The first time you shoot footage as a beginner filmmaker is often an exhilarating process. You turn on your camera, point it at a subject, and excitedly hit record. For the first time, you’re taking all the great ideas you have in your head and capturing them as digital moving images.

However, the first time you watch your footage as a beginner filmmaker is often a deeply disappointing process. Even though you have someone in front of the camera saying all the lines you wrote and doing all the things you imagined, your footage just doesn’t look like a movie.

In these moments, it’s easy to get discouraged by thinking about the fancy cameras and equipment that you don’t have access to. But fear not! Any modern camera you’re using (yes, even a phone) has the potential to make professional-looking images. The trick is to avoid the temptation to leave everything on “auto” and instead dig into everything your camera can do.

Today, we’re going to take you on the first steps of your journey beyond simple, point-and-shoot filmmaking. By carefully considering the seven different elements below every time you turn on your camera, your amateur footage can go from flat and lifeless to dynamic and cinematic.

Focus#

If something is crisp and clear, then it's "in focus." If something is blurry then it's “out of focus.” While most people will make sure that their subject is in focus, you can take your footage to the next level by also considering what’s out of focus.

If you choose to keep everything in focus, the viewer will take in the whole frame (useful for an establishing shot or when action is happening in both foreground and background). However if only one subject is in focus, the viewer's eye will be drawn directly to that point in the frame. Anything that’s out of focus won’t seem important and it won’t be distracting.

Depth of Field#

The distance between the point closest to your camera that is in focus and the farthest point is referred to as depth of field. If you have a deep depth of field, then things both in front of the camera and on the other side of the room will all be in focus at once. ****If you have a shallow depth of field, then very little will be in focus at once, and an actor taking a step forward risks stepping out of focus.

The above image has a shallow depth of field. Note how only the owl is in focus.

The above image has a deep depth of field. Note how both the owl and monkey are in focus.

You may hear some people assert that an extremely shallow depth of field has a more cinematic look, but there are certainly situations where deep depth of fields can be just as visually impressive— for instance, to show off the entirety of a set or to highlight an actor’s movement. We’ll get into how to achieve your desired depth of field when we discuss aperture and lenses.

Focus Tools#

Since focus is so crucial to your shot, most cameras will come with tools to help you out. One common setting will highlight all the points in your image that are in focus. (In the viewfinder that is. The highlights won’t show up in the final image) This will help you avoid the classic blunder of thinking something looks in focus on your tiny viewfinder only to find it is decidedly fuzzy when watched back on a large screen.

Additionally, many cameras come with an "autofocus" feature that will focus for you. However, it’s worth noting that your camera won’t always correctly guess what you want in focus. As with many "auto" features, while they’re helpful when starting out, nothing beats doing it yourself.

Changing Focus#

When focus starts at one depth and then shifts either forwards or backwards along the z-axis, this is called racking focus or pulling focus. You might want to use this technique if you're shifting focus from one object to another or simply because someone is moving around in your scene and you don't want them to step out of the depth of field.

Regardless of your reason, racking focus is something you want to plan in advance rather than trying to "find it" in the moment. Some cameras have tools that allow you to mark focus points digitally. Otherwise, the old-fashioned method still works great: Just wrap a piece of tape around the lens next to the focus ring. Once you find your initial focus, put a pencil mark on the tape. Then rack focus to the desired second point and mark the tape again. Now you just have to use a steady hand to turn the focus ring from the first mark to the second mark while filming.

Frame Rate#

A moving image is simply a series of still images shown in quick succession to create the illusion of motion. The frame rate refers to how quickly these images or "frames" are shown.

In the United States, the standard frame rate is 24 frames per second (23.976 frames per second to be exact) and that’s mostly what you’ll want to stick to. This number was decided arbitrarily a long time ago, but it's now what we're used to seeing so other frame rates may look strange.

One scenario where you might want to shoot at a higher frame rate is when shooting in slow motion. That way you can slow that footage down and still have 24 frames to fill each second. If you've ever seen slow motion that looks a little jerky or "skippy" then this footage was probably not shot at a high enough frame rate. After all, if you slow 24 fps footage down to 50%, you then only have twelve frames to put in each second.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you're storing more frames in every second, the resulting files are going to be bigger. So, if you're shooting everything in a high frame rate, you need to take that into account when planning the storage of your footage. For a similar reason, certain cameras can shoot in great resolution at a standard frame rate, but have to cut down their resolution for higher frame rates. They simply aren't able to fit that many pixels into that many frames.

Exposure#

Exposure refers to how much light is reaching your camera's sensor. Nothing will make footage seem amateurish quicker than improper exposure.

When too much light reaches the sensor then the image (or part of the image) will be "overexposed," meaning that it is so bright that all that shows up is the color white with no visual detail. The image is said to be "blown out." On the other hand, if the image (or part of the image) is so shrouded in darkness that you are unable to make out details, then this image is "underexposed." When images aren't properly exposed, they look sloppy and become difficult to manipulate in post-production.

The above window is overexposed.

