Recording Room Tone - Indy Mogul

Russel from Indy Mogul's Friday 101 show shares with us this week what room tone is, and why we should be using it in our short films. Basically room tone is the sound of a room when everything is completely quiet. For example in a silent room there may be a flickering sound from a light bulb, slight hissing sounds from plumbing or buzzing sounds from computers or electrical products. These sounds can be hear when recording dialogue audio for your short films. If you record the room tone separately, it can be used to cover up jump cuts between the audio, making your audio seem smoother.

Filmmaking Tutorial - DIY Avalanche - Knoptop

Knoptop just uploaded an awesome how to/ DIY style video to his YouTube channel. In this video he teaches us how to make an avalanche look realistic, when using pieces of gravel and stones being thrown down a small hill. Knoptop used his trusty T2i DSLR camera to film this, 720p 60fps was used to film the rocks being thrown. The other shots were filmed in 24fps, with the 60fps being slowed down to 24fps playback in post production, making it all look even more realistic. The biggest thing used to sell this effect are the sound effects used. Using websites such as 'freesound', your videos can become more realistic.

If you enjoy reading this blog, you can head on over to facebook and like our page to be kept up to date with everything filming and photography related.

Get more likes on your Photography Facebook page

Photography facebook page 'Photographer Obsessed' is running a fantastic feature for other photographers to share their own photography facebook pages to gain more likes on their own. All they have to do is like the other pages that have been shared. I gained around 40 news likes using the 'Photography Ladder' on the Photographer Obsessed facebook page, and I definitely recommend that you try this out for yourself.

GoPro Mounting Tips & Tricks Videos

Above I have embedded a very useful playlist of videos that I recently came across on YouTube. The playlist is full of videos which contain tips and tricks on different ways to secure the GoPro camera to objects, and how to do it safely so the GoPro is secured. The playlist currently contains multiple activities, such as biking, scootering, skiing, boating and more. The guy who makes these videos also has other playlists with tips on how to use the GoPro menu to get the best results out of the camera.

Click here to view more GoPro posts from this blog.

Using Vintage Lenses on Canon HDSLRs

Did you know that by using a cheap adapter available from eBay, you could be using vintage lenses on your modern DSLR?

The adapters allows you to use vintage lenses such as 'Chinon' and 'Ensinor' lenses on your Canon DSLR. The adapter simply turns the vintage mount, for example M42 or T-Mount, into the mount needed to attach to your camera. 

One of the vintage lenses that I am using is the Chinon 200mm f/3.5. The videos below shows some shots that I captured using this lens, along with the M42 to EOS adapter on my Canon EOS 600D DSLR.

Another test is using the Ensinor 500mm f/8 Multi Coated mirror lens with my Canon 600D. The colours came out very flat, but with basic colour correction I managed to bring the colours back out.

The M42 to EOS adapters can be found on eBay from £1.85.

To find out more about vintage lenses and their capabilities, visit VintageLensesForVideo.com.
Also please visit my facebook page and like to keep updated regularly with my filming and photography.

Documentary Filmmaking Tips - Rule of Thirds, Natural Sounds & B-Roll

Griffin Hammond from 'Indy Mogul' on YouTube has recently shared some great tips on documentary filmmaking in his weekly 'Indy News' webshow. He begins with how the interviewee should always look off camera, to make it look like they are being 'quoted' more than making them look like presenters looking into the camera. He also gives some interesting composition tips for filming the interview. Including the correct angles to use, and how to use the 'Rule of Thirds' correctly. There are also some very useful editing tips, to make the edit look smoother and to make the continuity flow better. This includes shooting 'b-roll' or 'cutaway' shots that you can show during the documentary. Another tip is recording 'natural sound' so that you can use it as a sound bridge throughout the edits.

Micro Budget Filmmaking - 99p Follow Focus / Focus Assist

The focus ring on my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II is very small, and with the added addition to the lens hood that I use, it can sometimes be a struggle to actually find the ring to focus quick enough. I was thinking about how I could improve this focus ring without spending any money, when I thought about one of those rubber wristbands which you buy from different charities. The wristband has a perfect diameter for fitting around the focus ring, and almost triples the surface area to focus with. For a quick modification which didn't cost me a penny, I am very happy with how this turned out and will definitely be keeping it on my 50mm lenses focus ring for future use.

The image to the right shows the wristband on my lens. When you focus on the 50mm lens the front element moves in and out depending on what way you focus. I did think that the lens hood which also moves in and out would get stuck when it got to the wristband, however the movement of the front element stops perfectly at the wristband.



I would definitely recommend doing this quick modification on your EF 50mm f/1.8 II prime lens if you have problems focusing. Currently on eBay the rubber wristbands start from only 99p, click here to view them now, you can even get 'Joseph Kony' ones for a little more.. Most people have these wristbands from when they were a craze a few years ago, you will probably find one laying around like I did. Another solution for lenses with bigger focus rings, such as my EF-S 18-135mm zoom is 'Dave Knops' silicone jar opener follow focus, click here to view his YouTube video on it.

