Audiences forgive a picture that is a bit soft or a bit dark. They will not forgive sound they cannot understand. If you only take one thing from this page, take that.
Sound first
The microphone built into your camera or phone is several metres from the actor and picks up the whole room: traffic, fridge, footsteps, air conditioning. The single biggest quality jump available to you is getting a microphone close to the person speaking.
- Cheapest fix: a clip-on lapel microphone. Very inexpensive, plugs into a phone, and transforms dialogue.
- Second cheapest: a second phone in the speaker's shirt pocket recording a voice memo. Sync it up in the edit by clapping once at the start of each take.
- Free: get the camera physically closer, turn off every appliance in the building, and shoot somewhere with soft furnishings. Bare rooms echo.
Record room tone
At every location, record thirty seconds of everyone standing completely silent. This is "room tone", and in the edit it lets you patch gaps and smooth joins so your soundtrack does not lurch between takes. It takes half a minute and editors treasure it.
Camera settings that matter
- Shoot horizontally. Unless you are deliberately making a vertical film for phones, turn it sideways.
- 1080p is plenty. 4K fills your storage and slows your editing computer down for no benefit at this scale.
- Lock focus and exposure. On a phone, tap and hold on your subject until it locks. Otherwise the picture will hunt and shift brightness mid-take, which looks amateurish and cannot be fixed later.
- Do not use digital zoom. It just crops and softens. Move the camera instead.
- Clean the lens. It is in your pocket all day. This is not a joke — a smeared lens is the most common cause of mysteriously foggy footage.
Hold it still
A tripod costs very little and instantly makes footage look deliberate. If you do not have one: brace against a wall, rest the phone on a stack of books, or hold your elbows tight against your ribs. Handheld is a choice, not a default — if it wobbles randomly it reads as a mistake.
Light is free
You almost certainly do not need lights. You need to notice where the light already is.
- Put your actor facing a window. Soft, flattering, free. The most reliable setup there is.
- Never film someone in front of a bright window. The camera exposes for the window and your actor becomes a silhouette.
- Outdoors, avoid midday. Overhead sun makes harsh shadows under eyes. Overcast days are excellent for filming. Early morning and the hour before sunset are the best light you will ever get.
- Bounce it. A sheet of white card, a bedsheet or a car sunshade held opposite the window fills the shadow side of a face. This is a real technique, not a substitute for one.
- Watch for mixed light. Daylight and household bulbs together make skin go strange colours. Pick one: either turn the lamps off, or close the curtains.
On the day
- Check your storage and batteries before you leave. Bring a power bank.
- Film a test shot and watch it back with headphones before the actors arrive. Sound problems are invisible on a phone speaker.
- Roll for three seconds before "action" and after "cut". Editors need those handles. Tight starts and stops make clean cuts impossible.
- Do at least two takes of everything, even a take you are happy with. Cards corrupt.
- Tick shots off your list as you get them.
- Back up the footage the same night, to two places. This is the only unrecoverable mistake on this page.
Filming with access in mind
- Set up before people arrive. Actors sitting in a cold hall for an hour while you work out the camera is the most common and most avoidable drain on a shoot.
- Somewhere to rest, in shot's reach. A chair just off camera means someone does not have to choose between resting and staying in the scene.
- Warn people before anything sudden. Flashing lights, loud noises, alarms, someone entering frame at speed. A five second warning costs nothing.
- Limit repeats deliberately. Decide in advance how many takes a physically demanding shot gets, and stick to it. Coverage from step 3 exists precisely so you do not need endless repetitions.
- Check the light on everybody. Camera exposure is usually set on the lightest face in frame. Check each actor individually and adjust, so nobody is underlit.
- If someone lipreads, keep faces lit and unobscured, and do not stand with a window behind you when giving directions.
Before you move on
- Every shot on your list is ticked
- You have listened back on headphones and the dialogue is clear
- You recorded room tone at each location
- You have at least two takes of everything important
- The footage is backed up in two separate places