The window’s exposure has been corrected but the tree is now underexposed. Note how we lose the branches in shadow towards the center of the tree.

Similar to the focus settings, many cameras come with settings to help identify exposure issues so you don't have to rely on "eyeballing" it. A common example is a "zebra pattern" feature that will put different colored stripes on the parts of your frame that are either over or under exposed.

So let's say your image is over-exposed and you don't want it to be. Well, option one would be to adjust your lighting set-up so the light is less intense. Or you could put an ND filter (”neutral density” filter) over your lens.

But, this is the camera post, dammit! What can I do with my camera?

Well, I’m glad you asked, because the answer is multiple choice...

Aperture#

Similar to how you might squint when confronted with a lot of light, your camera will open and close its aperture. (In the squinting analogy our camera's eyelid is called the iris.) Apertures can range from being big/wide (letting in a lot of light) to small/narrow (not letting in that much light). We measure our aperture using something called F Stops.

F stops have an inverse relationship with the aperture. So the smaller your F stop, the wider your aperture will be. The reason for this peculiar relationship is that your f stop is written as a fraction. So f/2 represents a wider aperture than f/8, the same way that 1/2 is a bigger number than 1/8.

So if your image is initially underexposed, you'll want to “open up” by lowering the f stop. This will lead to a larger aperture, allowing more light to hit your sensor, which causes a greater exposure.

If your image is initially overexposed, you'll want to “stop down” by raising the f stop. This will lead to a smaller aperture, allowing less light to hit your sensor, which causes less exposure.

However—and here's the catch— aperture doesn't only affect your exposure. It also has an impact on your "depth of field" (remember that from the focus section?). A larger aperture means a shallower depth of field, while a smaller aperture means a deeper depth of field.

So if you need to adjust your exposure but don't want to alter your depth of field (or you're working with a camera with a fixed aperture like a phone), then choice A isn’t the option for you.

Shutter Speed#

When your camera is filming, it does not let light continually hit its image sensor. This goes back to the old days when you didn't want light hit your film stock while it changed from one frame to the next. A shutter is a device that covers up the film (or these days, the image sensor) so that light can only reach it for a short period at a time.

A shutter speed value represents how long the shutter is open, usually in fractions of a second. The longer you let the light in, the more exposed your image will be. So a fast shutter speed (like 1/240) will lead to a darker image, while a slow shutter speed (for example 1/2) will lead to a brighter, more exposed image.

If aperture measures how much light was allowed to hit your camera's sensor, then shutter speed measures how long that light is hitting the sensor.

However, like aperture, shutter speed comes with a side effect: altering how the camera captures motion. When the shutter speed gets too slow, moving objects will appear to "streak" across the frame in an effect called "motion blur." Too much motion blur and the audience will sense something is off. (Unless you’re going for a surrealist approach in which case increased blur may be appropriate.)

The flip side is also true! We're used to seeing fast-moving objects have some blur. So if the shutter speed gets too fast, the resulting image may seem jittery to the human eye.

Now if your shot is relatively static, you might be able to get away with more or less motion blur than we're used to. However, if there's a lot of movement in your frame, it's best to set the shutter speed at about 1/2 the length of a frame. So if you're shooting 24 fps, you'll want to keep that shutter speed close to 1/48 (on many cameras, the closest you'll be able to get is 1/50). If you're shooting slow motion at 60 fps, you'll want to drop the shutter speed to around 1/120 (which is why you usually need to over-light slow-mo scenes to make up for the darkened frame).

So what if you need to adjust your exposure, without changing the lighting, depth of field, or motion blur? Well, there's one option left...

ISO#

The final way to affect your exposure is to adjust your ISO which literally changes how sensitive your camera is to light. A higher ISO will produce a brighter image because your camera's sensor is more sensitive to the light reaching it. Likewise, a lower ISO will produce a darker image because the light reaching the sensor has less of an effect. Generally speaking, ISO levels under 100 are considered low, over 400 are considered high, and everything in between is “medium.”

Unfortunately, ISO comes with a pretty big trade-off: the higher the ISO gets, the lower the quality of your image becomes. High ISOs tend to produce a lot of "noise"— those annoying digital particles that often show up in nighttime digital footage. Every camera has its own "base ISO" or "native ISO" which is the ISO setting where it will produce the best quality images. If you're eager to avoid noise, it would be a good idea to keep your ISO around that number.

Both of the above images are the same resolution yet the top one looks like much worse quality since the ISO was cranked up so high.

So when we put all three of our components together, we end up with option D: All of the above!

The Exposure Triangle#

When trying to adjust your exposure with the camera, the three options we’ve just discussed are known as the triangle of exposure. In getting your exposure levels set, you can use one, two, or all three legs of the triangle. So to make an image brighter, you’ll be dealing with a combination of a shallower depth of field (aperture), more motion blur (shutter speed), and/or a noisier image (ISO) Finding the right balance between these things is one of the challenges of filmmaking.

