HOW TO SHOT ANY LOCATION ( Easy filmmaking tips for begginers)

if you're a filmmaker or videographer looking to capture a location how do you do it how do you ensure you capture enough

shots for the edit how can you best show off the location and make your shots look interesting and what are some pro tips for making this entire process as easy as possible well in this article i'm going to show you exactly how it's coming up hey everyone steve here from learn online video and today i'm outside this very old and dilapidated house here in the southwest of england where i'm going to be showing you how you can shoot any location i'm going to be giving you tips on camera movement framing composition storytelling so the next time you need to capture a location you'll know exactly what you need to do and exactly how to do it now the tips and techniques that i'll be showing you today can literally be applied to any location if i can do them here in the middle of nowhere using nothing but half a house then you'll have no problems doing them anywhere also i'm gonna be shooting everything using my phone but if you have a camera that's better than the one on your phone then just use that your footage is only going to look better but with all that out of the way let's jump straight into this video and start shooting this location establishing shots what makes a good establishing shot well i'll tell you what let's start off with what makes a bad establishing shot take this location here for example this would be a terrible opening shot to this location i mean sure i've got some nice texture on this rock but it doesn't give us very much information

so what can we do to make it better well we can start by giving our audience more information we can reveal this environment to help establish the scene we could for example use a wide angle lens or if you don't have one then simply walk further away this will instantly allow us to see more of this location and give our audience a much better understanding of where this scene is taking place also for this shot i'm not only looking to show off the location but also introduce the audience to my focal point the focal point being this house or at least what's left of it i also want to help draw attention to my focal point so i'm going to frame this shot so that the house is on the intersecting point of my rule of thirds grid we could of course add camera movement to this shot but for now let's just keep things simple shot variety now that we've introduced and established our scene let's really take our audience on a journey and best show off this location one of the best ways to do this is to capture a large variety of shots we want everything from nice wide shots like our opening shot to mid shots and close up detailed shots now of course the best way to shoot any location is to plan before you

shoot visit the location before if you can if not then research it google it look for photos and best angles to shoot from and go prepared this way you only capture what you need but the reality is sometimes that's not always possible sometimes you just end up on a shoot at a location and you need to capture it and if that's the case make sure you capture a good variety of shots so you've got more than enough for the edit take our establishing shot for example this is a nice wide shots to help set the scene but now let's cut to a mid shot we've shown our audience this location now let's reveal a bit more of the house we could then cut to a much more close-up detailed shot like this one here we've now got our wide mid and close up camera movement now there are many ways that you can move your camera to best show off a location i will link some videos dedicated to camera movement below but for now let's just stick to the basics generally speaking you want to keep your footage as smooth as possible unless you're going for a more handheld shaky look of course now if your camera has good image stabilization then you might be able to get nice smooth footage shooting handheld but if not then be sure to use something to help stabilize

your footage this could be a tripod a camera slider or gimbal having smooth stable footage is really going to help show off your location and make your footage look much more professional okay here are some classic go-to camera moves that you can do any location the push forward the slider reveal [Music] the jib the orbit all of these moves are nice and easy to do and can be done at any location depth and foreground you'll be amazed at what difference simply adding depth and foreground to your shots can make take this shot here for example a simple push forward of this location that's okay but not great so how can we add some more depth and foreground to this shot well how about using the overhanging branches to this tree this time i'm going to point my camera up push forward and pan down to reveal the house look at the difference between these two shots by simply adding camera movement and foreground to this shot we've now got something that looks much more interesting and does a much better job of showing off this location now let's look at a really basic version of this technique here's the static shot of this house okay but not great now let's add some foreground to this shot give it a bit more depth and why not add a bit of camera movement to reveal the house minor tweaks that result in much better looking footage cutaways but what do i mean by this well again let's use this location as an example for this sequence i want my focal points to be this house but it's important to not only capture shots of this house but also cutaways to help keep this sequence interesting and our

audience engaged cutaways are supplementary shots that cut away from the main shot to another shot in this case the house is our main shot and other elements within this environment are the cutaway shots if this sequence was just shot after shot of the house it might get a little bit boring and harder to keep our audience engaged cutaways not only provide a break for the audience but also help with the pacing of our videos and show off different elements within our location's environment storytelling okay let's talk about storytelling because this is a really important part of any type of filmmaking you want to try and give all of your films and videos a beginning a middle and an end now this doesn't need to be anything complicated i'm not talking about some elaborate narrative with a complex storyline i'm simply talking about a short 30 second sequence that has a beginning and middle and an end take this location for example our beginning is our opening shot this sets the scene our middle will be a variety of shots that best show off this location and our end will simply be an end shot this is the most basic form of storytelling but at least we're now thinking about storytelling we've at least structured the sequence in a way so that it has a beginning and middle and an end we've got a variety of shots that best show off this location we've bookended that with an intentional opening shot and an intentional end shot now speaking of n shots what would make a good end shot to this location well if i had a drone that would make a pretty good end shot but i don't and to be honest i just want to try

and keep things simple so instead i'm going to shoot wide and walk backwards i'm going to pull away from this location i'm going to create a sense of leaving or finishing i could also fade this end shot to black this will definitely help end the sequence now let's edit all of the footage from this location together into a sequence using music color grading and sound effects to see what results we get [Music] [Music] so as you can see when you apply these simple tips and techniques you can really best show off a location and make your footage look much more professional 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 videos just over there but that's it from me thanks for watching and i will see you in the next article.