific rate that makes our brain think that it was continuous motion. And I do have to say a truly shows the creative genius of our Creator who truly made us wonderful in that way. And this rate that I was referring to, that is the frame rate. And you can see this frame rate setting often on your phone settings when you change the resolution, e.g. 1080, 2410, 3010, 8060 or 21, 60, 60, and so forth. Those are the frame rates. The second number is the frame rate. And traditionally in movie production, the frame rate that is most commonly used as 24 frames per second. Nowadays, you can also see a lot of 30 frames per second. Now at the end of the day, this is really mostly a style question. There's no right or wrong answer to this. Both works fine. And sometimes I even prefer the 30 frames per second because of its look. E.g. this class right now is being filmed in 30 frames per second. It looks a bit more sharp, in my opinion, a little bit more fast, a bit more real to life, whereas 24 frames per second. It looks maybe a bit more cinematic and come and this setting, like I said, it's totally up to you for the longest time and so far professional productions, I will definitely use 24 frames per second. Just one little tip on top of it. If you have a low light situation, 24 frames per second, we'll give you a little bit of more light in your camera without getting into too much detail. But in those cases, film 24. Now one thing to mention is that frame rate becomes important as soon as we want to start filming anything in slow motion. Because the best way to do that, to film something in slow motions, to film the section that you want to turn into slow motion in a higher frame rate than what you actually want as a final result. And then just slow down the video until it is back at 24 or 30 frames per second, which results then in a slow motion image. Now, I don't want to go into much detail on how to do that technically, but just know that for slow motion, you have to film in higher frame rates, like 60 or 120 frames per second. So here's the recap and the take-away. You have learned that for normal shots, I recommend that you film in 24 or 30 frames per second depending on your personal preference. If there's no good reason to not stick with this classic way of doing it. And then you learn that if you want to use slow motion, you should always shoot a higher frame rate, like 60 FPS or 120 FPS. Any questions? Let me know in the comments and let's move on to shutter speed. 8. Shutter Speed: Camera settings three, shutter speed. Shutter speed is together with ISO, one of the two main settings that influences the brightness of your picture on your smartphone. And actually not just on the smartphone, but also on the smartphone. It's the same with cameras. And just like with white balance, if you leave it by itself with a standard camera app, your phone usually will try to make the decisions for you, which is cool for people who don't want to make great looking videos for just some holiday videos or something. But for us we need the control to make the right decisions. So what is the right decision in terms of shutter speed and what does it even mean? So, shutter speed influences the motion blur of your image and also the brightness of your image. Those are the two effects of changing the shutter speed. It's easiest to just show you the difference. Here's a clip with proper shutter speed as it would be used in cinema productions or really anything common. The shutter speed here was one 50th of a second. You can see in the clip that everything looks smooth and we can see a fair bit of motion blur. And if we stop the frame, we can see the motion blur very, very clearly. It's always those two things that you need to keep in mind that change Motion Blur and the brightness. A clip with high shutter speed on the other hand, leads to a video that is very fast and stays sharp and there's almost no motion blur. There's also the reason why 30 frames per second as a frame rate will lead to more sharpness because you always have to bump also the shutter speed to match it, but we'll get to that later. But another thing is that this image will be much darker than the image with a lower shutter speed. Now you do have a lot of background knowledge now, but practically speaking, the shutter speed is fairly easy to set actually, because it should be, if possible, always one over double the frame rate because that just creates the right balance between motion blur and the frames per second in one shot. And in short, it just leads to a very natural looking image. So if you don't want to bother spending more time learning about this, just set it at double the frame rate and you'll always be good. So here's the ideal scenario. And the ideal scenario, you have full control over your lighting, which is very, very important. If you want to have control over those settings as well. And you can therefore make the settings that create the best possible image quality instead of having to compensate for non-ideal lighting conditions. In that case, your frame rate is at 24 frames per second or 30 respectively. And your shutter speed is double that. So it's either 1/48 or at least most cameras over 1/50 or 1/60 if you film in 30 frames per second. And the problem that especially when filming outside with