6 MISTAKE BEGINNER FILMMAKER MAKE

hey how's it going Gurdeep Singh from pixelcountry .com and today  i am joined by our newest team member Prabhdeep Singh  and today is going to be  helping me break down six  of the most common mistakes that we see  beginning filmmakers and videographers  make. 

Now we currently have over 15,000 students in our pixelcountry filmmaker  program and i've personally reviewed and  given feedback to  thousands of their videos over the years  and i've seen some common bad habits  that have some easy fixes if you know  what to look for and if you like this  video we have a free one hour filmmaking  training that covers these and many  other filmmaking tips and you can watch  that in the link in the description  below but let's now dive into our six  beginner mistakes nate take it away all  right guys  

1. Wrong frame rate

 that we see often is  people shooting  and editing in the wrong frame rate this  one is a must for us to talk about  because  too many times we see films come to us  that are shot in 30 and 60 frames per  second 

and then edited in those frame rates  instead of shooting in or editing in 24  frames per second  most hollywood films are shot at 24  frames per second 

so that is what our  eyes are used to seeing when we watch  professional films  also the motion blur associated with 24  frames and a shutter speed of double  that  replicates the amount of motion blur  that the human eye sees  so overall it just looks more natural 

when you shoot at a frame rate that is  higher than 24 frames per second like  most beginners usually do 30 frames per  second it's going to end up looking like  a soap opera  news broadcast or a home video because  that's the frame rate those are usually  shot in now there are times when we use  higher frame rates

like 30  or 60 but it's usually only when we plan  on slowing those down to 24 frames per  second  in post and we do that to create slow  motion for example when shooting wedding  videos we want that dreamy look so we'll  use 60 frames per second to achieve that  30 frames per

second also has a place in  our workflow and that's when we fly our  drone when we shoot at 30 frames when  flying and slow it down to 24  in post to smooth out any of those micro  jitters in the shot for anything that we  want to be in real time  like for example this talking head we 

always shoot 24 frames per second  and moving on to our second biggest  mistake we see is  poor lighting lighting is one of the  most important elements to great  cinematography and probably the least  understood  and least appreciated aspect of  filmmaking with beginners  most.

2. Lighting

beginners assume you can just buy a  nice camera and it'll make everything  look great but in reality i'd say the  opposite is true  great lighting can make any

camera look  good here's a quick example of how much  an image can change  just by changing the lighting so what's  the difference between these two images  well the image on the left is being lit  only by the ceiling lights

which in this  case  is bad for a few reasons number one  direction of light number two  quality of light and number three  contrast of light  for light direction typically the  shadows that a light casts are going to  be more flattering on the human face 

when the light is coming from a  direction just slightly above and  slightly to the side of the subject's  face that's one of the more popular  looks in hollywood films and most  rookies will just use ceiling lights  which will give your subject raccoon  eyes or they'll just blast a ton of  frontal light on the subject taking away  any shadow at all  which then makes the image look super  flat and not very

cinematic  the second reason this image doesn't  look very great is the light quality now  typically you want your key light which  is the main light that lights up your  subject to be a large light source like  a soft box  because the bigger the light source in  relationship to your subject the softer  the light's going to be which makes the  shadow less harsh  thus

being more forgiving on the  imperfections of the skin and most  rookies images use too much hard light  which is fine for the right scenario but  learning how to soften your light in  certain scenarios  can help make your images look more  flattering and the third reason is light  contrast the background is the same  brightness as the subject so there's no  depth or separation of the subject from  the background the image just looks flat  and boring and most rookies do a poor  job at creating  depth in general and there's a lot of  ways you can create depth like using  foreground or leading lines

but one of  the best ways to have contrast  is by using contrast of lighting so  typically in talking heads like this  your subject's going to be brighter than  the background so that it draws  your audience's eye to the subject and 

not to the background  so by controlling the light by lighting  up your subject with a nice big soft key  light and maybe a little backlight to  separate the subject from the background  and maybe even some splash light of  color on the wall  to get some color contrast suddenly the  image feels more three-dimensional  just by using lighting now we're just  scratching the surface here we have a 

full video here on youtube discussing  lighting and dozens of other videos in  the course covering lighting more in  depth but the point is to take the time  to learn  how to light it will make or break your  image now 

