The beauty of today’s society is that it’s filled with creative souls trying to better themselves and the world around them. For the longest time, it was hard to find outlets for a person’s creativity especially in the world of filmmaking. That’s because there weren’t a lot of options, and people thought the only way to have a chance at filmmaking is by becoming the next Stephen Spielberg. That’s not true anymore. Now, almost anyone can create a video as long as they have a creative mind and the right tools. People are using their creativity and producing videos for new media formats like Tik Tok and YouTube. Filmmakers can make high quality videos within their own homes, with an iPhone, and with a little editing these videos can pass for studio produced shots.
The Importance of Videos
There are many of reasons as to why somebody would want to make a film. From hobbies to work, side projects, just for fun, and everything in-between. We need videos, and we rely on videos in our everyday life more now than at any other time in history. They teach us how to do things, they tell us what we need to know, and they provide entertainment. Videos, due to social media, have become a dime a dozen and it’s hard to get noticed. If you’re looking to get started with filmmaking, read on to learn the best way to shoot creative videos in your own home.
Find the Room With the Best Lighting
When shooting video in your home, you need to find the room with the best lighting. Nobody is going to sit through a poorly shot video with dimly lit angles. Find a room that has just the right amount of light without causing a glare on your camera. You do not want the sun to be shining directly in. It might take you a few times to get the lighting down. Practice shooting short clips, save them, and watch them back to identify any sort of issues.
Get Creative With Angles
Two people can shoot a video of an apple and they’ll end up with completely different end products. That’s because everyone is different, and those differences are what help to make such diverse and creative videos. You’ll want to play with your angles when shooting. Don’t shoot everything just straight on. Kneel down or stretch tall, take wide shots or do close ups, and you’ll learn that getting a variety of shots is what’s most important. The more footage you shoot, the easier it will be to edit later. You can always edit down footage you have, but you can’t add more if you don’t have it!
Use What You Have in New Ways
If you’re shooting videos in your home, you might be limited on what you have. With the right mindset, you can find new ways to shoot things that you may have shot a hundred times before. For example, you could shoot a basic video of a plastic dinosaur toy. Boring, right? You could also zoom in on just its shadow and add some sound effects. Now it becomes way more exciting, right?
Keep a Steady Shot
There’s nothing worse than watching shaky video that’s shot improperly. If you are videotaping something on your phone, make sure you are always shooting horizontally. If you don’t trust your hands to be steady enough, it’s crucial that you invest in a good tripod or stabilizer. These will help you have nice, clean, and crisp shots.
Adding a Little Post Production Magic
Once you’ve got all of your shots, it’s time for the fun to begin. After you import your files, it’s time for you to edit a video. Once you’ve been filming and editing for a while and want to up the production value of your home shots, use a video editing tool created for professional videos for cool features that bring your video to life with music, transitions, text blocks, and more. A more advanced video editing program makes it easy for you to cut video clips, move them around, and use transitions to all make it flow. If you’re still learning how to edit videos, turn to videos! Search for video editing tutorials and instructional videos to help advance your creative editing skills.
Video You Can Be Proud Of
When shooting and editing video, don’t rush unless you’re on a strict deadline. Take your time picking out the right music, the right transitions, and the right shots. Go through your video several times to make sure that you don’t have any black frames, your audio levels are even, and that everything is flowing together properly. Making a video truly is a multiple step process with no one step being more important than the others. That’s why you need to always give your project the proper attention, especially during shooting and editing.
