Here are a few specific tips for getting good, stable, hand-held footage:
- Hold the camera with both hands. Tuck your elbows snugly against your body to support the camera.
- When shooting, stand straight and steady. Plant your feet shoulder width apart and bend your knees slightly.
- When walking forward, walk with your knees slightly bent so you walk smoothly.
- When you shoot close-ups, open the camera lens wide and get close to the subject.
- When you want to shoot a low shot get your body down low. Sit, lay flat or kneel on ground. If you can’t lie on the ground, rest the camera on the ground. Another way to shoot a low shot is to hold the camera at your waist (using both hands).
- Look for something to lean on while you are shooting. A wall, a car, a tree, a boulder… anything that will support you and help keep your body still.
- Turn the camera’s image stabilization feature ON.
- Avoid telephoto shots.
- Avoid using the zoom.
The last lesson is perhaps the most important. The primary objective of filming is to capture and communicate the emotional reality of what you see and hear. Honest communication is more important than any specific technique, equipment, or process.
Strive to communicate with the audience, not to get sidetracked in excessive concern with the hardware and techniques of shooting.
Concentrate on showing the reality of a room, instead of concentrating on walking smoothly through a room. Concentrate on capturing the emotional reality of a person rather than obsessing about placing the camera in precisely the ‘right’ position, or holding it in just the ‘right’ way.
When you connect emotionally with the people you are filming, that connection will reveal itself in the resulting footage. Yes, you all still have to master the technical parts of shooting—keeping the camera stable, getting good sound, good lighting, good framing and composition—but never allow your focus on the technical details distract you from communicating truly and honestly.
Good shooting.
