How to Shoot Better Video with Your Phone!

Quick Tips and Techniques for Crafting Better Mobile Phone Videos

Shooting video with a mobile phone
The ultimate crib sheet about understanding the technology

Understanding the technology:
The phone's limitations are pretty intense, there are a number of things you can't do AS WELL with a phone that you can do with a normal video camera. Read the manual!
-manual focus
-zoom
-white balance
-shoot in low light
-change shutter speed to capture fast motion
-capture sound
-backlight compensation

With these in mind, you should structure you film to shoot in great light, preferably outside, taking steady shots (no fast moving pans), no background noises, shoot against a window or bright light. Most cameras (minus the 2007 models) will shoot at 15 FPS (frames per second), resulting in blocky motion for fast moving subjects. Some phones shoot at 10 FPS while the late model phones can actually shoot at 30 FPS. If you haven't bought your phone in the last six months, you are probably shooting at 15FPS.

Crafting your story:
Realise that your film is going to be very low quality video, so keep your film short so that people don't have to strain their eyes for a long time. Ninety seconds maximum is what you are going for, short and punchy.

Production:
Get memory cards for your camera if you can. Phone memory is always small and you are going to want to take the best quality of video that you can, which will suck up memory. Memory cards will allow you to shoot more coverage of your scene, which allows for more flexibility in editing. Most phones can take a 2Gb memory card, which is roughly 2 hours of high quality video (high quality as a term relative to shooting with a phone!)