Improving my iPhone video footage

You intent to make films using your smart phone.

You have most likely experimented with iPhone filmmaking up to this point but are not completely happy with the results. There’s something missing and you just don’t know what it is. You look at your footage, look at how is edited, and there is just something not quite right. Yes, you have mastered the basics of editing footage together in a coherent manner so that in the end it looks like a finished film but it does not look like a quality film.
It looks like someone who never went to film school made a short film. It looks like you have a great deal left to learn.

In this post were going to investigate one of the things that you may be overlooked. We will look at one of the most basic aspects of filmmaking. The thing that we call framing a shot.

What is framing?

Do you mean like in a picture kind of way?

Yes, that is exactly what we are talking about.

You’re going to frame your images better. The highlighting of things at the center of your footage by making sure that the most important element of the shot I at the center while the things that are less important are relegated to the background.

But that sounds difficult.

It may sound difficult but I assure you it is one of the easiest things on earth to do. As a matter of fact, most cameras are designed to do just that. And once you have learned how to frame it will become as automatic as breathing.

Well, when are we going to learn how to do this framing thing that you’re talking about?

You can learn it right now.

Let us begin with the rule of thirds. (Not to be confused with the rule of two, that is about a Sith Lord and his Apprentice.)

Most cameras will have something that looks like a grid available for recording video, this grid looks like a tic-tac-toe board is broken into nine equal squares. Each one of these nine squares has a purpose but for the sake of our first lesson, the most important square is obviously the one at the center you know the one where you usually put an X if you get to make the first move on tic tac toe. We chose the center square for the obvious reason is the focal point of everything and is the center after all. Everything revolves around the sun, everything in the world that we are going to create will be influenced by the center. This is not the only way of framing a shoot and using the exact center of the frame is a style of framing used mostly in documentary filmmaking and more classically stylized films.

Many modern filmmakers will go a little left or right of the center of the frame by using the intersecting lines rather than dead center. They do this because they are not going to be dealing with a fixed subject. The center of our attention is most likely going to be put into motion. Usually, the actor or actress that is at the center of the frame will move and the frame will shift as they move always keeping the most important element near or at center almost all the time. Then there is the chance that the most important element will change as the scene progresses.

I would like you to take a look at this video.

Next, we are going to learn a little bit about something referred to as composition is framing but more so, it is framing elevated to an advanced level this video will explain it better than I can.

Okay, that will be it for today’s lesson. I hope that it was informative. I hope that you took something away from this post. I hope now that you will take the time to bookmark this post and if you have a friend interested in filmmaking to share this post with him or her.

Thank you and have a nice day.