daylight, will occur, that there's literally too much light. So in order to get an image that looks good, you have to raise your shutter speed to a very high level and your image will suffer from it because there won't be any motion blur which is so necessary for natural looking image. And it will look a bit choppy if you will. Now, at this point, you could start using something called ND filters that are essentially, you can think of them like sunglasses for your camera that decrease the light that comes through the lens onto the sensor. And I've linked some of those in the class description down below and the gearbox if you want to check them out. But for now, let's recap this lesson and see what we have to keep in mind. Shutter speed should be if possible, always double the frame rate. And if that's not possible because of your lighting situation, you can crank it up. But just know that your image will lose a bit of quality. And if you don't want that loss of quality, you will have to either control the light that you expose, your image width or you have to use ND filters if you e.g. film outdoors, which are sunglasses for cameras. If there's any questions for this topic, then please feel free to drop them in the comments. And as always, I'll get back to them as soon as I can. 9. ISO: Camera settings for ISO. Iso is most easily described as the light sensitivity of your camera sensor. Now, if you bump up your ISO to higher setting, the image becomes brighter. And if you lowered, it becomes darker. It's very simple. But like the previous settings, the ISO setting has more than just one effect. It's not just regulating the brightness. A high ISO setting comes with a price of image noise, which looks something like this. Now, just bear in mind, this is really able to completely mess up your image. And especially with smartphones, those kinds of things will be difficult or even impossible to fix in the editing later on, the only way to avoid high ISO, It's either to let the image be darker or of course to bring in more light because that's actually what the sensor needs. If you have to bump up your ISO too much, it needs more light. And like I said, this is really one thing we're especially smartphone cameras are very weak. They have such small sensors that having enough light is really important to get good results. And low-light situations are usually problematic. And you should really keep that in mind because that's one of those things. That is the reason that often smartphone footage doesn't look as good as it could be if it had enough light. So low ISO therefore has less overall brightness and also less image noise. So the image becomes more clean. And in the ideal world, you really want to keep your ISO as low as possible, which is going to give you just the best possible image. So all that being said, here's a quick recap of this very simple but impactful setting of ISO. You have learned that ISO is the light sensitivity of your camera sensor. A high value means more brightness and a low value means a darker image. High ISO has the ugly side effect of image noise, which basically makes the image unusable if it's too bad. And you learn the principle, the lower the ISO, the better the image. Any questions, you know where to put them. See you in the next lesson. 10. Where do I put the camera?: Now that we have our camera settings in place, there is still one big question. Whereas the camera, actually, when we make our video on where's the subject. So how do they relate to each other and how do we frame the shot? Different camera angles have a big impact on the end result. Now whether you film yourself some cool B-roll of a green pasture, some cinematic coffee making, like everybody else on YouTube. There's the right angle for the right time. So let's go through some of the most effective framing techniques and some rules to make sure your video looks nice. First off, the rule of thirds. Now the rule of thirds is super easy and also amazing. Just imagine your camera screen being divided into nine segments, just like this. Now just position your subject of interest on any of those four cross sections. And you will have a very pleasing looking image. For humans. In particular, you should align one of those two upper points with the eyes of the subjects. And you have an almost safe bet for nice shot, especially when you have Interview shots where the person does not look into the camera. This works really well. They're centered subject now, this is exactly what the name says. Just sent to your subject exactly in the middle, and this will always work. It's not the most creative thing in the world, but it's definitely a classic way of doing things and it's classic for a reason. This works really well when a person is speaking directly into the camera, just like I'm doing right now. Headroom. Headroom is one of the most common reasons. Videos don't look as professional as they should. Headroom is the amount of space between the end of the frame and the top of your head. If it's too much space up there, the person looks kind of small in the frame and unimportant. It's like if I was going to look like this, then that's too much headroom. On the other hand, if I would sit like this, then this is clearly not enough headroom because part of my head is chopped off and it also