Safety

Filming in public, especially around police or officials, can get you into trouble. Before you take the phone out, check the law on filming where you are, and film in pairs so one of you can keep watch. Before you leave, send the footage to someone you trust, or if your phone has a memory card, hand them the card.

Holding the phone

Hold the phone upright, with the person or thing you're filming in the middle of the frame. When someone is talking, keep their eyes about two-thirds of the way up the screen and the phone level with them. Use both hands with your elbows tucked in, or rest the phone on a table, a wall, or a small tripod and hold each shot steady for at least ten seconds. If you want to get closer, step closer instead of zooming in.

Four shots of everything

For every place and every action, film these four shots, even if it feels like too much at the time:

  • wide: to show where you are
  • medium: to show what is happening and who is doing it
  • close: to show one detail (the hands, the water, the receipt, etc.)
  • cutaways: short shots of the small things around the action, like a sign on the wall or the queue outside. In the edit, put one of these over the spot where you cut something out, for example, a sentence from an interview, so the picture doesn't jump.

Light

Phones need plenty of light. Keep your light source behind you and on the person you're filming, which, outside, means the sun at your back, ideally not at midday. Indoors, sit the person facing a window rather than with their back to it, and if the room is still too dark, go outside or illuminate them with supplementary lighting.

Sound

Audio sourced from a phone microphone usually goes wrong in one of three ways: the phone is too far from whoever is talking, nobody is listening through headphones, or there is noise in the background. So get close, listen through headphones while you record, and switch off anything making noise. If you can get a small microphone, this is the best solution. If you can't, get as close as the shot allows and add captions later.

When you finish an interview, keep recording for a minute with nobody talking to capture the sound of the place, like the noise of the market, the traffic, or the rain. You'll use it in the edit to move smoothly from one shot to the next. If you're using a voiceover, record it somewhere quiet and close to the phone to avoid background noise.