Limitations make films better. Okay? It can be devices as well, like using miniature. It can be devices like set design. It can be devices like sensory detail. A lot of the times, a good story is just something that has a single good idea. Some of this is also related. I don't want it to sound like you have to, that it's all great planning and there's no equipment involved.
you know so i want to talk about some of the core things the core tools that will help your phone be used as a legit filmmaking tool and i use the phrase phone because the film tangerine for example this was shot entirely on an iphone 5 and it premiered at sundance so your phone today is way better than tangerine really think about yourself aesthetically as what can i make this as good as tangerine.
How do we do this? Well, stabilization for me personally. I'm not saying you need to run out and buy a gimbal, but if you're on a tight budget, do stationary shots. Use a stack of books or a coffee mug or brace your phone against the wall Just keep your shots steady so the audience is focused on your story and the details of the setting And your brain is going to be able to process those details back and forth. You'll have a more stable experience that you can capture that replicates your mind's eye more closely in more detail.
The second thing to think about is your lighting. And this is important because phone cameras generally are not as good in lower light. So a trick for shooting is to be out in natural light when you can and if you can get out in early morning or late afternoon it'll look pretty decent and if you're indoors don't overthink this grab a light or a flashlight or just anything that's a light source like uh we used a vintage uh siren from like the 80s to be the siren that you see in wild birds of the americas and if the light is too harsh you can actually put up a shirt or a piece of paper over it to soften it up.
Let's talk about editing. Your default camera app is fine. If you want to level up, check out an app like Filmic Pro or Moment. These can let you control your focus and your exposure and your frame rate. It kind of turns your phone into a miniature professional camera You should also think about the fact that your phone being small is actually to your advantage because once you bring out your professional camera and you should also think about the fact that your phone being small is actually to your advantage because you know once you bring out your bigger camera and like it great to have more expensive equipment but once you do that there's all kinds of liability and what's the value of that all that time that you're spending versus the shooting and there's just a big gap here for your casual footage it has a lot of value in terms of the social proof that it creates.
So I guess this is a way of me saying in terms of what it can do to attract the eye, it's not so bad. Your hand footage is pretty good. It's better than a lot of what's online. And don't let the fact that you're shooting with your phone hold you back. Just try to treat it like a real camera because it is one. If you stabilize your shots using the right tools, if you're being considerate and you think about your editing intelligently.
And you think about these as like individual dials you can turn up based on your budget, your resources, your time. If you really think about the amount of effort that it takes to keep a person entertained for a long time in a movie theater, you really look at like multiple character arcs. You look at something like multiple scenes, settings, locations, stunts, especially for big budget films For a short film you can really keep someone attention and focus with a single idea pretty easily And it good to think about this in the sense of your dialogue and words as well.
If you're making a short film, think about the most memorable lines in film history. If you're in business, think about the most memorable lines in ad history. Where's the beef? It's very short. It's very sharp. And if you think about your storytelling in a minimalist sense, It forces you to have more focus. This is going to be a one-minute film. So you're going to have to have some idea that really motivated you or had your interest. And also remember that you just don't have to have something happening at every moment of one minute.
One of the things, and this is just a central thing, you can think about this as practical advice. You can come up with, we can sit here and talk and talk and talk.
The end point of it is the folks that do this in this quality are able to do it because they have a community that connects them. Like they all know that they're going to be making this film every week. And that makes their quality exponentially higher.
Say it's like the film challenge. If you have a community, you can make these films once a quarter. You're going to just slowly get better. if you are making it in a group. And if you do it once a week, your community gets better and better too in terms of the props, the tools, the assets, the editing, the resources, the quality of the films.
So think about your limitations and think about how you can get past those limitations to be a creator and make something amazing that's like a minute long and find people to do it along with you because you'll really redefine your ability to get those results, share ideas, really push each other to make things that are really cool, really incredible, and really high quality.