6 Tips for filming on your phone

1. Choose a good background

Find a quiet space that isn’t echoey and make sure we can hear your talent. Filming in a well lit area will greatly improve the quality of your video. Where possible, face the light but avoid lighting that produces shadows on your talent’s face.

Try finding a location that has an interesting background. Depth and colour are often more visually engaging than standing against a white wall. Think about what your video is about and if there are any backgrounds that will assist your video’s message. Like filming a business update inside your office.

2. Shoot horizontally

If you are not planning on uploading your video straight to social, it’s best practice to film your video horizontally. You can set up your phone on a tripod or use a gimbal to keep your phone steady and level whilst your filming.

3. Keep your phone level

4. Capture the best audio possible

It’s important to first find a quiet location to film in. Then make sure to position yourself close to your talent. The farther you are away from them, the harder it will be to hear and the more ambient noise you will pick up.

There are solutions you can find to capture high quality audio on your phone. For example you can get an adapter that will allow you to use a professional mic.

Or you can even plug a lav mic into a second phone and just record audio. Your Shootsta editor can sync the video clip with the audio file in editing.

5. Check the focus

Usually, your phone is quite good at finding and focusing on your talent. But if you wanted to take full control, then you can set the focus manually. Just tap the subject on your phone’s screen that you want to focus on. Then hold down your phone’s focus square to lock it in place. Everything within that square is in focus and it will stay in focus, as long as you or your subject doesn’t move throughout the video.

The focus square also controls the exposure. So locking the focus also locks the exposure. This means if your shot suddenly got brighter or darker whilst you are filming, your exposure will not change to correct it. So just keep this in mind when filming using natural light.

6. Double check your video

Play back your video clips to make sure that you can hear them clearly and that you’re happy with how all your shots look.

If you find that you are missing a clip or you aren’t happy with a take, then reshoot whilst you’re still set up. This will be much easier than having to organise a reshoot later.