Production Tips Manual
Video Production Tips
Production Tips
5 Top Tips To Filming At Home
Orientation - Always film in landscape.
Lighting - Find yourself the best lit room in the house. If the lighting is not great turn all the lights on, nab some from another room if you have to. You could try and get clever with angle poise lights but let's leave this as simple and quick as possible.
Never have a bright light source behind you otherwise you will become a silhouette.
Stability - Have the phone on something stable. If you are lucky enough to have a phone grip that attaches to a tripod, then use it - if not fashion something to lean it on and raise it to approx. eye level. If you are sitting down have the phone on a bar stool.
Composition - Place yourself slightly off-center and frame the shot from your waist up. Try to have a nice tidy background. If you are directly in front of a wall do not sit or stand close up to it but a meter in front.
Audio - The mic on your phone should be good enough as long as you are not too far away. You need quiet, so turn off any humming noise.
10 Tips For Filming
1. When shooting people or products, divide the screen into thirds in your head (vertically and horizontally). - Your subject should be shot in the cross-section of these thirds rather than completely central. For example, a person should be filmed across two sections and look across at the other, rather than in the center looking straight down the lens. Sometimes, your decision will be dictated on where the best light is.
2. When filming a panorama, try and place your camera on a tripod for smoother movements. - Always count a second in your head before moving the camera - going too fast will mean your edited film does not do the view justice as will move too quickly.
3. When filming interviews/talking heads always get your subject to say their name on camera. - Far easier than scrabbling around for a pen and helps you test your volume levels at the same time.
4. Never zoom in when someone is talking on screen. - You will kick yourself when editing if you need to edit something they say as the shot set up will be different if you zoomed and look jerky.
5. Always film some 'cutaways'. - These are shots of your location and surroundings. E.g., road signs. They will help to cover up basic editing skills making any film look professional.
6. Transitions are one of the key differentiators between an amateur video and a professional one. - Decide how you want to cut or fade from scene-to-scene before you film. This will help ensure you have enough footage. Getting this right means you can join the frames together seamlessly.
7. Never film with direct sunlight behind your subject matter. - This will cause shadow, which is difficult to correct in the edit stages.
8. Always take a moment to step back and listen to your surroundings. - If you're filming outside and can hear wing, traffic noise, building works etc., so will your mic. If you're just filming scenery this noise can easily be edited out at a later stage BUT, if you need to hear what someone is saying you need to have a rethink. Background noise over a speaking voice is much harder to fix later so either change your set up or if you know your location is busy, invest in a cheap lapel mic, which ensures the spoken word is the strongest audio being collected by your camera.
9. Always make a shot list before setting out to film. - This will ensure you never have to waste time going back to film something you forgot or miss a key moment.
10. Adding music is often an essential part of any edit and can make or break a video. - Don't be scared to trim the song you want down to size but remember, when using music commercially you will need to pay for the rights. Alternatively, there are some good royalty free sites.
Video Production Tips
Pre-Production
Know What B-Roll Footage You Need. - B-roll is essentially any footage that isn’t of your primary subject. If you’re filming an explainer video showcasing your software product, B-roll footage might include shots of satisfied customers using your product, or an external shot of your offices, for example. Whatever footage you need, figure it out during the pre-production phase to avoid situations in which you need footage you don’t have. Remember – there’s no such thing as too much B-roll.
Production
Use the Rule of Thirds. - Many cameras enable you to overlay this grid onto your viewfinder, making it easy to compose your shot before and during filming. However, you choose to frame your shot, make sure that you keep composition in mind, especially when setting up your camera.
Avoid Conflicts Between Natural and Artificial Light. - When it comes to lighting in video, different kinds of light have different temperatures. These colour temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin (°K). Mixing two light sources with different colour temperatures will make for an unevenly lit shot.
Manually Set Your Camera’s White Balance. - Now we know that different light sources have different temperatures, we need to account for these temperature ranges by manually setting the camera’s white balance – a process that basically tells the camera what “true white” looks like in an environment to avoid colour casting. Even if colour casting is the effect you’re trying to achieve, film the shot using the correct white balance and adjust the colour in post-production – don’t rely on lazy camerawork to achieve a particular effect.
Avoid ‘Spotlighting’ Your Subject. - If you’re lucky enough to have a professional light rig, don’t just point it at your subject – make sure your shot is lit evenly, and use a reflector and/or a diffuser to minimize harsh spotlighting or shadows.
Check the Acoustics of Your Filming Location. - Before you start filming, check the acoustics of the location in which you’re shooting. Is there an echo? If so, try and find somewhere else to shoot. You can fix a lot of audio problems in post-production, but even a faint echo can be a nightmare to get rid of completely.
