How To Shoot Video With An iPhone

There are four ways to make your iPhone videos look more professional. Whether you record yourself or with the help of your team. I'm speaking to all marketers out there marketing departments and teams, and those ready to use media like video to grow their community and business. Welcome to in this studio, where I help you build an engaged community with media. This is the show where you will learn how to produce your own videos, podcasts, virtual events, online universities and more for your company. When you show up in the studio, you become a media company, and grow your communities and business. So to help you create more professional looking videos from your phone, we're going to cover four key areas, equipment, settings, location, and footage. The first way equipment, your equipment includes any camera, audio equipment or lights that you use to capture your media. So the camera you use is of course, your iPhone, maybe you don't have an iPhone, and that's okay, the same principles apply to whether you're using an Android or any other kind of phone to capture your videos. Oftentimes, you know, someone or one of your team members has an iPhone, and you can use their iPhone and apply these skills and practical tips to improve the level of quality with your iPhone videos. So when it comes to using your iPhone camera, make sure to use the front facing lens. Sometimes, like you saw with me at the beginning of this video, I use the rear facing lens, I use the lens where I have to flip it around in order to take a selfie style video. And if that's the case, that's okay, but the best camera on your phone is the front facing one. Now when you are filming, the default view is a very wide angle of your camera. You see it you see everything in that frame. Now, we don't recommend to zoom in with your two finger pitch, or to even zoom in with the one or 2x options. But what we do recommend if you need to get closer to your subject, whether that's you or a team member or a client, or any member of your community, then we recommend that you literally and physically move in closer to the person on camera versus trying to zoom in what they call optically from your phone, because that brings the quality of the video down. So the closer you can get to your subject, the better when it comes to iPhones. You also want to make sure you have support or a way to hold your iPhone. Trying to hold it from your hands can look fairly stable when you're walking around or standing still, but there's still a motion, that's normal, there is no way that we can stand incredibly still. So you need to have a tripod or a stabilizer. Now iPhone tripods comm very affordable, you can go to Amazon and type in iPhone or phone tripod and find something that works great. You also want to make sure that you have the right attachment for your phone. So that way your phone can be attached to the tripod, whether in vertical or horizontal mode. That way you can capture great looking videos from your iPhone. Now if you're moving along with yourself or talent a subject on camera, you want to have a stabilizer or a gimbal. Similar to tripod. This just makes your footage look more professional and less handheld. There are several options and companies that make stabilizers available. And they all work great in my opinion. And both the tripod and a stabilizer for your camera support are budget friendly. Now one of the most important pieces when it comes to iPhone video is to focus on audio. When you film from your iPhone, most often you use the built in mic, and it sounds great if like in this room that I'm in, you have no distractions, no other convenient sounds, no construction or no co workers nearby. However, if you decide to film your videos from your iPhone from a distance, or film with other noise distractions, then that's going to bring down the professionalism of your audio. And when it comes to a media experience, audio I would say is even more important than video what you hear is more important than what you see. So if you need to use the audio recording from your iPhone, stand within five feet of your phone, and make sure there are no distractions around you. But if you need some distance or you have extra hands to help you like from your team, grab another iPhone and use the audio recording app and feature on that phone and treat it like it's a boom mic. If you're not familiar with what a boom mic is. Oftentimes you see it in the behind the scenes of movies and film sets. It's a guy or gal holding a long stick with a microphone at the end of it and they're placing be as close as possible to those on camera, you can treat a second iPhone in a similar way, you could tape or attach it to any kind of poll or extension that you have, and hold it closer to the subject speaking on camera. And some of the best options are lavalier mics that allow you to plug it into your phone and record wirelessly or plugged in. And then beyond audio lighting. First off, and the most budget friendly is using what's available to you kind of like as you're already using your iPhone, to film your videos is to use natural light. Now natural light is simply just light from your Windows or light from being outside and often is most flattering. And to achieve this, simply just face the window, face the window when you record the videos, and the light will do the work. But maybe you're recording your iPhone videos at night or when it's darker or you don't have that available natural light, then use lamps around the office or around your home. And that can cast some additional light to that light of your face. Because when it comes to lighting, you want to light the subject and that is your face. Or if you're not filming yourself, maybe you're filming a setting inside a home inside a trade show event. Make sure you like what you want viewers to focus on when they see your video. And my favorite, which is what I'm using now is a softbox a softbox light is simply a light with a softbox around it where it softens the light it diffuses it so that way it's more gentle and flattering on your face or the subject that you are filming. So when it comes to equipment for your iPhone, focus on camera, lighting, and audio. Now let's jump into the settings inside of your iPhone there are customizations you can do to make it easier to film