3. Bad lens choices

moving on to the third biggest  mistake that we see and that is  bad lens choices a common mistake i see  rookies making  is popping a wide angle lens on their  gimbal for all their shots  close-ups mediums

wides just move closer  and farther away right  well actually certain focal lengths will  have different effects on your image to  be aware of wide lenses like 16 to 35  are great for wide or medium shots like  real estate  architecture or landscapes

but  wide-angle lenses aren't great for  close-ups on portraits of the human face  and they start to distort the facial  features it's been said that between  70

and 100 millimeters is the most  flattering focal length on the human  face 

and anything over a hundred millimeter  is usually used when you want to  compress  a lot of space and make something appear  closer than it really is  or if you physically can't get closer to  your subject

and personally here are the  different times that i use different  lenses  i use my 16 millimeter for real estate  and landscapes i use the 24 or 35  as my main lens for medium talking head  shots like what you're seeing right now 

is the 35  i use a 50 millimeter as a great middle  ground lens i can get decently wide  shots while also allowing you to get  some close-ups and that's why you'll see  the 50 millimeter being used so widely 

because they're super versatile and for  close-up shots or detail  shots i'll usually pop on my 85 and for  scenarios where i can't get very close  to my subject like sporting events  i use my 20 millimeter to compress that  space and fill my frame with the subject  now if you can only

afford to buy one  lens i'd probably get a zoom lens  and i'd suggest picking up something  like a 24 to 70 because it has a nice  balance of both wide and tight  now obviously what lens you buy depends  on

what you'll be shooting so if you're  mostly shooting real estate then  obviously you're going to want to start  out with a wide angle lens so first  determine what type of content you're  going to be shooting then buy the lens  that best fits that need the point is  learn to adjust your lens choice to fit  the look and feel you want to get  and don't get lazy and just use the same  focal length for everything 

4. Bad audio

 moving  on now to our next mistake number four  is bad audio now first you might be  thinking wait what  what does sound have to do with creating  cinematic images well the definition of  cinematic is having qualities  characteristic of a

motion picture and  if you think back to the last time you  went to the movies you'll probably  remember that the sound  and the music and the dialogue all  played a massive role  in immersing you into the story i always  say that audio is half of

the viewing  experience  what people hear tells half the story  creates half the emotion and yet audio  is probably the most neglected part of  filmmakers in the beginning most  beginners don't capture  clean dialogue don't capture any sound 

effects don't match the levels in post  don't use good song choices don't take  any time to sound design  and so on so here's a couple quick tips  we would recommend that will help you  improve your sound

today  first don't rely on the in-camera mic  invest on an external mic  whether that's an on-camera mic a love  mic or a boom mic  mic should be right up there with camera  lenses and lights on your gear list  secondly even if you have a nice

mic  don't make the common mistake  of the mic being too far away from your  subject i'd recommend placing that mic  6 to 14 inches away from your subject  obviously you can't always get that  close but where possible  keep that mic in that range to capture  clean crispy audio  third you always want to make sure that  the audio levels in your camera or audio  recorder are sitting between negative 18  and negative 6 decibels  any quieter and you'll start to hear  fuzzy noise in the background  and any louder your audio will start to  peak and sound nasty and distorted  and lastly take the time and post to  level out all your audio tracks  and beef up your videos with added sound  effects and music to help your edits  come to life  again we have a full video here on the  channel going further into depth about  audio tips  and have dozens of videos covering audio  capture and editing more in depth in the  full course  and we actually built our own custom  full-time filmmaker sound effects pack  that comes with over a hundred of our  most used sound effects to help spice up  your edits  links in the description below but point  is don't  neglect audio it is just as important as  the video  and moving on now to our 