doesn't look good. So you really have to find the right balance and what you want is the right amount of headroom and how much is the right amount? Well, there's a bit of judgment involved here on your part. But one rule, you can go buy us to have one hand's width of space above your head until the frame. And that's just a, just a rule of thumb. It's not always gonna be perfect like this, but just also use your feeling. Look at the image and think about if it looks good or something is off. If something is off. And in regards of headroom, then you can just experiment and put a little bit more, a little bit less until you find a frame that you're happy with. Now the next thing to consider is the height of the camera itself. So none of the, not the way you frame the shot, but the height of the camera itself. And it's really important to get the right because how high your cameras stands in relation to the subject also has a big effect. Just look at the differences between those three shots here, where the camera is very low, where it's centered on a level, then it's much higher than the subject. Can you see the differences now for normal talking head shots, I recommend shooting on a level like I'm doing right now again, because this gives you the most neutral shot. But if you're recording some B-roll for a video, e.g. some supportive shots of some element of what you're talking about now on the screen. Some close-up of cooking food or things like that. It's gonna be worth experimenting with different camera angles, especially when you're filming with your phone in your hand. It's very easy to just stay on a level or chest level the way you hold it. And we never think of going lower or higher to explore what it might look like from up there or down there. I'll also just some simple, basic principles to go by and I'm sure they will help you make better images. So quick recap. We use the rule of thirds to position our subject in the right position depending on what kind of shock we want to do. We learned about the possibility of centering our subject, especially for talking heads like this one right now, where you talk into the camera, That's a great solution. And we learned about headroom and the importance of having the right amount of space between the end of the frame and the top of your head, so it doesn't look weird. And finally, we also learned about camera height and learn about the differences that it can have and the effect that it can have on your final video. If your camera's positioned high or low or on a level. And so if there's any more questions regarding framing, please let me know in the comments and I'll see you in the next lesson. 11. Simple but Great Video Lighting: Alright, now it's time to touch on the topic of lighting. And to be clear, this is not going to be an extreme session on video lighting, but instead, what I wanna do is equip you with one really simple and really effective lighting setup that you can adapt to your needs that is easy to execute. And then you can execute with less than $100 worth of lighting gear. Let me introduce you to three-point lighting. So here's how it works. You have, as the name suggests, three points that we want to cover in this setup. Element number one, the first and main point is the so-called key light is the light that illuminates your subject and does most of the exposing of the image. The first slide is the key light. It is the main and big light source that illuminates the subject. In this case, as I told you in the class, it is slightly off to the right and slightly off above, as you can see in the wider frame. Usually it is also the biggest light in the setup for this slide to really look great. There are a few things we want to look out for. The first thing is we want soft light. Now, soft light just means that it doesn't create any harsh shadows on your face, but instead there is a softness to adjust. Like right now, this we achieved by several factors. Number one, the bigger the light source, the softer it is and big, especially in relation to the subject that you are filming. Second, the more diffusion there is, the softer the light will be. Third, the closer the light sources to your subject, the softer the light will be. And that again, that again relates to the size of the light in comparison to your subject. So the closer you bring it, of course, the bigger it will be in relation or total beginners or those who really have the smallest budget, I recommend at least those cheap soft boxes that I mentioned in the introduction that you can grab online for, but I don't know, 50 to $80 for a pair of two. Those soft boxes have a fair bit of diffusion, but they're also fairly small and they are not that bright as well. And usually you cannot even change the brightness of them. So you're stuck with one brightness. But again, if you have to make it work, those will work and they will give you an okay light that is definitely better than not using anything. A higher level would be to use a COP light as it's called, like e.g. the Goldilocks as L6 w in combination with a detachable softbox. This is what I'm using right now. Again, all of those things are linked down below. You don't have to write them down right now. But soft boxes can even get much bigger in size and in diffusion. But that's the key light. Now