10 Tips for creating great videos on your phone

It’s easy to create high-quality videos on your phone, says Elim’s digital expert Jason Ham. Here, he explains how.
 

1. Choose whether to film in portrait or landscape

Think about where you want to publish your videos. If it’s on Facebook, a landscape format will be more appropriate, while Instagram Reels favours portrait, for example.

You can edit your videos postproduction to make them portrait or landscape but there can sometimes be problems when you’re cutting things out or moving things around. To make things easy, think first, where are you looking to publish them?

2. Explore the use of framing

We often film videos at head level but why not explore the use of framing – getting down on your knees, getting up high, standing to the side and so on. Try exploring different angles and different uses of framing to get some really interesting and creative shots.

3. Use the zoom carefully

We all know how to zoom to make things that are far away look bigger, but sometimes this can have a digitalised effect on the picture which means it’s not such great quality. If something is far away, try and get closer to it so you won’t have to use your zoom as much. Use the Zoom carefully to get best-quality videos.

4. Be careful with flash

If you need to illuminate the person you’re trying to film you might need to use a flash or the in-built light on your camera, but think about the lighting in the room. Think about the positioning of lights too – could the right placement make sure someone’s face is illuminated on your video? Or you might consider things like ring lights which are really popular, cheap and easy to get on Amazon or the high street.

5. Consider additional lighting

You might like to buy additional lighting, uplighters or big lights and position them to the side of where you’re filming. Make sure faces are not only lit up from the front, but from the sides too. We want to make sure the person we’re filming is lit really well so they won’t be in the dark or the shadows.

6. Use filters with care

If you use Instagram there are hundreds of filters and they’re great, but sometimes they can degrade the quality of the video you’re trying to put together so use them sparingly. You can also get some great phone apps that put filters on but use them carefully because you don’t want to degrade the quality of the footage you’re capturing.

7. Sound is as important as the picture

It’s no use having a great video if the sound is really poor. You could consider buying an additional clip mic, tie mic or boom mic. That can really enhance the sound of your videos. Just make sure you’ve plugged them into your phone. You don’t want to create a video where the person who is speaking can’t be heard.

8. Use accessories to stabilise your shots

Why not consider the use of a device to stabilise your image? I have my phone on a stand but you can also get selfie sticks and all sorts of devices to stabilise your videos. There’s nothing worse than a video which looks like it was filmed at sea. Think about what you can use to stabilise your videos.

9. Explore different angles

You don’t just want videos which are standard looking, so get creative and try out different angles. If you’ve got a second mobile phone available, you could position it so you capture two sides of someone speaking then edit the footage together to produce a really good video to publish on social media.

10. Be creative

It’s really important to get creative, and mobile phones are easy to move around. Try out different things. Don’t be afraid to explore, because you never know what amazing angles you can get if you think outside the box as you create your videos.

Best video editing apps

You know what you want to shoot and how to shoot it, so which apps should you use to create and edit your videos? Jason has the following suggestions.

Adobe Premiere Rush

Jason says: Adobe Premiere Rush is a great app. Adobe is the standard for computer and video editing software and this is a very slimmed-down version for your phone. You can make high-quality videos for use on social media or in your church services.

iMovie

Jason says: You can do things like green screen, split screen, filters, create things and do all sorts of different stuff. iMovie is a great app to get stuck into and you will enjoy using it if you’re an iPhone user.

Quik

Jason says: Quik designed to be easy to use. You don’t have as much manipulation of graphics and videos, but it’s designed to package high-quality videos you can repurpose on social media, in your services or wherever else you want.

InShot

Jason says: InShot is a great high-quality app. It costs something like £15 for the whole year but you can do incredible things on it. Check it out and have a go with all the different features available.

PicPlayPost

Jason says: You can create social media content… collages that embed video and photos as well. You can put graphics on there too. You can make some really creative videos, and social media content, perhaps integrating photos too.
 

This article first appeared in the December 2022 edition of Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here. 

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