Speaker 1: In this video, we're going to bring you behind the scenes of a fitness commercial shot on the brand new Sony A7S III. What is up creators? Anthony Gallo here and the purpose of this video is to help you shoot better commercials for your local business clients so you can start charging more for your work, differentiate yourself as a videographer, but most importantly, increase that confidence on set and as a business owner so you can skyrocket your growth. Quick background, if you're new to the channel, we're a team of filmmakers dedicated to providing some of the most effective educational content for growing videographers. We recently started our YouTube channel, but we have a variety of super affordable online courses which serve as comprehensive start to finish guides on learning everything you need to shoot amazing videos, grow your business, enjoy your new hobby, whatever it may be. One of the programs, 14 Day Filmmaker, actually just passed 25,000 happy students for the past year, which I believe makes it the single largest online film school on the planet. But anyways, back to the subject at hand, this video is for those of you who are looking to start getting paid to shoot commercials for local businesses. Or maybe you already are shooting these videos, but you want to feel confident charging more, or you're just somebody who's looking to shoot better videos no matter what gear you have. Because that right there is a huge focus of ours. Shooting is not about the gear you have. It really is all about how you learn to use it and apply simple tips and techniques to get the most out of whatever you have. Now, I know today's video was shot on the a7S III, and going back, I wish I didn't say that in the intro because it really doesn't matter. All the tips we talked about today can be applied to any camera you have, assuming it has interchangeable lenses and the ability to shoot 1080p at 24 frames per second. All right, let's dive into it though. Tip number one to increase your confidence shooting commercials, you need a script. Now, I know what you're thinking. These are supposed to be tips for shooting commercials, Anthony. Why are you talking about boring things like scripts? I know it's not as sexy as listening to YouTubers talk about gear and camera settings, and we'll get to that. But if you plan on shooting a lot of commercials for businesses, you need to accept the fact that in order to really knock things out of the park, you're going to have to develop some script writing abilities. Your script is like your map, guiding the flow and progression of how you shoot your commercials. I know personally, when I first got started, all of my work was just a compilation of pretty videos that I recorded when I was on set, which is fun. You know, I love pretty videos and most other videographers do as well. But potential clients, and more importantly, customers watching the video, they care a lot less about pretty videos and way more about how this advertisement applies to them. What problems can it help them overcome? What desires can it help them achieve? You probably get the point. Having a well thought out script, even if it's just 30 seconds worth of talking, will help you create a commercial that actually does what a commercial is supposed to do, which is convert sales for your clients, increase brand awareness, generate new leads, and so on. And this is great for you because when you successfully do that, your client will continue hiring you. Believe it or not, this gym that I was shooting for is actually a retainer client of mine. They pay a set fee every single month for content and help with their marketing, and they've been doing that for years now because they know I'm not just a videographer. When I come in and help them out, it's going to be to shoot a video that actually performs and helps grow their business. So to recap here, making sure you have a script will give you a map so you're not just aimlessly shooting random clips when you're on set. It will help your clients get results, which means they'll hire you more. And overall, it's just another way to differentiate your work from other filmmakers. I know it might sound intimidating to have to learn a whole new skill, but we actually have a full program outlining our start-to-finish formula for scripting basically any commercial we shoot, whether that's a social media ad, a commercial for our clients' websites, or even a network television commercial. It's called One Day Script, and the link to get that at a discounted price is in the description below. Moving on, tip number two, lighting is your friend, and in fact, probably should be your best friend. I say this because 99% of the time, focusing on lighting will improve the look of your image 10 times more than buying a more expensive camera ever could. Now, this doesn't mean you need to buy thousands of dollars worth of lighting gear. In fact, I purposely used just one super affordable light on this shoot, and it went great. Especially on those kind of run-and-gun shoots where we don't have an hour to set up every single scene, having just one light with a nice softbox can work really well. This particular light was the Godox SL60, which is only a little over $100, and links to all this gear that we recommend is in the description. And when it comes to wrapping your head around lighting, I like to focus on two things right out of the gate. We want our subject to pop in the frame and easily stand out as the primary focus while still looking natural. We want our light to seem motivated as if it were naturally existing in the frame, like coming from a window source or a practical light like the overhead tube lights in the gym. We also want to separate our subject from the background through lighting, which will increase the depth in our scene. The more separation apparent between the subject and the background, the more three-dimensional the scene will look, which increases the perceived quality of our images. Now, here's a quick tip where we can accomplish practically all of these things with just one light. Whatever direction you want to film your subject from, place your key light as close as you can with it still being out of the shot, but on the opposite side of your subject. And when I say opposite side, that can mean from left to right or front to back. It works both ways. Here's an example so you can see what I