As Reese Witherspoon’s Legally Blonde celebrates its 20th anniversary, it’s time to take stock of the world that came after. Although on the surface it seems like a silly and light rom-com, much like the film’s heroine, there is more to it when you dig deeper. With smart feminist mess

Do you ever watch a movie and find yourself asking “What is it that makes it look so cinematic? What trick do I need to pull when I’m lighting my YouTube videos to create the same impact?” If you do, we think that you might be interested in learning more about backlighting. It’s often descr

Choosing a focal length for every scene that you shoot is a huge creative decision. It determines how much of the scene will make it into the shot, how close the audience will feel to the subjects and what sort of background blur you’ll be able to achieve. Selecting the correct lens focal l

The video tripod is often seen as the gimbal’s and the Steadicam’s boring relative. It’s stable and reliable but not altogether exciting. However, when you learn how to use a video tripod to its full potential, it can make a huge difference to your filmmaking. There are different types of t

In a world of amazingly smooth in-built stabilization and state-of-the-art gimbals, you’d be forgiven for thinking that camera tripods are obsolete. Who needs one of those ancient contraptions suited more to medieval times than the 2020s? But that’s the thing about tripods. No matter how go

Normal? Why would you want a normal lens? Normal is ordinary. You might even say that normal is boring. When it comes to lenses, though, normal is far from boring. A normal lens is one that you should always have in your kit bag. This is why, and what a normal lens offers you. What is a nor

When producing audiovisual content, lots of creatives first focus on the quality of the visuals and leave the sound quality until later. Even though both sides of video production are important, sound plays a bigger role than ever. Bad audio will subconsciously result in a bad video as view

You have your story, your cast, your crew, your gear and lighting; you have a set or location. You’re just about ready to go. What you have to think about now is your scene composition. Good composition can make or break a film because you can’t just put everyone and everything in a room an

In video, focus is often thought of as a measure of sharpness. Is the subject “in focus,” meaning, can we see them clearly in the image? That’s just one part of it. There are many types of focus in films and videos, achieved in different ways and for varied effects. Directors and cinematogr

Whether you’re an aspiring or established podcaster or YouTuber, you probably often think about giving your productions better audio quality. While better audio can be achieved with microphones for filmmaking, like shotgun and lav mics, as well as understanding audio editing and mixing, the

When you build up your cinema lenses collection, you might be tempted to focus more on the wide-angle end of things, or perhaps normal lenses. But a telephoto lens definitely has a place in your stash. They are much more versatile than you might think, and they bring a different dimension t

Smartphone filmmakers are on the rise, and each year, they are using less and less gear while achieving cinematic levels of photography. One of the most critical aspects of smartphone video filmmaking is stabilization. The good news is that phone camera stabilizers are plentiful and just as

We continue our series of articles where we look at some iconic in the history of cinema and analyze some of the elements that made them so memorable. In this post, we’ll take at Joel and Ethan Coen’s dark psychological comedy Barton Fink, which celebrates its 30th anniversary t

We’ve covered both shotgun microphones and lavalier mics, but so far we’ve left one of the most important ones out—the studio microphone. What is a studio mic? Good question. As the name indicates, on its most basic level a studio microphone is a mic used in a studio setting. The important

Of all the composition rules in photography and filmmaking, the rule of thirds is probably the most well-known. It is a mainstay of the cinematographer’s work because it is so effective at inserting tension into a scene while at the same time giving space. Composing scenes using the rule of

You might well have encountered the term bitrate but not be sure what it means and how it affects your videos. If this applies to you, read on! You’ll find out what bitrate is, the relationship between bitrate and video quality, and how to select the best bitrate for your videos. What’s a “

How to choose a video camera? For beginners, this may just be the hardest question of the lot. In fact, not even for beginners—just creators in general! Previously I’ve mentioned how this is a “golden era” for filmmakers and one consequence of that is the dizzying array of choices. With so

If you’re a creative starting out in the industry, you’re probably scratching your head, wondering how to make money as a filmmaker. You’re not alone! Every successful filmmaker has started in the same place, and lucky for you, there are tried and true ways to get freelance video production

By now anyone with a television has heard of 4K video, but what really is the difference between 720p resolution size and 8K resolution size and which one should you choose? It all comes down to understanding video resolution. In fact, you will need to master it as a filmmaker, content crea

You might well have heard people describing themselves as “content creators” or seen it used in job notifications. If you’re wondering what a content creator is, what sort of content they create and even why you might want to have a go at taking on a content creation role, read on! What is