Natural Lighting : How to Achieve a Cinematic Looking Documentary | DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- What makes a documentary cinematic? How to make a documentary look like a movie? These are some questions I've been asking myself since I started making documentaries... For the past few years we've seen a significant rise of documentary films, some people even call it the ''golden age'' of documentary filmmaking. This is thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix that made the medium much more accessible to wider audiences. But I don't think that's the only reason for this growth. There also seems to be a great improvement of the production quality and storytelling techniques used to portrait these stories. But there are several elements that contribute for a ''cinematic'' looking documentary, and today I want to talk about one of those elements, lighting (more specifically, natural lighting).
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Some of my documentaries featured in this video:
Documentaries Featured in this video:
Parkour: Behind Every Jump - • Parkour: Behind Every ...
[Im]Perfect - • [Im]Perfect - The jour...
HIV Positive - • ''I'm HIV Positive'' |...
Victim of Modern Slavery - • ''I was a Victim of Mo...
Haunted by Trauma - • Surviving Trauma - a l...
Escaping drug addiction - • Overcoming Trauma - a ...
Worth saving: living on the streets - • The day I became homel...
Living with a disability - • Living with disability...
Other (amazing!) documentaries featured:
Cheer
The Pharmacist
Tell me who I am
Free Solo
Honeyland
Black Sheep
Brooklynn
73 Cows
The Tables
The Last Storm
Perfectly Normal
Rescate
Sinai Health - My name
EPOCH is a project focused on sharing intimate and inspiring stories of people, through the form of short documentaries/films.
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Thank you for watching!
A lot of the documentaries featured in this video were a massive inspiration for my work. If you enjoy my documentaries, you're going to be blown away by some of these!
Available on Vimeo:
Black Sheep
Brooklynn
73 Cows
The Tables
The Last Storm
Perfectly Normal
Rescate
Available on Netflix:
Cheer
The Pharmacist
Tell me who I am
I was looking for tips for making a documentary on my own and came across your channel.. Wow, it's even hard to put into words how amazed I am by your talent! Your work is incredibly inspiring and criminally underrated!! Thank you for doing what you do! Can't wait to see what comes next!
Wow! Thank you so much for the kind words Margaret. It means a lot to me :) I'll keep on trying to make the best content I can!
I love your craft man. Thanks for inspiring us to continue making these mini documentaries. Your points on natural light are a game changer! Keep going bro! ✊🤙
Thank you very much! :)
Thank you I really appreciate this!
This video is a goldmine of useful and relevant information, with a good production quality🤩🤩🤩 Thank you so much for that beautiful content!!!
You are the BEST! I love your work!
Thank you very much Heng
Indeed
I got you it's about the connection of characters and stories! I think it's interesting job for me! 👍😊😉
This is beautifuly made and really interesting content. Fantastic work!
Thank you Xoana :) I've just replied to your dm :)
Your work is amazing... thanks for sharing so much.
I love your videos and documentaries!
Can you please share something about your background that allowed you to be a great film maker?
Thank you very much Karim. I don't really have a background. Just bought a camera, watched a lot tutorials on youtube and just practiced a lot with the camera. Watching a bunch of documentaries also helped me a lot! But I didn't go to a film school or anything. My first ever contact with a camera was when I started this project.
Simply lovely
Thank you very much :)
Thank you for sharing your wonderful tips and beautiful cinematography. Subbed!
Thanks for these tips dude!
Thank you:) I'm glad it was helpful
Very interesting, thank you. I look forward to you being able to travel and make more of your thought provoking content.
Thank you very much Gary! I cannot wait to go back on making interesting stories!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. Love your hard work and God bless you.
Thank you so much for the continuous support 😊
Another informative video I will definitely have to revisit if I ever have to shoot a documentary or something very person-centric.
Thank you JitterEye :) thank you for always being here and showing your support!
Wow! Really well put together. Very informative and inspiring 😀
Thank you very much Philipp 😊
so great!
Thank you Liz :)
Hey bro. I have an interest in filmmaking and I subscribed to your channel very fast, I've definetly learned from you. I am yet to pick up a camera though. Quick question, on a comment/description you once mentioned using a main camera and a secondary camera (for video). Whats the secondary camera for? Back up, diferent angle? Please shed some more light on this. Thanks for being a great, straight forward, easy to understand teacher ;)
Hey Moeti :) My secondary camera was my first camera and now I take it with my as a backup mainly. However, there are times that, because I'm filming by myself, I want to capture 2 different angles (for example, one is a wide shot and the other a tight shot). In this case I take the secondary camera and I place it in the tripod to get the wide shot. But I confess that doesn't happen that much, and it only serves as a backup camera. You definitely don't need two cameras though. One is more than enough. I hope this was helpful!
