Handheld Filmmaking is one of the most commonly practising filming techniques on now days, this is found easier and it is comparatively cost efficient than usual other filming methods. 

However one drawback of handheld filmmaking is – the output videos are shaky when it compare to the videos that are created by using a normal filming technique.

But, have you ever watched the films like 21 Grams and Blue Valentine, yes these films are almost shoot on handheld and its output videos are not shaky. Then, how can they achieve such a good result? Filmmakersfans.com is explaining here the best tips and tricks to shoot a film through handheld mode.

Position

Camera holding position really well matters in handheld filmmaking: in this section we are illustrating handheld filming position by taking the screenshots of Videomaker and Tuts+ Photo & Video. We found that these two sources are found best to explain about handheld filming technique

Holding Position

Make your elbow is supportive while holding the camera in right or left hand. This helps you to avoid the shaking camera movements

Walking Position

Walk slowly also train your character in according to it. Let’s talk with an instance:- if you walk slowly with camera and your forefront character is moving fast then it is difficult to get a good shot. Two big faults will happen in this non pre-planned filming technique.

1. Probably in such a situation you increase walking speed, resulting your output videos became shaky
2. If your actor moves faster than the camera frame proportion, then the video result became as out- of-focus.

Panning Camera Position

Normally, the panning camera movement is found perfect when it filmed by using a Tripod. Also effective panning camera movements can be created through Handheld as well; we sawed that effectiveness in many films, the movie Children of Men is almost a handheld shooted film.

Two facts

• Perfectness is position and there is no particular standing angle. It’s all dependable on the flexibility of your body
• Assume, your legs as tripod stand and your hands as tripod pan head, try move your body flexibly with this concept
• Before staying “Action”, practice and preview it many times

Tilting Camera Position

Titling camera movement is defined as “focusing an object from upside to downside (or) downside to upside”. Hand balancing is very important in this tilting frame movement; hold your balancing hand (Right/Left) above the camera body and support the lens with other hand (See Image below)

Keep In Mind

• Use Lens that ranging above 35 MM
• Avoid the usage of pre-defined object focusing settings, why because there are still some cameras won’t manually detect an object rapidly. Resulting of this there are chance to blur your focus object, sometimes.
• In this filming method , always Position Your camera in between chest and abdominal

Stability

At First you must be stable-in-position, only then you get a good result. It’s better to slightly bend your knees while holding the camera, the reason we recommended is because the camera person gets stability and he/she internally feel confident. .

Best For: Steady shots, Pan Shots and Tilt Shots

Not practicable for: Track –in shots, kinetic panning shots

Must Know Facts of Handheld Video shooting

• Wore the cloth that will comfort you. Make sure that without any distraction you can easily walk, sit, lay and turn with the cloth that you wore. (Our suggestion is this >>T-shirt -Jeans Pant-sport shoe)

• Train Your characters properly before start filming
• Make sure that the filming location is fine, this is very-very important in handheld filming. For instance, if you are filming a dolly (walking) handheld technique and the location is a bumpy one, then it won’t gives you a good result.
• If you are filming by using a video camera, then it is best to position above the shoulder. However this camera positioning best for normal filming and it is not applicable for tilting-panning shots.

– Thanks For Reading-

Tag: Hand Held Filmmaking, Videomaker

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