About a month ago I announced that I had been working on A guide to shooting cinematic images with a DSLR, After countless hours of prep, filming and editing, it’s finally finished and released today! The guide itself is a very in-depth 82-minute tutorial video that is like a boot camp and covers everything you need to know about shooting cinematic images from start to finish.
Many of you pre-ordered this guide last month and I want to start by saying thank you. I greatly appreciate your support and interest in teaching this video.
There are many video tutorials out there that try to break down and explain the various components of cinematography, but I’ve never come across any that focus primarily on how to achieve a “film look”, which is why I created this video guide. While many of the topics covered (such as setting exposure, stabilizing the camera, and the post-production process) are relevant to any type of shoot, most chapters (such as lighting, framing, and color grading, etc.) are very much geared toward the film look.
I did spend a long time and effort intensively compiling every detail that I think you need to know to start your cinematic journey. This guide could have been 3 hours long, but after stripping away all the excess and leaving only the essentials, it was reduced to less than an hour and a half. Over the course of the film, we cover the following topics by chapter:
1. Choose the right camera
2. Recording format
3. Camera profile
4. Exposure
5. Lenses
6. Depth of field
7. Rolling shutter
8. Lighting
9. Framing and Composition
10. Camera movement
11. Stability
12. Post-production workflow
13. Color grading
14. Organize
This guide will really be beneficial to anyone shooting digitally, not just monocular shooters. While I’m primarily using DSLR lenses/cameras for demonstrations, the basic principles outlined in this guide are universal and will apply no matter what camera you’re shooting with. No matter which camera you choose, lighting beautiful images, choosing the right lens, color grading your footage, or any of the other key topics I cover in this guide is a must-have.
Here are some frame grabs from the guide:
my method
Almost any chapter in this film could be its own stand-alone teaching. But I think rather than splitting everything up and releasing all these chapters as separate films, I think it’s really important to release them together because they’re all very dependent on each other. I learned how to shoot, edit, and color by getting my hands dirty and learning every last step of the process, and that mentality comes through heavily in this tutorial. By touching on every last element in the chain, from camera selection all the way to coloring and finishing, this guide will give you a great starting point and help you get your cinematic images off the ground.
Without a doubt, actually getting out there and shooting is one of the best ways to grow as a filmmaker. But in order to make the most of your time when it’s time to actually shoot (and avoid a lot of trouble along the way), you need to be as prepared as possible so you can avoid some common mistakes that everyone makes. That’s the purpose of this video: to get you up and running as quickly as possible so you can go out and choose the right camera, shoot with it, and process your footage to make it look great. I’ve spent years teaching myself how to shoot through trial and error, and I just hope that by learning some of the techniques outlined in this tutorial, I can save myself countless hours of frustration.
If you would like to order this guide, just click on the link below for only $65. Thank you all so much for your support and I sincerely hope this guide helps many of you capture more original and cinematic images.