@@epochstories It is helpful, thank you.
That was really interesting! Will definitely check out some of the documentaries that you listed, good timing with a lockdown looming on the horizion again.
You'll absolutely love it I'm sure! The ones on vimeo are short docs, but they're very worth watching. 73 cows won a BAFTA 2 years ago, it's such a heartwarming story.
Can I make documentaries with smartphone? I'm just starting to get interested in videomaking but i don't have enough money to buy a camera. At the same time, I'm learning english, I liked your videos, they're so cool.
Thank you
Hey Carlos! Thank you very much! Are you portuguese? If so, do you prefer me to reply in portuguese or english?
I think you can definitely start with a smartphone. I've never made one with a smartphone, but I've seen plenty of good footage on CZcams filmed with them. So it's definitely possible. If you can, I would recommend you to, at least, download an app called FilmicPro. I think it's around 15€ (much cheaper than getting a camera). This app basically allows you to use your phone as a professional camera and you'll learn a lot by playing with it.
It most likely won't have the same image quality as a camera, but I'm sure you can get some great stuff! You can still play with the light, movement and composition and those are 3 big elements of filmmaking.
I hope this was helpful :)
Great video! Inspired to experiment with lighting and honored to be learning from you!
Thank you Mathew! Excited to see your growth :)
Lindo lindo lindo! Tens um talento incrível e es uma pessoa que mereces mesmo sucesso por todo o trabalho que fazes com os vídeos que transmitem mais do que imagens!
Muito obrigado Márcio! Eu tento fazer o meu melhor 😅 Espero que esteja tudo bem contigo!
Great!
Thank you Max!
Phenomenal
very nice tips! Keep up with the awesome work!
Muito obrigado Sue ❤
Hey I love your content man! Where could I know what camera do you use??
Hi! What camera do you use? Your filming style looks really cool so I was wondering what type of gear set up you have?
Hey Maha. Thank you very much. My setup is really nothing special. I use a GH5 with a shotgun microphone most of the time. The way you tell a story is much more important than gear
Amazing Work ✌️
Thank you very much! :)
Excellent video - left me feeling inspired for my current documentary project, May I ask where you obtained the music featured here?
Thank you very much Daniel! I get my music mostly from musicbed and some other times from audiio. Those are both subscription based websites
just discovered this chanel i see u are not publishing anymore are u planning to share more of your work?
Hey Sebastian! Yes! Due to covid I had to stop making films, but finally a new one is coming next week 😁
@@epochstories great to hear!
Just discovered your amazing channel and wow! I love your work! I’m trying to get more into this also, but I struggle with interviews. I want to get away from the « I do [activity] because it’s nice and it makes me feel good » and get more into deeper thoughts and have proper interesting content.
If you have any advice or if you could make a video about how you do this with your documentaries, would be really helpful 🙏🏼
Thank you very much! I think the most important thing is for you to be deeply interested in the subject/story you're approaching. If you're curious you'll ask more questions and get more thoughtful answers. Don't ask them only what they do and why they do it. Ask them what they feel in a particular moment. Sometimes it also helps asking the same question with slight variances in the course of the interview, if you feel like something is missing. I don't expect any specific answers from the questions I'm making, but if I want to dive a bit deeper, I look for different angles of the question. I hope it helps :)
Do you have any tips on how to find the story while filming? Like, you can't write a narrative for a documentary ahead of time so how do you construct the story during or after filming? and what prep should I do before filming?
In my opinion, is good that you have already an idea of the story before you start filming. Some questions you can ask yourself beforehand are: who's my character? What are their goals? What's the conflict? What's the theme I want to portrait?
The answers to these questions will serve as guidelines while your shooting and editing.
And then it's all about being open and ready to adapt. Things evolve and change as you're filming, so we just have to be flexible. There's really no specific method to "have a story", but answering these questions beforehand and being open for new possibilities can help a lot in the process.
I have a documentary idea. How may I share it with you?
Hey Katie! You can send me an e-mail about it :)