cinematic Tool For VIDEO | Filmmaking & Videography Tips for beginners

So how can we make our films and videos look much more cinematic what tools are out there to help us get that hollywood

blockbuster look well in this article i'm going to be giving you tips as well as showing you some of my favorite tools for capturing cinematic looking footage it's coming up hey everyone steve here from learn online video and today we're talking all about tools for cinematic video today's video is sponsored by story blocks but more on them later because right now i want to show you some of my all-time favorite tools for capturing cinematic looking footage we're going to be covering everything from tools that are free or cheap all the way up to tools that are more expensive for those of you that are taking things a bit more seriously or working professionally okay so let's start with camera movement because for me this is one of the best ways to start making your footage look much more cinematic smooth fluid camera movement is often associated with feature films so how can we replicate that smooth hollywood style footage well how about a gimbal now for those of you that have been subscribed to this channel for a while you know i'm a huge fan of a gimbal there are many different types of gimbals we've got this one here this is a smartphone gimbal this one here is designed for dslr and mirrorless cameras they come in all different shapes and sizes but all will help towards getting you much smoother looking footage a gimbal will instantly reduce any unwanted nasty camera shake and is a surefire way to start making your footage look much more cinematic this one here for example is the

cheapest gimbal that i own this is the hoem i steady x and it actually does a pretty good job for its price i've actually made an entire video all about this gimbal if you haven't seen it yet be sure to check it out i will link it below and then we've got this one here this is the zhu in smooth x has a built-in extension pole that comes in very useful and we've got this one here this is my current favorite dslr mirrorless gimbal this is the zhu in crane 2s you would have seen me using this in many tutorials it is one of the best gimbals for getting nice smooth hollywood style footage now if you're looking to take your gimbal moves to the next level then one of the best ways to do that is to attach your gimbal to some kind of an extension pole again if you've been subscribed to this channel for a while you know that i will often attach my smartphone gimbal to a light stand this is a great way to replicate not only crane shots but also drone shots now the most budget version of this technique would be to use a cheap

smartphone gimbal like this one here and attach that to a cheap light stand like this one here and the more pro version of this setup would be to use a monopod like this one here this one's from ifootage and combine that with a gimbal like this one here the zhuwin crane 2s this will allow you to take a much heavier payload and use a dslr or mirrorless camera and as you can see the footage that you can capture with a setup like this just looks fantastic most would assume it was shot using a crane or a drone so another great way of adding production value to your footage and as always all gear mentioned in this video will be linked in the description below okay moving on camera sliders camera sliders are another great way to get smooth hollywood style footage and again they come in all different shapes and sizes i've got three in front of me

here i've got this one here this is a mini motorized camera slider perfect for you mobile filmmakers fits perfectly in a backpack we've then got this really old slider i've literally owned this for over 10 years this is not a motorized slider it requires you to do everything by hand the downside to this is that you'll need to move the slider yourself so it requires a little extra skill but the benefits to this are that it will never run out of batteries because it doesn't require any and it's much less likely to break because there really isn't anything on it to break now if skill isn't something that you have then i recommend using something like this this is a motorized electric slider designed for bigger heavier cameras this will do all the hard work for you guaranteeing you nice smooth and consistent movement also really useful if ever you're shooting solo and want to add a bit more movement to

your footage most of these sliders come with an app so you can operate them remotely incredibly useful again if you're shooting solo allowing you to add camera movement to an otherwise static shot okay let's talk lighting now i can't talk about cinematic footage without talking about lighting because this is such a crucial element now there are a number of different ways that you can light your videos but let's talk about the best free way to light your videos and the best free way of course is to use the sun the sun is one of the best light sources out there but the time of day in which you shoot will determine how cinematic your footage looks if you shoot during the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest casting big shadows under people's eyes making them look like pandas your footage is going to look a lot less cinematic compared to if you were to shoot it at sunrise or

sunset or the golden hour as it's otherwise known shooting during golden hour provides beautiful soft light that's much less harsh much more cinematic especially when combined with shooting into the sun and taking advantage of sun flares simply by choosing to shoot your footage at sunrise or sunset compared to the middle of the day can make all the difference to your footage and take your footage from looking amateur to professional but if you're shooting inside and need more control over your lighting then using some kind of video light is going to be crucial now again there are budget versions when it comes to lighting in the past i've used office lamps i've used cardboard to reflect or bounce light i've used candles in a recent video i used a cheap led to shoot products you can of course get really creative with your lighting if you're on a budget but if you have the budget and you're taking things a bit more seriously then i highly recommend investing in a good lighting setup i started out my youtube journey back in the day using

