You don’t need a license to become a professional videographer, that’s for sure. All you need is a decent camera and the skill to utilize its features properly.
Making a professionally made video requires a lot of practice. Your practice should be correct right from the start. Surely, you don’t want to make a habit of doing bad videography. You won’t be a good professional videographer in the end if that’s the case.
So here are the six ways to shoot a video like a professional videographer.
Table of Contents
1. Position lights for the look you want
There are several vantage points or angles for your lights to make your videos look crisper.
If outdoors, studying the sun’s position before taking any video is a good sign of being professional in your videography. Always shoot with the sun at your back.
If indoors and you are making a video with actual people, get enough light in their faces. Overhead lights aren’t nice. Yes, they are bright, but they’ll only light the top of the heads of your subjects. Facial features will then get shady or shadowy because of it.
Backlighting is an example of wrongly positioned lights for your video. Backlit shots usually result in annoying bright light surrounding a dark figure with no evident facial expressions. Your subject surely doesn’t want that for themselves.
Move from side to side until you can avoid this troublesome effect.
Always strive to find the best lighting position to achieve that dramatic effect you’ve always wanted for your videos. You’ll also be able to accurately highlight what you want — in a very natural way, in order to deliver the correct message to the viewers.
2. Use wide shots sparingly
Wide sweeping shots should only be seldom used. One specific example is when you want to establish an overview of a specific location.
Small details can do more to convey the essence of your video compared to wide and general shots. When a person looks at the result of a wide shot, sometimes he can’t focus on your intended subject.
However, if it is unavoidable, sometimes, using natural frames will do the trick. It will properly highlight or accentuate the subject even if it is slightly off-centered. If you really need to film in a very wide format, you may rent Kowa anamorphic lenses as this is designed for wide cinematic imagery. Using specific lenses according to your need will help you utilize your shoot while improving the image quality as well.
3. Remember to capture good sound
Viewing enjoyment is never truly complete without a good sound. A video without a sound is totally useless because people won’t be able to totally understand the video.
You might have forgotten to record the audio, or you have failed to check on the quality of audio you are getting are some of the common things that could happen.
Having to constantly remind yourself not to forget the audio recording is a simple solution for the first situation. For the second one, it is not that complex too.
All you have to do to ensure the quality of your audio is to get rid of unwanted sounds. They are usually background noises which most of the time you get used to but are actually not good for your video. One specific example is the humming sound from the air conditioning unit, while you are trying to interview someone.
4. Shoot steady video
Shaky hands aren’t avoidable at most times.
While making mistakes is part of being a human being, intelligence is also an indispensable tool that we have.
Nowadays, mankind already has the technology for cameras with image stabilization features. But it is not as effective as a portable and very affordable tripod.
Or better yet, with your own ingenuity, merely shooting on a flat surface like the ground will help you make a steady video without having to bring a lot of gear like a tripod.
By this, you won’t be that dependent on to tripod anymore, and you can move around the scene freely.
Whatever is convenient for you just know that our aim is to have a smooth and steady video all the time.
5. Create special effects with an effective green screen
Having a video that can later be viewed in widescreen is not the only thing high technology brings to the science of videography because, in this modern world we live in, we have chromakey green screen.
Incorporating it in a video can give a lot of wonderful possibilities.
A weather forecaster, for example, can stand with a green screen behind him. He then uses it to show weather maps as he reports the weather condition.
Another example is during an interview, where you can show a related video behind the interviewee. It is like killing two birds with one stone. You’ll be able to combine two video sources in a single shot.
6. Avoid unneeded zooms and pans
Frequent usage of zoom and panning is for amateurs. These things can make a viewer dizzy especially if the things in the video were zoomed out too soon for a lot of successive times.
They distract the natural flow of actions in a scene.
Digital zoom should also be avoided. The transitional appearance of pixels from regular size to zoom-in doesn’t really look that great.
These processes, in general, won’t provide a watchable high-quality video. So if it is really inevitable, do it slowly and steadily. Also, make sure that you do it for a good reason.
A quick quality boost will all be yours if you will practice these six ways properly. Make it a routine. Mastery of which will assure you that you’ll definitely be called a professional videographer soon.