we want to position our key light not directly in front of our subject, which might be the first thing you intuitively would do. But a slight angle to the site at something like 45 degrees and slightly from the top as well, also about 45 degrees. I call this the 45 degrees rule. That creates a lighting on our face that looks something like this right now. And you can see here in the White frame how I positioned it about 45 degrees to the right. About 45 degrees up. It's shining down on me and it creates this really nice and flattering look with the shadow fall off to the side of the face. It's flattering to the face and it creates a bit of shade just in the right spots over here. And that looks really good for the key light element number two, the film. The second point of our three-point lighting is the fill. Now Phil has to jump to fill in the shadow side of the subject across the one on the opposite side of the key light. And we use the fill to dial in the balance we want to have in terms of contrast, if it's supposed to be really dramatic with a high contrast or rather a more evenly lit chart, the fill can be a light, but it doesn't have to be a light. It can also be just a reflector, bounces back some of the key light right here, coming to the bounce, and then right back onto the subject to fill in a bit of the shape. But you can also use the fill to create even more contrast, which then would be called negative fill. We can do this by putting up the black side of one of those 5.1 reflectors instead of the white side or the silver side. Now, lighting in general is all about balance and ratios in terms of contrast, especially by putting the black negative fill on one side, we achieved basically the same effect of higher contrast as if we didn't use the fill and just made the key light more bright. Does that make any sense to you? I don't want to go too deep into this topic because it can get really complicated. But it's also at the same time very fascinating to think about lighting that way. Now in regards to fill, it's not really essential to the kinds of looks that I usually use. And really anyone online would need in most cases, it adds more options for finer adjustments. That is true. But right now, e.g. I. Don't use any specific fill at all. On the other hand, it would be correct to think about fill in the way that we really always have some kind of fulfil. The question is just what is the effect that is being created if we don't use anything deliberately, but the wall right next to the subject might be a dark blue wall. It will function similarly to a black negative fill. If it was white instead, the light would bounce off of it and really fill in the shapes. So you have to also think of your environment as you fill in a way. So just be aware of your scenario and create the look you want with explicit fill that you decide or just by using and leaving the room as it is. The third element of three-point lighting is the backlight or hair light or rim light or kicker. All of those different terms are the same, referring to the same light depending on where exactly it points at or where it's positioned. But the general idea is to have a light shining against your back. Sometimes it is pointed at the whole body from the back, sometimes just the shoulders and the head for me right now. And sometimes it's literally just at the tip of your hair, which is what we call it the hairline. And this can have some cool effects. One is the separation from the background by having this light edge around it, your subject really pops out of the background much better as if you didn't use it. And especially in the case of hair light, it just creates a really professional looking, cool look. Elements 4.5, the background light and the ambient light. Two more quick things that are not technically part of the three-point lighting setup, but are nonetheless important and powerful. First off, the ambient light. Now, not always this you're recording situation in a way that the general room brightness, if you will, is bright enough for what you wanna do. And it might almost look like your subject. This is the only lit thing in the room that is otherwise dark and that can look cool. Of course, if you want that, but only if you really want that look, other than because if not, that you really should always calculate some lights to brighten up the room in general, this can also be done through daylight, or it can be done by pointing one of those soft boxes just right up to the ceiling, which will usually brighten up the whole room with some ambiance, especially if you have white walls and white ceilings. With that in mind, you can now figure out the light that looks good by balancing it with the key light and just adding enough ambiance for the room so that it looks good. The second thing is the background light. As you can see right now, I especially like using colorful lights to put some accents of color into the background. This can be done in any color and in any style. I have specifically about those for this purpose only and I cannot recommend them enough. I have them again down below in the gearbox if you do want to check them out, they have proven extremely versatile and useful for myself personally. I also find that in combination with a great backdrop, which is what you're looking