You’ve heard it before. The best camera for a particular shot is the one you have available at that moment. For many businesses and employees, that camera is their phone. And with the increase in technology, phones can produce some great images. We have worked with multiple clients where we weren’t able to get a shot of a particular moment because either that process wasn’t running the day we arrived, a key person wasn’t available on the shoot date, or it wasn’t logistically possible for our team members to get the shot. How do we work around that? Sometimes the shot isn’t real important to the overall video we are producing. Other times, we work with the client to help them get the shot on their phone. Here are 4 tips how your employees can sometimes get your best shot for your marketing videos.
One of the first tips I give clients when they are filming something that might be used in future marketing videos is to flip the phone sideways. Although vertical content is becoming more and more popular, most people still watch videos in 16×9 widescreen. By flipping the phone sideways, your video will match up better with the professionally shot footage. There are some exceptions to this rule such as producing a video that is supposed to look like video from your phone then you can definitely film vertically. But if you are filming a couple pick up shots of a large project or a process that will be used to mix in with professional video, we recommend keeping that phone sideways.
Another tip we give is to film three angles of a scene when possible. These three angles are part of our 5 shot rule that you can read about by clicking here. We recommend getting a wide shot, medium shot, and either a tight shot or a shot from the side of the action. By getting multiple angles, it’ll help whoever is editing the video with the ability to cut and improve pacing when possible. We also recommend holding each shot as steady as possible and not doing any real movement with your phone. You use the different angles to “move” the viewer versus actually moving the phone.
With each of those multiple angles that you are getting, we recommend holding the shot as still as possible for at least 10 seconds. Again, this will make sure you have enough coverage of the shot to work with when editing. We actually count to 10 in our head to make sure we are getting enough footage.
A more recent tip that we give our clients is to film in 4k video resolution if your phone can do so. This will once again give more flexibility when it is handed off to the editor. The editor can crop in a bit if the final video is going to be HD quality. It also helps improve the image quality by making it a little bit sharper allowing for the footage to mix with professional footage.
A couple of bonus tips include using slow motion to help steady the camera if you need to and shooting in well-lit areas. Phone footage tends to look better outside in nice daylight. Our biggest tip is to continue to use your phone to get shots. If it’s a unique project or a rare process, or even for cultural events, sometimes the best thing you can do is get a few video shots with your phone. You never know when those shots will be useful in future marketing videos.
If you are looking to get into more video marketing but don’t know where to start, feel free to contact us. We offer consulting services to help get you up and running when it comes to creating video marketing content internally.
We’re always open to chat about anything marketing, video production, or digital strategy! We’d love to talk!
