Equipment (or lack thereof)

Alright, it's time for my DOP moment. It's funny because I've never been one associated with devices or equipment - the only reason my passion for photography is dormant is because of how scared I am of breaking my father's Nikon. So clearly you can imagine that I have limited regular experience with cameras. I like to think I'm a prodigy if HANDED one with all the minor tweaks and settings fixed - shot composition and shooting itself is my strength. But don't worry, I'm still in the process of learning - underestimating me would be a mistake, one I make all the time. Which is why I was very excited after our preliminary, getting compliments from Sir Zia on particular shots I'd put thought into.

In our preliminary I used my mother's gimble and my own phone, and I was shocked, along with others, at the camera quality and sharpness. So this time, I was very happy with using my phone again. The only potential problem was my lack of storage, but very easily solvable.

My phone (exactly the same make, model and color as Zara's BY COINCIDENCE) is a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G. I'm the certified "vlogger" of my friend group so taking videos is already right in my alley, which is why I know that my camera's video quality is good. I just needed to make it better - as cinematic as possible. How? Well, my best friend told me (google). So I messed around with some of the settings, experimenting how different settings would affect the videos.

Here's a few settings I had on:

Scene Optimizer (Intelligent Feature) - ON

Video Stabilisation - ON

Auto HDR - ON

Ratio: 9:16

Ultra HD Resolution with FPS = 60

To make the magic happen, we didn't just need my phone, but the best tool we could get to ensure our shots were perfect: the DJI OM5.

The DJI OM5 Smartphone Gimbal

This is my mother's device, so I was sure to be extra careful with it. It's a smartphone gimbal that allowed us to get shots are smooth as possible. It stabilizes all the footage and it's what we used for our preliminary too. We didn't plan on using the developed app for the OM5 itself since we had already adjusted my phone camera's settings to it, but it was the perfect tool, being small enough to put in its pouch and carry in my backpack. It allowed us to have completely professional looking footage, so I'm very happy with the fact that we decided to use this. Paired with my phone camera, it gave us the professional and cinematic look we hoped to achieve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqR_mDdThdA

Other than these, Zara and I used our laptops and headphone for the Post-Production process, but no other equipment besides these was used for the filming of our AS Film Opening project.