professional looking videos from your phone. First off, I recommend using the camera grid feature. This camera grid allows you to frame your subject so what you're filming in a more professional way, you can eliminate any kind of space that doesn't need to be there and focus on the rule of thirds, which is positioning the focus in the subject of the person or the object or the environment on camera in a particular part of the frame. So use the camera grid. Next for your settings is to focus on focus. So whether you have a person, an object, a product of yours, or a location that's in the frame, make sure you click your finger on the screen and put the focus so the clarity on the eyes if it's a person, put the focus on those eyes, and then put the focus on the subject or the product where you want your community to put their focus when they watch the video. Another tip with your settings is to go inside the settings on your iPhone and then go to camera select the settings to have it always locked into 4k and but the resolution of choice 24 frames per second is standard for for film and more motion broadcast in TV is often 30 frames per second and slow motion is often 60 frames per second. If you're based in the UK or European countries, then 25 frames per second is often the standard. So pick your frames per second and then select the no HDR. HDR is sometimes difficult to control from your phone and makes the image look unnatural. Sometimes, if you're filming yourself, this next step may be a little bit difficult sometimes, but do your best to control the manual exposure. Oftentimes phones are in automatic exposure, which just means it changes the brightness of your image based on where you're at. If you're outside, it's going to go down if you're inside the brightness is going to go up to compensate for the lack of light. So to get your exposure right, make it manual and control with the slider, the right amount of exposure and you want to put the focus of your exposure on the subject, your product, or the face or faces of the subjects on camera. You don't want the face to be blown out or too overexposed and then put your video modes to cinematic or time lapse or slow motion based on the focus and the purpose of your video cinematic really improves the cinematic look of your image. Time Lapse allows you to show the progression over time of say an operation or process of your company. And then slow motion as it sounds, slows down the footage and allows you to demonstrate or show something that you need to and slow motion. Also while you're filming. To remove distractions and not interrupt the recording process, enable AirPlay mode, and you'll be good to go. So those are the essentials when it comes to your iPhone video settings. Now let's jump into location. Your location when it comes to recording from your iPhone can look different based on the day. Sometimes you may be working from home or remote, and your current role at your company. Or you may be at your headquarters and your office or visiting your clients or community members at a trade show or some kind of on site visit. If that's the case, be aware if you're planning to film from your iPhone, on any distractions or sounds, because if people cannot hear what you're trying to say, or what those you put on camera are trying to say, then the video won't be near as effective. And then the editing share can make some magic work. But ultimately you got to put a focus on capturing the message while you're filming. So eliminate distractions or sounds, and then maintain a clean on brand background, you want to make sure your visuals represent your brand in the best way, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna have the perfect shot every single time. But still consider your brand and your core values. So that way you can represent it well. And then when people experience these clips, or a video and piece of media from you, they can feel more connected engaged with your community, because they believe that the media you're putting out is representative of what they want to be a part of don't expect perfection on every single shot from your iPhone, but do put a focus on the location you choose. And the next way is footage. So after you've captured your beautiful, cinematic professional looking video content from your phone, then you may ask how do I get this from my phone to my computer? Or how can I start editing this? How can I share with my editor or my team? Or how could I just plug it into a solution a software platform that works for me so I can get this out to the world in a more professional way? Well, first off, you got to transfer the footage. Some of the easiest ways from your phone is simply to airdrop it if you have another apple product like an iMac or MacBook, you can have the airdrop settings turned on where you can simply share the photo or video through a transfer. Or you can plug in your phone to the computer and transfer through the Photos app. Definitely do not text or email your videos because that brings down the quality and makes them more compressed or blurry. And then with this footage shot from your iPhone, you want to make sure it gets used and published for your community. The best solution out there is with market scale. Market scale has a platform called Market scale studio where if similar to the show, you can show up in the studio and upload new assets whether you film it on the market scale studio platform, or upload your videos and photos separately, and into the platform so that way a dedicated team of creators can then edit, create and polish up your content to be used across any channel. Whether that's your website, social media and upcoming trade show. Email, you name it. The market scale team uses a combined effort of technology and humans, creative humans who can put together your content for you and it becomes a very scalable media creation solution for your business. Don't let equipment stop you from creating consistent video content for your business and your communities. Especially when you have an amazing cinematic camera always at your fingertips. For more media like this. Subscribe to the show wherever you enjoy listening or watching and for info about how we can help you grow your communities with media, then visit market scale.com That's a wrap. I'll see you in the studio on the next episode.