at right now. This is a great backdrop. You can use these lines to create any kind of color in your background of the video, in the background of your video, it's pretty useful. And of course it doesn't look the same as if this was actually painted in blue, but still the effect is pretty remarkable. Now, this concludes the lesson on lighting. This setup can be adjusted to your specific needs with small changes like the exact positioning of the different lights. And so to recap quickly, we have the headlight, which is the main light to eliminate your subject. A great, big soft light. We have the field which can managed the shade and manage the general level of contrast in your shot. And you have the rim light, the backlight, the hair light whenever you want to call it. But it gives us amazing looking edge to your head or to your shoulders, to the whole site right across from the headlight. Now, if you have any more questions, please let me know in the comments. I will get back to you as soon as possible. 12. Recoding High Quality Audio: This class is mainly on the visual part of recording your videos with your smartphone. But the thing is, it would just not be faithful to the assignment to teach you videography, also on the smartphone, and not have audio play a role as well. Because the truth is, audio plays a really big role for a good video experience. And I really want to make it clear to you that you should not underestimate this and think you can get away without actually using a microphone or just getting away with the internal microphone off your phone or camera, you will need a microphone. Now thankfully, those microphones can be fairly affordable and very capable. So let's take a look at a few options and also how to use them. Type one, the shotgun mic. So one thing beforehand, every section about the different microphones is recorded with the type of mic that I'm actually talking about in that section. Now, unfortunately, I literally broke my go-to budget shotgun microphone, which is the Techstar SGC 600, which I still recommend. But instead of it because it's broken, I record this audio with my Rode MDG4 plus now this is also a shotgun microphone. It captures the audio that is in front of it and it's fairly directional. That means it picks up what is in the direction it points towards and not so much around it. Now, typically a shotgun microphone like this is not in the hand of the subject the way I'm doing it right now. But instead it's either sitting right on top of the camera in the cold shoe mount. Again, not typically for a shotgun microphone like this one, but the smaller ones, like the SGC 600, orders on a boom pole, making it possible that it's actually much closer to the subjects mouth, which leads to better audio quality. So I'm gonna put it back onto my boom pole right now. I have a second camera angle, so you can see how that looks. So let's see how that works. So the goal with the shotgun microphone is always that it's as close as possible to the subjects math or to the area where the sound comes from. Now, this chart you can see that is actually fairly close. It's not directly pointing towards my mouth, but rather the upper chest area which is where also especially the deep sounds are coming from. As you can see in the frame, it's very close to my face, but in the frame of the video I'm recording, it's not visible yet and that's exactly what you want it to be roughly. Now there are different types of shotgun microphones and you can find the list for a few budget friendly options. Again, link below in the gearbox, I like I said, recommend the text or SGC 600, which is only $30, but it really sounds pretty decent considering the price. And here's how I would use it, especially with the smartphone. Now option one is to, like I said, mounted on the top of a so-called cold shoe mount cameras have those cultural moments, usually phones do not. So to do that, you will have to purchase a type of phone cage that comes with additional mounting points for gear, including a culture mount that you can use to position your microphone. Now, it can totally makes sense to get one of those cages because it also protects your phone and it has other benefits if you record videos, but I just wanted to mention it because in order to use your shotgun microphone like that, that way you need extra gear. You cannot just put it into your phone or anything and then have it. The reason I would not do it this way for my specific kind of videos that I do is because the microphone, in that case is always too far away from the subject that most likely the audio quality is not going to be amazing because the camera is not usually right in front of the face of the subject. Sometimes or often you're a little bit away. And so the microphone, because it's attached to the cameras, also a fair bit of way. And that's where that comes from. Now the other way is what I'm doing right now, which is to use a boom pole. But with this setup, you also will need additional gear to get it going because you need some kind of stand that you can have to attach the boom pole. You need the actual boom pole, which is basically just like a long light stick to which you can attach microphone. Then you need like a boom pole holder for your stand, for a microphone stand. And then of course, you need