CLASSROOM: The Basics of Shooting Cinematic Video from a Smartphone1 min read

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Director Nick Friend writes:

Soderbergh isn’t the only one who can make smartphone movies.

Phones are everywhere. You very well may be reading this on a phone (and hopefully sharing it… okay, enough with the self-promotion). Every day, our mobile devices get more powerful and easier to use. The benefit of this for filmmakers and videographers?

The quality of the video content that is instantly available to us goes up constantly. Unfortunately, you can’t just point and shoot with your phone and get truly cinematic imagery. But there are a few basics you can employ that will help you get cinematic imagery with your phone.

So why shoot on smart phone?

Well for one, it is substantially less expensive.

Owning and operating an iPhone X, even with a slew of third-party accessories like Moment lenses and tripods and filters and sliders, is exponentially cheaper than owning and operating many cameras to which the likes of us give a great deal of clout. I’m not saying that smartphone trump cinema cameras (it never will), but the margins of image quality are getting closer together. Quickly.

Watch his video and read the full article here>>

Photo credit: No Film School