3 SUCCESSFUL SMARTPHONE VIDEO CONTENT CREATORS
In this post, I'm going to try making the case for creating videos with your smartphone. This is in order to encourage anyone out there that wants to start making videos, but feels they need a high-end camera for this purpose.
To start with, any modern smartphone is more than capable of producing the required video quality for any amateur purpose. In fact, I have found that the smartphone often outperforms many dedicated cameras in that regard. The one point where a modern smartphone falls short is in the sensor size, compared to a dedicated camera. This affects the low light performance of a smartphone. In every other regard, a modern iPhone or Android smartphone could potentially be a better option for making amateur style videos.
Personally, I love making videos with my iPhone, despite having access to mid-range cameras, and awesome lenses. Believe it or not, some of my favourite videos I've ever made have been with my iPhone. To date, my favourite video I've ever put on DTube was made with an iPhone 6S.
Don't take it from me, look at the following three content creators. I have followed them for quite a while and seen their growth and change in real time. Each one of them creates content solely with their smartphones, and very successfully so. In case you still think it's impossible to be a successful video content creator without a fancy camera, here you go.
"Miss Trudy" is a Kenyan content creator with over 100k subs on YouTube. Her videos rake in tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands of views regularly. She not only creates all her videos on her smartphone, she uses a low-end, no-brand smartphone. When she first got started, she even edited all her videos on the smartphone as well, and did that until recently when she moved to using a laptop.
According to her, it was all she had, and couldn't afford a camera or a better smartphone. She could probably afford a fancy high-end camera now from her YouTube revenue, but she's mastered the art of smartphone video creation, and she's stuck to it, not surprisingly.
Jon Hill is a professional American skateboarder and actually started up creating videos with a very high-end camera and professional lenses. His videos were very well produced in the beginning, featuring a lot of cinematic footage, colour grading and graphics effects.
At some point, Jon "burnt out" and decided to simplify his video making process to focus on the skating content rather than the video making process and videography gadgets. He decided to go "iPhone only", which he has maintained for a couple of years.
Cielo de la Paz is an American educator and video consultant. She makes videos and tutorials about "iPhone Filmmaking", which is also the name of her YouTube channel. It used to be called "The Storyographist", but the change makes the intentions of the channel more clear.
Cielo is someone I've been watching for a long time. She clearly has access to fancy tools but she keeps the videos niche to iPhones only, and provides tips and tricks which I have also learnt from over the years. If you're looking to start making videos with your iPhone, her YouTube channel is a great resource. Even though her tutorials are for iPhones, many of them do apply generically to other smartphones too.
There you have it. I hope the above have served as inspiration to anyone out there wanting to start making videos but only have access to a smartphone. It is possible to not only start, but also to be successful doing it. The most important thing right now is to just start ! Worry about all the other details later.
Peace & Love,
Adé
