8 Tips to Make ANY Video Cinematic transcript

I stumble when I can't get up. Fall into the sun. [Music] [Applause] Making something look cinematic is not actually super hard. These are some hacks that I use to make my videos seem higher quality, give it a little bit of a film look without really putting in much, if any, effort at all. I love the way filmy stuff looks, but I don't really actually know too much about cameras. So, these are some hacks you can probably just copy.

And the first one is to not over complicate it. Most of this was actually shot with just putting my camera on random things around my office like that shelf underneath there on the side of the desk sitting on the desk or even just handheld. Now, you can get as much into setting up the shots as possible, but my main thing when I'm making a YouTube video is I want to have speed. So, instead of setting up some perfect shot, I like to limit myself and let that be how I film.

When I film, I always try to use the lowest f-stop possible because it really just makes anything look good. This is like a $100 lens that I'm using right now. Not even using a tripod. Just put it down inside my cabinet. And with almost no effort at all, just because this has a low f-stop, which means like the the background behind me is pretty fuzzy, this looks like a pretty solid video. And so, if you want to make anything look good, you can buy a relatively cheap lens.

This is a 50 mm 1.8 lens. It's prime. I can't move in or out. And I just let this dictate what my shots are going to look like. I'm going to have to be further from the camera or it's going to be very close-up. And when you actually limit what you have, it makes things a lot easier. That's why I don't shoot with a tripod sometimes because it just makes the choice easy of I have to put it on a flat surface. So, I just find some flat surfaces.

Next thing I like to do is just not really adjust too much. I'm pretty sure like the goat Casey Neistat just threw things on auto so that he wasn't messing with it when he's vlogging. And I do a lot of the same things. Like I film at 24 frames a second because that's like what our eyes are naturally used to when we see movies. That's what they're filmed on. So I just do that. I don't like the way 60 looks. Low f-stop.

I don't change any of the settings really. The only thing that I change is the ISO to a point when I have relatively controlled lighting or the f-stop. Everything else I just kind of keep the same. And this again just helps with speed. Yes, it could be maybe a 10 or 20% better shot if I knew my camera settings better, but my main goal is to make a YouTube video quickly and have it look cool, not to have it look like amazing.

I'm not trying to like become a full-time filmer, but you don't need to in order to have it look really nice. Another hack that I like to use is faking it. Sometimes I don't always have the correct shot that I want to use. I can't take it myself. Maybe I'm talking about the Old West, but I just don't have a highquality video of boots or access to boots. Cheap looking B-roll can actually like really make your video just feel like So, I personally like to use the sponsor of this video, Story Blocks.

I've literally been using them for years in dozens of videos. And you probably never noticed because there's a ton of highquality stuff on there. If you don't know what Storyblocks is, it is a stock media subscription service offering unlimited access to really highquality stock videos and images, music, sound effects, and it can really help you take your videos from the next level on every aspect of the video pretty much without ever having to worry about like copyright concerns or anything like that.

The cool thing is you can get unlimited downloads of diverse highquality media for one predictable subscription cost, which if you use as much B-roll as I do is really useful. And again, we're not talking junk here. We're talking highquality 4K HD videos, great sound, great music, templates, effects, everything you need. The cool thing I really like about Story Blocks, they have authentic, real content out there in this in this age of AI.

Storyblocks stock collection celebrates the human experience, capturing stories and emotions that AI just can't replicate. There's something so unique about having a highquality real video made by an artist of a real person. To get started with unlimited media downloads for onestep price, go to storyblocks.com/theprocess or click the link down in the description. The next thing I like to use is sound effects and music.

If you notice in the intro for this, we had some sound effects for my footsteps for the music. When I took my headphones off, the music calm down. >> Just adding things in post like that can make a shot go from like very boring to actually like interesting without doing anything else. [Music] And so either filming with audio and trying to make sure that you have that or doing it in post can really up the level of your videos.

Speaking of post, also just like the colors that you add to your video and the L that you use can really just change the feel and the vibe of the video. Can make it happy, it can make it moody, it can make it whatever you want it to be. But it really just adds kind of a richness when all of your videos look the same a little bit, but it really just changes the whole feeling of your video. A couple of people have been asking for my LUT.