5. Storytelling

fifth most  common mistake is  storytelling or the lack thereof most  beginning videos or  films we see have zero story or  direction or even a general purpose  as to why the video was created in the  first place a common video i get sent is  a compilation of random clips  of random subjects pieced together 

randomly to music  again with no sound design and there's  really no point to the footage  it just looks more like practice footage  to test out the camera settings which is  fine to do nothing wrong with testing  out your camera gear but if you

 to  do video professionally  and want to attract high paying clients  or audiences you have to create videos  that serve a real purpose and actually  tell a story  and step one to telling a good story is  determining what emotion you want your  audience to feel you can tell if you  succeeded at telling a great story if by  

the end of the video you succeeded in  helping your viewer  feel that particular emotion but if the  emotional viewer feels is confused when  you wanted them to

feel  inspired or they laugh when you were  trying to get them to cry then you  probably aren't doing a very good job at  telling your story even if you're just  shooting like a travel video when it's  pretty much just a montage of pretty  clips you can still do some pre-planning  you can think of the overall emotion you  want to convey  make a shot list of beginning middle and  ending clips and

then  shoot to edit which means have your edit  in mind or your story in mind while 

you're shooting so that by the time you  get to the editing room you already have  a pretty good idea of which clips are in  your intro which clips will be your  outro  and a general idea of how the rest of  the clips piece together to keep your 

audience engaged and  interested in watching the entire video  on this subject one of the biggest  questions i get asked is what kind of  content should i shoot  and i always say whatever kind of  content you want to get hired for or  that you're passionate about creating  if you're

passionate about making music  videos and find a local musician  and go shoot a free music video if you  want to shoot weddings  then go get a couple who can't afford a  wedding and offer to shoot one for free  if you want to shoot commercials for  local businesses  then take any product around your house  and come up with a creative idea that  would sell somebody on wanting to buy  that product but don't do what most  beginners do and just go to the park or  your backyard and shoot a variety  of shots of tables chairs trees and sun  flares and then editing them all  together to music  and sharing that on social media that  isn't relevant to anyone no one cares to  spend two minutes of their life watching  random boring clips back to back to back  make sure  every video you create has a clear  purpose and do your best to tell a  cohesive story that has a beginning  a middle and an ending instead of just  loads of middle clips thrown together to  music and on that note a big part of 

6. Bloated edits

 storytelling  is our last big mistake we see from  beginners and that is  bloated unfinished looking edits like  parker mentioned  no one likes watching long edits of a  bunch of random clips back to back  too often we see beginners shoot five  minutes of average footage  then put all five minutes of that  footage into a five minute edit  depending on the shoe we

often only use  maybe five to ten percent of our footage  in the final video  sometimes not even that you should only  be putting the best to the best of your  clips the ones that have the best  lighting  the best composition the cleanest  movements etc and back when we started  we both made the same mistake  and then we'd sit down to edit and use  all of those clips in our edit instead  of getting rid of those mediocre or  crappy clips we just throw them all  together and it ended up  looking like a home video shot on a good 

camera a 30 second video of only the  best  clips will make for a much more engaging  video than a 5 minute video with the  best clips  mixed with mediocre clips i can't  emphasize this enough  because a lot of people wonder why they  don't land clients and often times it's  because the video they send a client is  so long  and bloated and it is unclear what the  point is no one gets perfect shots 100  of the time however in the editing room  you choose what you use to showcase  yourself  always put your best foot forward by 

including your best footage that you are  most proud of  learning to create engaging concise  videos that actually tell a story  and have a clear purpose will make  clients want to work with you so  make sure to do some pre-planning have a  goal emotion you want to evoke from your  audience  have a clear purpose that the video  serves whether that's to sell a product  or create an emotion  and then shoot to edit getting more  clips than you think you'll need  and then take the time in the editing  room to sift through the mediocre clips  only leaving the best of the best and  piecing them together in a way that  tells a cohesive purposeful story and  again we talk more in depth in the  course about how to become a better  storyteller but if there's one takeaway  to walk away with today it's that longer  isn't always better only make your edits  as long as they can be  while still keeping the audience engaged  throughout the whole video and there you  have it folks that is our top  six biggest mistakes we see from  beginners based on the hundreds of  videos that we've reviewed over the  years and obviously there's dozens of  other mistakes we haven't covered here  but that should at least give you a good  starting point to know where to look to  quickly improve your videos and make  them more engaging and more professional  looking to learn more  awesome tips like this make sure to  check out our free one hour film making  training  and if you really want to take video  production serious make sure to check  out our full course full-time filmmaker  where we have over 400 tutorials just  like this to help you land higher paying  clients and take your video skills to  the next level but that's all we got for  you guys today hopefully you learned  something new don't forget to subscribe  for more content just like this and if  you have any further questions  please let us know