to have a fairly long cable. If e.g. you sit at a desk, the whole thing is much easier because then you just need one of those microphone arms. But again, I want to share that there's a bit of a setup involved than this. But once you get it going with your setup, you are good to go. Now here are the pros of shotgun microphones, especially on camera. Shotgun mics are very flexible. You can capture all kinds of sounds by literally just pointing the mic or the camera with a mike attached at the sound source. And you will have decent audio quality in many situations, especially when you can get close enough. The other thing is they are also very easy to use. There's not much thought but microphone placement or any other thing because at the end of the day it's attached to the phone. So you cannot place it in a specific way anyway, if you choose to use it that way. Now with the boom pole. And third, like the Techstar, SGC 600, they are generally fairly affordable if your goal is decent audio quality. Now, here are some cons to the whole thing. The audio quality is never gonna be as good as it could be because the microphone is too far away from the source and the perfect world, the microphone should be, like I said, like a hand away from the mouth. And that is obviously not possible if it's mounted close to or on the camera itself or on the phone itself. And so you will start having issues like a lot of reverb if that is a problem that you're filming location might have anyway, in other Khan, at least for those of you who want to film by phone. There's no direct way to use it with your phone without having to purchase a phone case with the culture mount and an adapter to be able to use this type of microphone with the smartphone. Anyway, this is a very easily solvable problem and there are even special microphones that are especially small to fit on phones, but it will increase the cost of your overall setup. An overall conclusion that on-camera a shotgun microphone is a really good option. And I do recommend that you get one because it's just so often very useful, generally good for filming yourself, but also very helpful, especially when you record some kind of B-roll way. Don't want to use a lavalier microphone to get e.g. sound for B-roll. Now, considering the low-price and high-value, get out of it, this is a recommendation okay. Type to the lavalier microphone. What you are hearing right now is the audio captured with this lavalier microphone right here. This is the road smart left plus how does it sound? Lavalier microphones are really amazing and I'm a big fan of them. They are very different from shotgun microphones and their style and the way they work. And they really offer their own kind of flexibility. Now they're really tiny and they often have a long cable that connects them to the recording device. In this case, I'm using it with the road wireless go. So it goes directly into my camera over there. Wireless without any cable connecting, but you don't need to have the wireless option. You can just plug it directly into your phone. I also have a long extension cable to really pass long distances and still put it directly into my phone. And that's really a good option, that really works well. But especially if you use the wireless option, you get amazing amounts of flexibility because your subject can effectively move wherever once and you will continue to have good audio even if the subject is walking, moving away. Now the wireless option that I just showed you and recommend is also in the gearbox. There's the wireless goes system that is really so easy to use and offers exactly the right amount of flexibility. But like I said, the cable version works just as fine. Now here are the overall pros and cons of using level your microphones. So the left Mikes gives you a nice sound, even if your subject is moving, that is very important. None of the other microphone types offers you that you don't have a sound guy with a boom pole running after your subject because if that's not the case, then with every other, Mikey would just lose the sound. The other cool thing about it is that those microphones always pretty much automatically have the same distance to where the audio comes from. So I'm speaking, even if I move slightly to the left or slightly to the right, in a moment where a shotgun microphone could already start losing a little bit of the sound because I'm not directly speaking into it anymore. The laugh mic is positioned in a way that it really catches all the sound. No matter which direction I speak, it might get a little bit more loud if somebody's pointing down with their heads towards the microphone. But that's not going to happen all that much. And so that's a great thing in terms of flexibility again. Now the next benefit is again, the ease of use. It's actually even easier than the shotgun microphone. You just plug it into the camera or your phone, clip it onto your shirt, your color, or any other good position, and you can even tape it onto your clothes from the inside if you don't want to be visible and you're good to go. And one good way to place it, by the way, is with a piece of tape on the inside of your T-shirt. The one to, one thing to remember though, when you do that is to always monitor your audio levels, at least test here them to make