We aren't covering things like soft lighting, camera movements, color grading, composition, and all of those other things. But instead, I'm focusing on some of these lesser talked about techniques to make your videos more cinematic!
In this video, we're not going to be talking about the typical techniques like using shallow
depth of field, golden hour, soft lighting, dynamic range, color grading, all that kind
of cliche stuff that you always hear about. But instead, we're going to be focusing on
techniques that are not talked about that often. What's up, everybody? My name is Alex Chung,
and today we are talking about cinematic footage. And the first tip that we're going to go over is
trying to incorporate movement in your shot. Now, I'm not talking about camera movement,
which is like very easy nowadays, given that you have gimbals very accessible to us. But instead,
I'm talking about trying to get your subject to move, especially an inanimate object.
The best example of this is when you're trying to get shots of leaves or plants or any sort of
these flowy things. Usually, if there's no wind when you're filming plants, you can gently try
and blow or fan on the leaves in order to get them to move. And if you're shooting a high frame rate,
you can bring it in post and slow it down, and it makes the shot a lot better. And this technique
also works if you're trying to film flowy things like curtains or even people's hair. And speaking
of people, if you're filming someone, try to have them do some sort of little action. It really
helps break up the shot and make it not look as plain or as stale. Small things like fixing the
hair or buttoning up a shirt or playing around with jewelry or taking a few small steps forward
and then backwards again, all of these things really help make the shot a little bit more
interesting to look at versus if your subject was just standing still in front of the camera
and not really doing anything. But what if you're filming something that you can't physically move?
In this case, you can use something like a prism or like a silk. If you want to learn more about
using prisms in your videos, I'll leave a link up here so you can go check that out. Prisms,
like this one, will give you a very stylistic look. And overall, it's a much harsher look than
something like a piece of silk. This is actually one of Mamel's dresses that we use to film our
commercials. If you flip it inside out on the bottom, there's this little silky layer right
here that we actually flip inside out to use. And it adds a little bit of texture as you're putting
it up against the lens. And you can also use a white t-shirt that you stretch out very thin,
and that will give you the same effect as well. And having these things moving around the edge
of the frame really helps keep the eyes moving around the shot. And the way to maximize this
technique is to use it sparingly and do it very subtly. And you don't want to take up the main
attention of the shot either. So, you definitely want to think about how and when you want to use
it. The next technique is shooting away from your light source. What's great about this one is that
it works under any lighting condition, and especially for people's faces. The best way to
get a really cinematic look is to shoot on the shadow side of your subject. I see a lot of people
doing the opposite of this, where they're shooting on the light side of the subject, and it makes the
shot look really flat. By shooting on the shadow side, you create a lot more contrast and a lot
more definition. And it makes the person's face or the object a lot more interesting to look at.
The most extreme version of this is backlighting, where you have your subject right in between the
light source and your camera. And this will give you a silhouette effect and really separates the
subject from the background by having this rim light or hair light around it. Now, as a side
effect of the previous technique, you're most likely going to get in-camera lens flares,
which can look very cinematic and look very beautiful. When light hits the lens elements
at a certain angle, it bounces all around the glass inside, and it gives you lens flares.
Now, I know in photography, that's not really what you want because it washes out that single frame.
However, in video, your camera most likely is going to be moving around, so it's not just that
single frame that the lens flare is happening in. And the reason why this can look really,
really good is because it adds another layer to your shot. And a lot of times, that's really what
makes a shot very cinematic, is how many layers of light can you separate from your subject in the
background, in the foreground, all that kind of stuff. The more layers, the more cinematic it can
look. However, a word of caution is to try not to have the lens flare be blocking your subject the
entire time or taking up too much of the frame. Try positioning the lens flares on the edges of
the frame or on the rule of thirds, and also try not to overdo it, or else you'll end up with a
J.J. Abrams movie. And the last thing we're talking about are black ProMist filters. These
filters diffuse your highlights, and it gives it a much softer look, and it's often associated with
the film look. With black ProMist filters, you're not losing any shadow definition, even though the
shot might look a little pastel. The hazy look definitely adds depth and character to some of
the brighter parts of the image, and it helps soften our super sharp sensors while still retaining
detail. They come in different strengths, with quarter times being the weakest, and three times
being the strongest. I'll leave a link down below for this exact ProMist filter that I'm using.
That's it for this video, guys. I hope you learned something new, something different.
My name is Alex Chung, and I'll see you later. Bye!