mean. We have our subject running on the treadmill here. I'm filming off to the left-hand side of her. The light source is placed so it's hitting the opposite side of her body. Right off the bat, this is great because now we're filming on the shadow side of the subject. You'll notice in many Hollywood films that 90% of the time, the camera is being pointed at the shadow side of the subject's face or basically the side of their body with less overall light. They do this because it creates more depth as the light wraps very nicely around the subject, casting soft shadows that really accentuate the three-dimensional space of a subject's face. When you're filming on the bright side of the subject, this three-dimensional depth is typically lost and we have a flatter look. Now, not the end of the world as some commercials call for a more broad light style, but personally, I like the moodier and more dramatic look that comes with filming on the shadow side of your subject. Setting up your light like this is also great because it works as kind of a backlight, illuminating the edges of our subject where this halo effect can then help the subject pop from the background, again, creating more depth in the scene. I filmed practically every scene of this video by following this lighting rule. Even the punching bag scene where technically I was filming on the bright side of the subject, the light was positioned behind the boxer on the other side of his body from a front to back perspective rather than a left to right perspective. Because we're still lighting from the opposite side, we get that nice effect where the light wraps around our subject while also serving as a backlight, separating them from the background. Now, the last thing I'll say about lighting, especially for those of you who still don't own a pro light, you can also look for existing light sources and position your subjects accordingly so that we maximize the benefit. For example, this scene wasn't filmed using any pro lights. We just had a huge wall of windows which very nicely lit the subject. All right, before we dive into the next tip, if you're finding this information valuable, we'd really appreciate it if you hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. And while you're down there, if you have any video ideas or questions that you'd like answered, feel free to drop those in the comment section. But back to it, tip number three is to film multiple takes of each action you capture. This is something that will help you a ton while editing. We want to keep the pace of our edits fast and engaging, and really long, drawn-out shots can lead to viewers who get bored and leave the video. I always try to make a note to film multiple very distinct camera angles whenever I have a subject performing a particular action. For example, here we have the first angle of the guy doing pull-ups. Pretty cool, but by itself nothing really phenomenal. Immediately after getting a few decent shots from this angle, I swapped lenses, moved to a completely different location, and captured a totally different perspective. This means I can quickly switch between the two takes while editing, and almost fake the effect that I had a multi-camera crew with more than one person recording. Same thing for the punching bag shots. We have one wide shot as he punches the bag, and a second shot from a tighter focal length to help keep things nice and diverse. Now pro-tip hidden here in this section, when you're cutting between two different takes, make sure you cut on action. This is another thing we see all the time in Hollywood films. In order to almost hide the cut itself, you cut at the peak of the action. Here for example, I cut between the wide and the tight shot at the peak of the action where he's actually making contact with the bag. This makes the sequence feel seamless, and the viewer can focus more on what they're watching rather than noticing all of the cuts that go into the editing process. To show you just how much of a difference this makes, check out the version of the same two clips where we cut after the punch and fail to match the action from shot to shot. To me, that just looks super terrible and awkward, and I imagine most viewers feel the same way. But to be honest, I really can't stress this enough with practically any video you're shooting. You will make it ten times more interesting by capturing multiple shots of the same action sequence. Up next on this list, tip number four builds off number three, and that is to switch up the style in which you film. For example, I almost never film an entire video on my gimbal, or an entire video with one lens, or an entire video all at the same frame rate. The human brain is wired to phase out anything that becomes predictable, and as soon as your viewer starts to learn and predict what type of shot or style is coming next, your video will be like white noise to them. Back to the sequence with the girl on the treadmill, we go from wide and smooth on the gimbal to tight and intimate with a shakier handheld look. Fast in real time on the feet at 24 frames per second, cut to wide in slow motion at 60 frames per second. When it comes to the squat rack sequence, first, quick throwback to the lighting tip, I'm filming kind of from the front and to the right of her and on the opposite side of her body, so from the back and to the left, we have the light source, which again has that nice wrapping effect all around her body. But back to the main tip here. With this sequence, we are constantly switching back and forth from macro shots, like the ones focusing on her placing the weights on the rack and her hand grabbing the bar, to wide and smooth gimbal shots showcasing the entire movement in action. Similar to the camera angles tip, all of this diversity will give you a ton of options in the editing room to really bring your creative vision to life. Now, I did use two lenses for this shoot, the Sigma 24-70 f2.8 and the Sigma 85 f1.4 for some of those tighter shots with the really nice blurred out background. But let's say you only have one lens, that's totally fine. Just try to focus on zooming in and out with your feet. And that's just a fancy way of saying, walk really close to your subject and capture shots there, and then walk away from your subject and capture more wide shots. It's going to give you the same effect as having different lenses. Now finally, on