sure that there's no scratching sounds because that could happen when the mike touches clothing or anything else. So just listen to your audio. Move a little bit in the way that you will probably move and you will get a feeling for if there is any scratching sounds or not. Another cool thing about level ears is that they are extremely small and therefore they're easy to use with different devices. There is no need to attach them any way. You can attach them directly at the subject. So that makes anything like a boom pole, unnecessary. Microphone stands. You don't need anything. That's pretty cool. And lastly, one big pro is that especially in rooms with a lot of reverb and echo, when an on-camera and far away shotgun mike would struggle. A laugh Mike, by its proximity to the subject can cut out at least part of the surrounding ambient a bit more than the shotgun mic that is very far away. Now, there are also a few cans negative points in regards to laugh mikes. If you use the cable version, you might have to deal with the inflexibility of being cabled up to the camera. Now, obviously, if you have the six meter extension cable that I recommend to you, That should not be a problem most of the time. But even with that, you will have to always unclip the mic if you want to stand up and grab a glass of water or a cup of coffee or use the bathroom. And also it will be very difficult to film anything that is moving or move with the camera yourself when it's cabled up to the mic. And point number two, which is more something to keep in mind rather than a real argument against laughs, which is that you always need to be careful that the microphone doesn't record unwanted scratches and noises that often happen when closed or skin, or jackets or shirts or something rub against the microphone since it's directly attached to them and you are constantly moving, there's always the risk that some of your audio could be messed up. Now, to be completely honest in reality, if you do a good job clipping into your shirt or color or position of choice, having an eye on that and really focusing on your first second, then it doesn't usually turn into a problem. In my experience, it is still something you do want to keep in mind. Always check before you hit record. Is the audio good? Does it sound weird if I move a little bit and I personally e.g. I don't mind having a visible in the frame. That's okay for me. Some people don't like that, which is also fine. Just try out the way it works for you and you will be good to go. Now, in conclusion, for the left Mike, I have to speak out another clear recommendation, probably even more than for the shotgun mic, because if you really start out making videos, let's say talking head videos for YouTube or for online classes or those types of things where there are videos are focused on a person talking. I really think that's the first Mac you should get because it just makes your life so much easier. I have made the experience that a lot of beginners especially, but also professionals really enjoyed the simplicity of a lavalier microphone. You don't need to start worrying about the distance between Mike and subject. You don't need to adjust the microphone placement. Later on with the boom pole and the light stands and all those kind of things. You can just clip it on, make sure it's turned on. It doesn't scratch against clothes, and you are good to go. Also, the fact that you can turn this into a wireless option is just really, really helpful. You can just easily upgrade your system without having unnecessary purchases in between. So you can just buy the mike now connected directly to your smartphone. And then if you are ready to go, you have saved up for the next step, then you can just purchase the wireless option. Now, you know my recommendation on wireless options, I recommend the road wireless goal, which is what I know. I know also that the DJ, I'm Mike is really good. So check out those down below and the gearbox and also all the microphones that are recommended that I mentioned in the video are also linked down below, including all the kinds of cables or adapters that you might need to make it work for your smartphone. 13. Important Note!: If you're watching this video, that means you have finished the class. And I do want to say, thank you, thank you for putting so much of your time into this class and really trusting meat that you can actually learn something that is worth spending the time on it. So I hope that you actually had this experience. I hope that you learned something. I hope that you liked the way I teach. If that's the case, then I would be incredibly grateful for a five-star review here on Skillshare. Because the more of those I get, the more Scotia will show those classes to other students who hopefully can benefit from those as well. And also please feel free to get in touch. I really like responding to people and get some kind of interaction with you guys. Because sometimes it can feel like I'm teaching a camera. But it's always nice to remember that there's actual people on the other end of this. So feel free to reach out if you have any kind of complaints or any suggestions, any feedback. I'm curious about everything and I'll get back to everything as well. So thank you again, god bless you richly. And SEO in the next class.