Shoot Multiple Takes. - On the day of the shoot, make sure to run through multiple takes. This provides you with a safety net in case you notice something wrong with one of the takes and allows you to edit together your final sequence from several clips of the same sequence rather than relying on just one.
Be cognizant of sound quality. - Don't come off as an amateur with poor sound recording quality. Use lapel or lavaliere microphones - both of which are hands-free. If you're filming a video with a smartphone, you can purchase microphones that fit into the phone's headphone input to quickly and easily improve sound quality.
Use a tripod. - Use a tripod to keep your video stable and not wobbly. Get a standing tripod or a tabletop tripod for tighter shots to keep your video looking professional.
Film in short segments. - This way you'll have fewer things to remember and more opportunities to reshoot something you don't like.
Post-Production
Tidy Up Your Clips Before You Start Assembling the Rough Cut. - When importing your footage into your editing program, clean up your clips as you import them. Most editing packages allow you to set “in” and “out” points for each clip, reducing their length by trimming out pauses, giggles, and false starts. Editing the final sequence together using trimmed clips is a lot easier than adjusting each individual clip on the fly.
Assemble the Rough Cut Before Working Out Any Timing Issues. - Before you begin the painstaking process of frame-by-frame editing, get your clips roughly into place. There’s no point agonizing over precise timing issues until your video has already begun to take shape. It won’t look pretty, but it’ll give you a solid idea of which parts of your marketing video need the most work.
Don’t Overdo It with Transitions and Effects. - If you have to, use simple cross-fades to transition from one shot to another. Let your content do the talking, not your editing software.
Don’t Assume You Can Fix Everything in Post-Production. - Editing packages such as Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro are extraordinarily powerful and enable you to accomplish a great deal with your videos, but they’re not magic. Don’t assume that any and all problems with your video can be fixed in post-production.
Top Tips For Filming On Your Phone
Don't shoot vertical video.
Use a tripod.
Don't use digital zoom.
Don't use lighting from your phone.
Exposure and focus. - Simply tap on your subject using your phone to manually lock exposure. and focus on your footage.
Do not overuse slow motion.
Audio recording. - Have a microphone as close to your subject as possible. Try using a second smartphone placed directly above the subject.
Clip on lenses. - If you want to widen your shot, you can use clip-on optical lenses for smartphones. This is good for B-roll footage.
Make sure the lens is clear.
Start with the right settings
Before taking video on your phone, set it up properly. One important setting is video resolution, which refers to how large your movie will be. Two common resolutions are 1080 HD and 4K, which is the larger of the two.
Next, check the frame rate, which sets how many individual frames per second (fps) your video records. Common settings are 30 fps, 60 fps, and less commonly, 24 fps. The higher the number, the smoother-looking video you’ll produce. Most video is shot at 30, although 60 fps will show smoother, less jittery video when depicting action. But some videographers, prefer filming in 24 fps, which mimics the frame rate used in cinema films.
Each of these two settings affects some visual or audio component of your project. They also can determine the final file size of the video. For instance, a five-second video shot at 4K-resolution will be roughly four times the size of the same segment shot in 1080 HD resolution.
How to improve your video quality
1. Orientation: Be sure to orient your phone horizontally
2. Avoid Back Lighting: “Avoid having a window or light source behind your subject, since he or she will look silhouetted,”. Instead, have the light source more to the side of you or behind you.
3. Lock Focus and Exposure: Mr. Nachtrieb suggests tapping on your phone’s LCD (on the point you want to focus on), which will lock focus on Google Android devices, or holding your finger in place, which locks focus on the Apple iPhone. "In low light, your phone’s camera will hunt for focus.” That makes it look less professional. Most phones let you also lock or manually adjust the exposure, too.
4. Improve Your Audio, too: Most video pros say good quality audio is essential for powerful video. The good news is that the microphones on smartphones have improved in recent years. What’s more is that audio accessories, such as Bluetooth microphones, can make the audio in your video projects sound outstanding.
Here are two audio tricks: Borrow a second phone, start recording audio, and place the phone in your subject’s pocket. “Then, shoot video on your phone from far away,” says Mr. Nachtrieb. “You can always sync up the audio tracks later in video editing.”
5. Try Slow Mo and Time Lapse Effects: Many smartphones come with some powerful video features, including modes that appear to slow down or speed up time, which are more commonly known as slow motion and time lapse. The former captures video at an accelerated frame rate; when played back at normal speed, action in the video appears much slower than real time. With time lapse, a lower frame rate is used. When it’s played back at normal speed, action moves much faster than in real time. Both can produce compelling video.
Video Production Essential Tips
Camera Movements
Shot Types
Camera Angles
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