this list of tips, coming in at number five, probably one of the most slept on aspects of creating engaging videos. Do not forget sound design. This is such a little thing that adds so much to a video. Whether you actively notice it or not, I promise you, your subconscious brain hears all of those little additions, like the punching bag getting hit, the footsteps on the treadmill, the weights getting racked onto the bar, and then your mind perceives the video as having significantly more depth. Like most people getting started, I think it took me years to finally realize how important sound design was. I would spend forever piecing the entire video together, get it 95% of the way there, but by that point I'd be kind of burnt out and I would just export it without doing any sound design. I wish I could go back and just slap myself across the face. You definitely want to make sure to take the time after you've got that amazing sequence put together, the color grading done, before you hit export, analyze all of the things that should have sound associated with them, and either find a recorded clip with a similar sound byte or search for the sound effect online. Personally, my two favorite places to find sound effects are Epidemic Sound, which I have linked below this video if you want to get a free month, and Motion Array. Not to mention you can always just search for free ones on YouTube as well. Epidemic Sound definitely has the largest and highest quality database in my eyes, but I really love how Motion Array has the extension that works within Premiere Pro, so I can look up and download assets without ever having to leave the program. This was a shorter ad that we made for this client, so I didn't have to do a ton of sound work, but check out the sound design in a video I made for YouTube a couple months back. I've muted the song so you can hear what the sound design all by itself is like. And that does it. Those are my five biggest tips that I could think of from this commercial shoot. As we said earlier, you'll notice how practically none of this had anything to do with the camera gear itself. The a7S III is a phenomenal camera, don't get me wrong, but it really wouldn't have looked any different if I had filmed this entire commercial on my Canon EOS R, which is basically half the price, if not even less. Lighting, composition, camera movement, and directing engaging action sequences is really all it takes to create amazing videos that people genuinely want to watch. Now, if you've made it to this point in the video, it's probably because you are serious about learning how to shoot better video content. YouTube is an amazing resource to learn filmmaking, but I can literally guarantee you that a streamlined filmmaking program will help you accomplish all of your goals 10 times faster, if not more. The reason behind this is because you're following a streamlined, meticulously thought-out sequence where the goal is purely focused on education, rather than YouTube where education falls second to entertainment. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, YouTube is a great place to come and watch stuff when we want to be entertained. But for those of you who are seriously motivated to learn this skill as fast as freaking possible, I promise you, if you enroll in 14 Day Filmmaker and watch all of the content, you will be shooting better videos in no time. I can say that now because we've literally had over 25,000 people go through the training sequence that we've developed and get amazing results. Not only that, 14 Day Filmmaker is also the most affordable filmmaking program on the planet, costing you less money than a trip to the grocery store. Just listen to everything you get lifetime access to when you enroll. First, you get access to over 100 training videos, and unlike YouTube where the content is disorganized, each one of our videos directly leads into the next, helping you learn extremely fast. You'll learn the perfect camera setting so you feel confident no matter what camera you own, the secrets to beautiful composition, camera angles, how to light scenes like a pro, how to direct powerful videos, shoot amazing B-roll, create awesome at-home studio setups, how to land travel jobs, create demo reels, design animations. We even have comprehensive step-by-step walkthrough series for all four of the biggest video editing programs in the world. Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, and even Adobe After Effects. You get access to hundreds of downloadable sound effects that you can immediately start using to improve your projects. We have pricing guides to help you understand what to charge for your work, downloadable cheat sheets for you to reference whenever you like. You get access to our private Facebook group filled with thousands of like-minded creatives. You also get lifetime access to weekly Q&A calls. This way, anytime you have a question, you can just hop on a live coaching call and get the answer rather than kind of searching aimlessly on YouTube. Our students even get 60% off the Adobe Creative Cloud. That means programs like Premiere Pro, After Effects, Lightroom, Photoshop, and more. Before you do the math, yes, that one discount saves you more than seven times what we charge for 14-day Filmmaker. We also include behind-the-scenes job shadows where you can follow us on real shoots to learn even more. And then most important of all, each day of content comes with a specifically designed practice exercise to help you turn all of this theory into real tangible skills. Because at the end of the day, we can watch all the videos in the world. If you don't practice, you're not going to get any better. The skills that you develop in this program will allow you to work full-time as a videographer, up the quality of your YouTube channel, create content to grow your brand or audience, or skills you can use to just enjoy your new hobby. You can get lifetime access to all of that today by clicking the link in the description. And if you want to master script writing as well, you can actually check out our script writing program, which is also linked in the description below. And if you actually join that program, we'll send you 14-day Filmmaker for free as an added bonus. Anyways, thanks for watching. Let us know if you have any questions. Make sure to like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next video.