these cheap soft boxes that i picked up on ebay they cost around about 30 pens each and they just about did the job the downside with cheap lights like this however is that they will often give off a slightly green or magenta tone when filming a person or subject this can make them look ill and will require some post-production color correction to fix now generally speaking the more you pay the better your lights will be but if you've got the budget and you're shooting youtube videos like this one here but i recommend using something like this this is the nan light forza 300b this combined with a softbox makes for a great key light tube lights are also very trendy at the moment there are many creative ways that you can use these to give your footage a much more cinematic look okay so we've talked about a few ways that we can make our footage look more cinematic when it comes to production or shooting but what happens if we've already shot our footage or we're editing someone else's footage how can we make that footage look more cinematic well again let's start with what we might see in the cinema now one of the first things you may notice when you go to the cinema is that the screen is in a different aspect ratio to your television at home this screen is in a 235 to 1 aspect ratio or in other words it looks longer and thinner this is because this is the aspect ratio that most hollywood films are shot in whereas television is shot in a 69 aspect ratio this is why when you're at home watching a film on your television two black bars will appear at the top and bottom of your screen now feature films are actually shot in this aspect ratio but we can replicate a similar look by adding black bars to the top and the bottom of our screen yes you can of course yourself shoot in these cinematic aspect ratios some cameras will allow you to do that but

if you're just starting out and want to keep things simple then try adding black bars to your footage this will instantly give your footage a much more cinematic feel and as you can see here from this footage that was shot on my phone it looks okay but by adding these black bars and replicating a more cinematic aspect ratio the footage now looks much more cinematic i will leave a free link where you can download some cinematic bars in the description below now another short fire way to make your footage look much more cinematic is to color grade it stylize your footage so that it fits the mood style and feel that you're going for now you can spend time color grading each individual clip on your timeline or if you're just starting out and you want to keep things simple then i highly recommend color grading using luts luts are a quick and simple way of stylizing your footage i

have a cinematic lut pack that i use for all of my videos i will link that below along with a free lut that you can try out and a color grading tutorial now another situation that i find myself in often when it comes to video editing especially when it comes to client work or editing someone else's footage is that i quite simply just don't have enough or there's a particular shot that i would like that i don't have and this is where stock footage comes in now let's imagine for a second i was editing a short sequence of someone walking through the woods i've got a shot of their feet i've got a shot of them from behind or the side a few other various shots but i want to make this sequence look a little more cinematic i want to add some more production value to the sequence and make it look much more professional so i'm going to use some stock footage now here is that sequence using no stock footage no black bars and no color grading let's take a look [Music] and now here's that same sequence only this time i'm going to use stock footage black bars color grading and music let's take a look now hopefully most of you will agree that that second sequence looked and felt much more cinematic by simply combining just a few of these tools and tips i was able to create something that looked much more like something you would see in the cinema the drone footage at the start instantly sets the scene and gives this sequence much more production value now once i had the footage of me walking through the woods i then jumped over to storyblocks and searched for drone footage woods i had a ton of different options i simply picked the one i thought best matched my location i've been using storyblocks for years they are one of the best places for high quality royalty-free stock footage for your videos now another thing you might have noticed about that sequence was the music the music felt very cinematic and music is one of the best ways to make your footage feel more cinematic and the beauty of storyblocks is that not only does it offer incredible stock footage but it also has music and sound effects so once i'd found the drone shot of the woods i simply searched for a track that i felt would best suit the sequence i searched cinematic inspiring orchestral i was given a ton of options and

went for this one here storyblocks literally has over a million digital assets to choose from everything from stock footage title templates they've got music sound effects and what i love about storyblocks the most is that they offer an all-access plan that gives you unlimited downloads to their huge library of digital assets so i can download and experiment as much as i like so look if you haven't already be sure to check out storyblocks using the link below or visit storyblocks.com forward slash learn video now when we combine all of these tools and techniques you can take what ordinarily would look like amateur footage and turn it into something that looks much more cinematic and professional but remember you don't need these tools they just help it's totally possible to shoot smooth looking footage handheld in fact i've got many videos dedicated on this channel to doing exactly that i will link those below as well if you found this video useful do let me know by giving it the old thumbs up and if you'd like to see more content like this learn more about video production you can do that by watching one of my other Article's just over there but that's it from me thanks for watching and i will see you in the next article you.