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Hi everyone,
I’m really happy to be here and to have the chance to ask questions to people with experience.
I’m completely new to cinematography and just starting out. At the moment, the only equipment I have is my phone.
So my main question is: how do I start learning to shoot using just a phone? I really want to learn but I’m not sure how to approach it.
What should I focus on, what should I pay attention to, and are there any specific exercises or tips you would recommend?
Also, I have a second question: what is cinematography really about? Is it mostly about lighting, emotions, or something else?
To add a bit of context, some of my favorite films for cinematography are both parts of Dune, Dunkirk, and No Country for Old Men.
English is not my first language, so I hope everything is clear.
Lastly, I wasn’t exactly sure which category to post this in, so I chose this one because it seemed the best fit for my questions.
Thanks so much for any advice!
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Hi! I’m without experience and still learning like you, so i don’t know how useful my thoughts can be, but a thing i noticed (and Roger somehow says it often, in a way or another, but the core of the concept is similar) Is that the tool you use Is less important than how you use it and how you use your brain and instinct to tell the story.
For a little school project i gave to my middle school students a very old and poor camera to shot some shorts. In half an hour they all were not thinking anymore about the camera, they were Just using their instinct to set the lights, direct movements of actors, blocking the scenes, thinking in terms of cuts to be made, without any input by me, in a spontaneous way. They were learning by doing. And i’m doing the same, the more i play with the camera the more i learn. So, being in your same situation i can Say that i’m learning by studying masters’ works (i.e. Watch a lot of good movies and try to understand why they are good) and experiment. Write a nice scene, shot It with whatever you can, learn and have fun.
Thanks for the response and the advice.
But what should I actually film? Should I get inspired by scenes from movies, or come up with something on my own?To be honest, I feel like I don’t struggle that much with how to shoot something — I think I’m actually getting better at expressing what I have in mind. The real challenge for me is coming up with what to shoot in the first place.
Well, if it’s not your main job at the moment you are free to shot what you want, so take advantage of that. But it depends on what are your expectations and projects. In my case, i’m working on some horror short movies and i’m focusing on that but honestly i don’t hope it will become a real job for me one day: i wrote two scripts that tells the stories i want to tell in the way i want them to be told. You may have different interests (comedy, drama, documentary, etc) but the idea Is the same. When you begin studying the movies and not Just enjoying them for their entertainment value you begin to learn and find suggestions and teachings everywhere. For example, the last three movies i watched are from Ozu, Bresson and Kieślowski and they of course have absolutely nothing to do with horror but still there were a lot of things to learn about the grammar of the cinema and they suggested me some shots and camera movements for my shorts.
At the moment, there’s nothing specific I want to shoot. I just want to do something. Maybe I’ll come up with an idea. Thanks for your help.
Are you interested in a specific genre? You could either write a simple script on a good story (and in my case it’s been the hardest part) or, as an exercise, trying to reproduce a shot from a movie you like (lights and vfx apart).
Besides that, are you going to shot a scene? You’ll need actors and you’ll Need to be a director too . 😉 And perhaps some kind of lights to begin thinking as a cinematographer.
And to organize everything you Need to be a producer too, ah ah!
Did you consider still photography then (unless you have experience with It yet). Even if cinema and photography have of course different approaches and different goals, some of the concepts (exposure, framing, depth of field, etc etc) are more or less the same. Roger published first a still photography book and then an (upcoming) cinematography book, after all.
Another approach to exercise could be to shot just environments and objects like establishing shots or details of an imaginary scene. A shot of a wood for an horror or a comedy are different. A detail of a diary could be a plot twist in a thriller or a melancholic moment in a romantic movie.
Hello, Anxyk. I am a still photographer with experience mostly in street photo. For me, the soul of cinematography is not about the fancy camera movements or the latest equipment. I´d rather focus on you walking around the place where you live, explore different places to see how light affects the environment at different hours of the day. Is it very sunny? Is it cloudy? Is there a foggy landscape? Is it night, surrounded by all sorts of sources of light, like neon, buildings, lampposts?
It won´t hurt learning the basic technical aspects of photography to know how to control your camera to achieve what you set out to with intention. Experiment and get to know your camera (even if it is the one on you phone); learn every little control in it so when it comes to facing a challenge, you know how to use it like a second language.
Don´t get carried away with videos about the latest gear and expensive or fancy accessories. If you sit in the outdoors regularly, study light; study photographs that you like and why you like them: what do they make you feel… Study paintings by the old masters and figure out the light and how it affects the life in those paintings. Of course, if you love movies, try watching the great old black and white movies, for instance, film noir and old westerns.
Going back to the beginning, speaking about camera movement, ask yourself: do I need to move the camera to tell this particular story and if you do, with what intention? Nowadays, I feel that the visuals are so frenetic: crazy fast edits, extreme camera movement shot from unlikely angles (who´s P.O.V. is this shot?).
I feel that watching silent films, too, is of great value. See how the language evolved.
There is a great documentary that I feel is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVns3k-NGAo
Here are a few other conversations that you might find helpful:
The best.
I could try that. I mean establishing shots. What do you think about static shots? For example, I imagine someone sitting in a chair in front of the camera, trying to convey feelings through lighting.
I suppose that would be a nice excercise about creating mood through lighting and framing a subject. To take the most out of it, you could choose a given zoom of the camera and keep it for all the shot and see how different camera movements and different framing of the subject create different effect (in other words, using the phone as a simulation of a prime lens: Roger often says that since prime lens have not zoom, when you use them you are forced to make decisions on how to shoot the scene, instead of simply zooming it). I did something similar but since i didn’t want to bother family and friends in my experiments i used a teddy bear as model. For ridiculous it may sound, it helped me since i focused only on the framing and the lights. When i found the light and composition i wanted, i put the camera on the tripod , i took the teddy bear place and experimented on camera angle, movement of the actor, etc. With a little creativity you can learn a lot even alone.
I have to admit that the teddy bear was a better actor than me, but that’s another story.
I think starting with your phone is perfectly fine for the following reason.
Also, I have a second question: what is cinematography really about? Is it mostly about lighting, emotions, or something else?
It’s goal is to help tell the story. The story dictates many of the decisions.
Everyone talks about Roger Deakins’ lighting but in my opinion the more critical quality is “putting the audience where they need to be”. Simplified it means where he puts the camera, and thus us, the viewer. From shot to shot and as a scene, he is one of the best, maybe the best, to do this. He could shoot a movie without lighting at all and it would still work and be terrific because of this skill.
And this is what you can study and then practice just with your phone – learn about framing and putting the audience where they need to be.
Get a fully manual camera app like the Blackmagic one to get familiar with the the different controls (shutter speed, colour temp, iso etc) – these skills will transfer to any camera.
Get some lights, reflectors for bounce and black fabric for negative fill.
Find out the focal length of your camera lens (or lenses) so you know the field of view you are working with.
Shoot alot of different stuff, but especially faces. One great quote from this forum was something like “if you know how to light a face, you can light anything”
The more you shoot and watch your footage, the more you will learn.
Work hard and have fun!!
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