Videography for Beginners: Elevate Your Visuals

January 27, 2025

When building a brand video, it’s easy to tell apart the professionals from the amateurs. But what is it that’s visually happening where, in an instant, you can immediately differentiate the two? Furthermore, what do you think are some of the most important factors that go into producing stunning visuals? When you watch a movie what is it that makes you go, “Wow, that’s a great shot!” Is it the big budget Hollywood cameras they use? The huge studios with all the fancy equipment?

If you’re exploring videography for beginnings, I can tell you now, some of the most stunning visuals I’ve seen have been from small-crew projects on YouTube, not billion-dollar Hollywood productions. And it’s because they check all five of these boxes when it comes to creating stunning visuals. If you’re filming a trendy dance video or your child’s band concert, this might not be for you. But if you want to capture a moving narrative, informational video, or just want to elevate your video professionalism, here’s a few pointers to elevate your visuals.

Audio

Number 1 is audio. Yes, audio. Not the camera. We’ll get to the camera, but trust me, it’s not as important as you think. The best way to improve your visuals is to create a great soundscape to accompany it.

Try watching a video with terrible camera work and pristine audio, versus one with great cinematography and bad audio. You’ll find the bad audio is borderline unwatchable and the bad video often just seems like a weird style choice. Not everything is about the specs and equipment, in fact most of the factors that drive overall quality are the factors consumed at the subconscious level. Quality audio tricks your brain into interpreting the visual at its best.

Composition

Composition is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the industry, but what we’re talking about here is what the camera is capturing. Leading lines, rule of thirds, symmetry, there’s plenty of literature and theory to study—in fact, there are whole multi-part college courses dedicated to this one topic. I’d highly encourage anyone interested in really digging into cinematography at a professional level to delve deep into this topic, but if you just want the ability to make better looking videos, make sure you prioritize the basics.

One of the quickest fixes when it comes to quality in videography for beginners is being intentional with your composition. Don’t just “point and shoot” where the action is. Be intentional about what’s in frame, where the camera is, what’s around you. If you’re creating a brand video for your business or agency, consider the setting and composition as key elements to reflect your professionalism. If you’re delivering information to your audience as an authority on the topic, for example, consider wearing a nice dress or suit and sitting behind a desk instead of standing in front of a blank wall. Look for some depth to your shots.

I try to always think of my foreground, background, and subject. If all three exist on the same plane, you’re going to get a flat, boring image. If I’m filming in a park, for example, I might find a nice lake deep in the background, place my subject under a tree, and shoot through some foliage in the foreground. This gives depth to your visual and lends to better composition.

Lighting

Much like composition, there’s tons and tons of lighting information and theory online, but the focus here is to bring attention to the basics. The quickest way to tell an amateur’s video from a professional’s is the quality of lighting. This is a skill that’s easy to improve but difficult to master.

Filming a subject in your house with your kitchen lights on will look like a video shot on your phone, it doesn’t matter if Stephen Spielberg shot it on a $100,000 camera. Much like composition, when thinking of lighting, I usually split it into the same three parts: the subject, the background, and the foreground. This is usually achieved with a technique called three-point lighting. There are great tutorials that break this concept down in ways anyone can implement. The basics are utilizing three different types of lights in tandem to accentuate depth in the subject. You achieve this by first establishing the “key light” to illuminate our subject. This is typically the strongest light, and it is usually placed just off-center of the subject.

Next is the “fill light,” which illuminates the background. This light isn’t as powerful as the key, but it typically covers a wider array of the shot. I usually achieve this by shining a light through some sort of diffusion. This can be a soft box, or a piece of cloth, or a large sheet of paper. Diffusion just breaks apart the beam of light and spreads it across a larger area. It also creates a softer light and will contrast nicely with a strong key light, now giving the subject two different kinds of light and creating depth within the subject.

The third and final light in the three-point setup is the back light. This light is placed behind the subject and creates an effect called “rim lighting.” This light separates your subject from the background and gives it a halo effect. Between these three lights you have illuminated your background, foreground, and given your subject three different types of light, all of which sculpt an image with depth and detail. This is the difference between flat phone-like footage, and vibrant cinematic visuals.

Editing

Editing may sound daunting but please don’t skip over this section; it’s not as bad as you think! You don’t need top-notch programs and years of experience to achieve quality editing.

Really all we’re talking about here is staying proactive in planning for the edit with your footage capture. If your subject is moving from left to right in frame you may want to consider shooting your next shot continuing that same motion. This may not seem like a big change, but it helps blend the video together and allows each shot to feel like a part of a whole instead of a collection of clips. Remember, we’re appealing to the subconscious here.

Plan for transitions. If you’re shooting on your phone, quickly whipping the camera down at the end of one take and starting your next take with the same motion can help blend those two together seamlessly. Of course you can always take it a step further with color, pacing, and b-roll. But before I go on a 10-page tangent, the takeaway here is to decide what degree of editing your video is going to require ahead of time and plan out your shots with the edit in mind. Your video will look 10 times better when your shots feel intentional, and your audience is assured each shot matters and all work towards the same goal.

Equipment

Fifth and finally, when it comes to visual quality, after each of these previously mentioned points are addressed, then and only then do you prioritize equipment.

These are the questions I’m asked the most as a professional cinematographer: “What camera do you use?,” “Which brand is best?,” “What’s the best budget camera?” If you have strong audio, beautiful composition, and elegant lighting all tied together with a competent edit, and you’re ready to elevate your visuals further, that’s when your equipment might be holding you back.

The real secret is, even with a modest budget or equipment, it’s the craftsmanship and knowhow that mainly drives quality, and you can always work on your craft. They say the best camera is the one you have. There’s plenty of debate online for which brands handle which scenarios best and there’s truly no one-size-fits-all answer for this question. But the best advice I have on this topic: if you want a better picture, upgrade your lens, not your camera.

Many people believe the camera is key to quality visuals. In reality, it’s probably the least important factor in image quality. We’re in an age where every major camera brand is capable of capturing image quality that exceeds the human eye. What really differentiates image quality is the lens. The lens is the eye of the audience, not the camera. It’s an easy mistake to make but an important distinction.

The camera is the brains of the operation. Digital cameras capture light through the lens and write the data on media cards for your computer to read. A better camera is only going to write more detailed instructions for your computer to interpret. The lens is the actual eye that’s showing the camera what it sees. A better lens will produce a more quality image for the camera to record.

Of course, each of these sections come with years of practice to master, but I hope this lays out a clear path of the basics. Any business or agency can elevate the quality of their videos, even without years of training or an extravagant budget. By focusing on proper techniques and fundamentals, you can create a video that’s both professional and differentiates your brand in your industry.  It all comes down to what goal you have for your video, who it’s for, and staying intentional with each of these aspects to produce a more well-rounded visual.

And, of course, if you’re looking for some advice on your next video project, or if you want your next project knocked out of the park, just reach out to your friends at OneHum.

Andrew Fricks-Chavez is a lens aficionado and the Director of Video Production for one of the most dynamic content agencies in Atlanta.

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