The Designated Filmer Guide
- 10th July 2019
Why not ask friends and family members to take turns to take video footage of various stages of your event? The following is a guide to help them create great footage for the final video edit. It can also be downloaded in PDF format here to hand to your designated filmers!
Prepare your phone
1: Use your phones camera app not social media.
Use your phones camera app rather than filming through social media apps. This will retain the wonderful high quality your phones camera can produce!
2: Video Settings.
If your phone allows set the video resolution (normally found in the camera settings) to 4k 30fps (frames per second). We edit in high definition (1080p x 1920p) so if you film in 4k (3840p x 2180p) this will allow us to zoom into a clip without loss of quality.
PLEASE NOTE:
A minute of footage at 4k 30fps will be 170MB so make sure you have plenty of spare memory on your phone, a minimum of 10GB if you are planning to take some footage of all parts of the event.
3: Battery Life.
Make sure your phone is fully charged and have a charger handy so you can give it a boost at various points of the event.
4: Clean the lens with a soft cloth, or your sleeve!
Simple video filming techniques
5: B-roll footage.
B-roll is the extra footage which helps to enrich the story and aides the smooth flow when editing between clips.
For example, if you are taking a video of guests at a table, take a close-up video of a glass of wine being poured or of a floral display on the table. Also take some footage of the outside of the venue and a pan shot of your location at various points (see below). These can then be cut into the video when editing.
If there is a central focus like the ceremony or a speech, turn round and take 5 or so seconds of the audience or guests facing the subject when they are clapping or just watching and listening.
6: The pan shot.
The pan shot is when the camera moves from one side of a scene to the next.
At various stages of the event and when in different locations take a pan shot. Start by holding your phone at the beginning of the pan for 5 seconds or so then very slowly pan to the end of the scene but continue filming at the end of the scene for 5 seconds or so also.
7: No need for big long clips.
VidSnap aims to deliver a fun video showing all sections of your event. A full speech is not something we would add to the final creative edit (unless requested!) so there is no need to film for long periods; but we may add the beginning so film that to capture the essence of the moment. A first dance, however, would be something we would add in full if we have the footage!