So, if you want them, I'll put them down there for free if you want them, if anybody needs them. But your music and colors are really going to change how your video feels. And again, you can just use a lot. You don't have to like be a master at any of those things. The next thing is the foreground. If you notice, I put either my guitar or coffee cup or something slightly in front of the video. I think there's like a you can probably see a little bit of the keyboard haze down here right now I think.

And just having something in front of your camera makes any shot look cooler with again like almost no effort. Just like literally throw anything in front of it. I also try to use the three shot rule. So if you notice at the beginning of this I tried to do a wide shot as wide as I can do on a 50 mm lens. This is the establishing shot to kind of show where I am. And then you have the medium shot and the tight shots. And you kind of layer between all of those to tell a little more of a story than everything being this close-up angle or everything being this wide angle.

It just really adds a lot more. So you do the same action multiple times, but you do them from different angles. And you can do the whole thing in like 2 minutes maybe to get some really cinematic sequences going the entire intro, which looked pretty good. It wasn't like amazing, uh, but it took under 5 minutes to do. And I think that was a pretty solid intro for almost no effort. Next thing is to be creative. Be a little bit weird.

If you noticed that I had the looking down shot. I had the looking up shot. I had a shot from underneath the couch. I don't even know how that was. I couldn't see the screen. Hopefully, it looked all right. But I'm always trying to find creative or unique shots. They don't always work. Sometimes they get cut. But if there's something that you can do that's slightly different and like strange. I feel like you should always always try to film those because that's what adds a lot of character and like uniqueness to your videos.

Especially as like a creator. I love opening the cabinets, opening uh like a refrigerator or something like that, pulling out a drawer and the phone's in there or the camera's in there or whatever. It just adds this surprise that helps people stay engaged with your videos. The next thing is movement. If you notice that I handheld the camera, it's probably a little shaky. It wasn't the best. Would have been better if I had a tripod or something, but again, I wasn't trying to be perfect.

When you have a moving shot of you taking a bite, opening a door, uh picking something up, it just adds a lot. And especially if you have a wider lens, it's easier than how close I was, cuz you can only get so far with a 50 mil. If you have these static shots and these moving shots combined, it just makes it feel a little bit moodier. And I also love to do that when I'm walking. I can have a tripod in front of me and just kind of hold it and keep my arm down and it just gives like this moving type of shot like somebody else is going with you, which I really like.

So that's just like another quick thing that I do. I also use like mostly natural lighting when possible. Again, this is for speed because a lot of people, they try to come up with excuses for all of these things why they can't make a video, but ultimately doesn't have to be perfect. Like, I use the window for almost all of this in order to get lighting and I'll just adjust my ISO to match so I'm not blown out. Again, you can use those limitations.

I know that I'm going to have the camera in this range so that the light is hitting like roughly half my face and makes me look somewhat cinematic. super cloudy out right now, so I do have my other light on for this shot, but the rest of that was just 100% natural lighting, and it still looked pretty good, which is what I'm going for. Another thing would be to not overthink it. I literally thought up this idea and what I would do inside of like 5 minutes, wrote down a couple of things that I did, and then just shot the intro, and then I'm talking about the intro.

So, like, if you're trying to make a video about your day, a vlog, whatever, don't overthink what can be cool. Like going from my laptop to pick up a box of bars cuz I was hungry is like the most boring thing possible. But you can still have fun with it. You can make anything entertaining if you just put a little bit of effort in. You don't take yourself too seriously and you just experiment and try things and film yourself over and over and over again to see what looks good and be creative.

Like again, I purposely didn't use my tripod for most of that besides the first couple shots just to force myself to be creative. So now I'm super zoomed in. I don't even have a tripod and I use those two things to force myself to be creative because there's only so many flat surfaces here that I can use. So, so hopefully this was helpful. If it was and you want me to go a little more in detail or or do some more of these and how I film myself, feel free to comment and subscribe and all that.

And if you are trying to improve on YouTube, I do have a free miniourse down below. It's how to kind of get better at, you know, this side and thumbnails and titles and everything else. So, hopefully you find that helpful. I'll see you next week.