Click here to view the $45 lens/ focus shifter campaign on Kickstarter.

Top 10 ways to get more views on YouTube

This is a question that is always asked, and there are no right or wrong answers to it. In this post I am going to be sharing my top 10 ways to get noticed on YouTube and get more views on your videos. Please note how these methods and tips have worked for me, I am not guaranteeing that they will all be beneficial to everyone.

1. Stay active -

Now this is one that many new YouTube users overlook from the word go. If you don't stay active on YouTube, people won't be able to find your channel and videos. Find videos with a similar style or category to yours, comment on what you thought about the video. This leaves a free link from that video to your channel. Comment on 10 different videos, and that's 10 free links that people can click to go to your channel. When commenting don't comment with things like, 'first', it's just annoying any no one finds it funny. Make sure you comment saying what you liked about the video, and maybe mention subtly that you make similar videos. Someone will see this comment and go to your channel to watch your videos that are similar.

2. Enhance views -

Enhance views is a view enhancing website, it is not directly connected with YouTube. It is free to sign up and to create an account. You then earn credits from leaving your browser open whilst random YouTube videos play. You can then redeem those credits for real subscribers, comments, likes and views. When you redeem for views, your video is placed in the random video viewer and that is how you gain views and others gain credits. Basically the more people that use this website, the more views you can earn.

3. Forums -

Most forums allow you to embed a YouTube video alongside a written post. You can share your video in a new thread, or you answer someone's thread with your video embedded into the answer. However make sure you are not spamming the forums, and make sure the forum is correct for your type of video. To do this, simply search in Google, 'YOUR TOPIC forum' and you will get many results. An example is when I want to post a video to a filmmaking forum, I would search, 'filmmaking forum' to find the correct one. I then found a forum called 'DVXUser' and posted a thread showing my cinematography showreel, and asking for peoples opinions. As you can see from the thread, people watched my video and replied with feedback, this got me views.

4. View Tube Train -

This is another third party view increaser, and there is nothing wrong with using this website. You simply add your videos URL link, and then watch other peoples videos to earn credits. Then automatically your video will be added to the random video player, and real people will be watching your video to earn themselves credits. It is free to use, and definitely worth a try.

5. Social networking sites -

You are all most likely members of at least one social networking website, such as Twitter or Facebook. Why not share your videos to your friends or followers to view? Tweeting your video can help get it noticed on YouTube, other Twitter users can retweet your video if they like it, and that could start a chain reaction of people retweeting your video, thus getting it many views. Most people have around 500 friends on Facebook, the majority of which would play a video if seen on their timeline or news-feed.

6. YouTube video responses -

This tip will get you a lot of exposure on your videos. The video response feature on YouTube is very handy when it comes to getting views. Basically find a video similar to yours which has a lot of views, and then add a video response to this video. If the original uploader accepts the response, they should as the video has a similar topic or style, your video will appear underneath their video and anyone who watches the video will see your video and click to watch it.

An example of this is within my own channel, as you can see on my most popular video which has almost 30,000 views, I have placed two video responses of my own videos, and they now both have over 3000 views each. The videos which were added as a response are both filmed on the same camera, so anyone wanting to watch more of the same camera may be interested in watching the video responses.

7. FunnyJunk -

FunnyJunk probably has one of the best features on the web for embedding a YouTube video to. The website is free to sign up to, and takes no longer than 1 minute. Straight after signing up, with no email needed, you can upload your YouTube video link. Your video has now been embedded to FunnyJunk and can now be viewed externally from YouTube, with all the views directly going to your YouTube account. At the time of writing this post, there was a YouTube video on the top rated content on FunnyJunk, and 43,000 people had viewed the video from FunnyJunk.

8. Empire Avenue -

Empire Avenue is a free online stock market social website, which I am sure many of you have never heard of. It is actually amazing for getting subscribers and views on your videos. The whole website is about investing shares in other users, and receiving them back with the electronic currency of 'eaves'. You can then spend these 'eaves' on something called 'missions'. The mission can be something like this, 'subscribe to my YouTube for 1000 eaves', and every time someone subscribes, that person will automatically receive 1000 eaves from you. You can easily make subscribers from doing this.

9. Reddit -

This is the easiest and quickest tip in my list. Simply upload your video link to 'Reddit' and people can click on it which will take them to YouTube to view your video. Currently there are over one billion hits on the website.

10. YouTube bulletin/ feed posts -

This is probably something the majority of YouTube users do, and is posting a bulletin to your feed for your subscribers to view. Now if you have 1000 subscribers, and you write a bulletin post, that will be 1000 users that will see that post with a link to watch your video. If you are in the newest YouTube layout, go to the 'feed' tab in your 'channel' and write in the box that says 'post to feed'.

Did you find this blog post useful? I would highly appreciate any donations through PayPal to help fund my time that it takes to write these posts.