White Balance#

A common experience for beginner filmmakers is playing back their footage and discovering that everything in the shot has been tinted a certain color. The reason you didn’t notice this colorful sheen on set is that our eyes are incredibly good at adjusting for us. If you know a tomato is red, then even if you light an entire room with a blue light, your eyes will adjust and tell you that the tomato you're holding appears red. However a camera isn't going to compensate for your expectations. It's going to film that tomato as purple.

This is where white balance comes into play. By finding something within the shot that is supposed to be white and adjusting the color balance so that it appears white in the final image, all of your other colors will fall into place for a "neutral" look.

While some cameras will attempt to automatically white balance as soon as you point them at a space, it's important to take control of white balancing yourself:

1. Bring something to set which is a true shade of white. If you pick an object that's actually off-white with hues of another color, it will disrupt the whole look. Professional cinematographers often own pure white cards, but a thin stack of printer paper works just fine for us amateurs. (Don’t use just one piece as light can bleed through).

2. After lighting the scene, put your white object near the subject of your frame. It’s crucial that your white card is being hit by your main light source. If you beautifully light all of your actors, but then turn the camera around to white balance on a stack of paper you're holding in your director’s chair, then you're white balancing for you, not the scene. In other words, always move the white card to the camera, not the camera to the white card.

3. Hit your camera's white balance button. Presto! You shot will have a neutral look.

4. (Optional)If your eyes had already adjusted to the color temperature of the set, your white balanced image may look off. Just cup your hands around your eyes to block out light and look only at your image for a few second. If you balanced correctly, your eyes will adjust and you won't believe you ever thought the rest of the set looked normal.

Incorrectly white balanced.

Correctly white balanced.

Now, if you don’t want a neutral color temperature, you have some options in regards to white balance. Firstly, you could light the set neutrally and then color correct in post production. If you prefer an analog method, you can white balance when your set is neutrally lit and then turn on colorful lights or add colored gels to your lights. Or finally, you can “trick” your camera into adjusting the color for you. If you white balance on something bathed in cool, blue light, but then light the set in neutral light, your whole image should look warm and orange.

Aspect Ratio#

An aspect ratio refers to the shape of your frame. The ratio is given in terms of the width of the frame in relation to the height, and will have a major effect on the way an audience perceives your film. Some of the most common aspect ratios are outlined below:

1:1 - A true square isn’t used very often. If you're going for a box-y look, we’d recommend...

4:3 (or 1:3.3) - Often called "full screen," this is the aspect ratio that old TV shows were broadcast in before HD became the household norm. This was also the aspect ratio used by many old films so newer filmmakers (like Wes Anderson) will use it to evoke those old films. 4:3 is also very close (and often confused with) 1.375:1, which is called Academy ratio.

16:9 - This is the standard aspect ratio for HD video as well as television broadcasts in the U.S. and U.K. If your shooting footage for online videos, this may be the ratio for you.

1.85:1 - This aspect ratio (very similar to 16:9) is one of the two most popular wide-screen movie ratios and is sometimes used by filmmakers to give the frame a vertical sense of scale (like in Jurassic Park). Alternatively, the slightly boxier image may also feel more intimate to some than other wider ratios.

If you want your footage to look cinematic, but also believe it will primarily be played on YouTube or Vimeo, this is a great ratio for you. The wide screen format will evoke the feel of movies, but it will still take full advantage of most computer screens.

2.35:1 - Often referred to interchangeably with 2.39:1 and 2.4:1, this is the widest aspect ratio used regularly by modern films. This is great for showing off landscapes and horizontal scale as opposed to the slightly more box-y (but still wide) 1.85:1. Shooting your footage in 2.35 will immediately make it clear that you want your footage to look cinematic.

Planning to Crop for Your Ratio#

If you have the resolution to do so, some people will shoot in a slightly wider aspect ratio than they intend to show their finished film in, and then crop their footage to the correct aspect ratio in post-production. Having space on the top and bottom of your frame that you don't intend to show will give you extra room for stabilization or even just the ability to shift the whole framing down a bit while editing if you notice the boom mic sliding into the shot.

Original Shot (16:9)

After Crop (2.35:1)

Conclusion: Recognizing Cinematic Potential in Your Footage#

So the next time you’re looking at some footage you shot and bemoaning that it looks un-cinematic, just consider these seven criteria.

1. Did I use what’s in focus (and what’s out of focus) to direct the viewer’s eye where I want it to go?

2. Did I set the frame rate so that the footage will look fluid at 24 fps? (An especially important question for all your slow motion action scenes!)

3. Did I properly expose my image? If so, did the depth of field, motion blur, and noise-level still work for my shot or did they become distracting?

4. Did I properly white balance to achieve the color tone I want?

5. Did I choose an aspect ratio that fits the purpose of the project?

6. Did I consider all the effects of zooming my lens to its chosen focal length (or using a certain prime lens)?

7. Did I move my camera for visual style or for only for convenience? (Would that handheld pan have looked smoother on a tripod? Would that zoom in have been more effective as a dolly forward? etc.)

Just by honestly assessing these questions, you’ll be taking steps towards footage that looks more cinematic. The trick is that next time you go to shoot, ask the questions before you hit record.