First B-Roll Video made only with a Pixel 3A and Shotcut.
This is also my first video shot in 4K at 30 FPS. I used Shotcut to convert footage to 25 FPS. In the process, videos bitrate is way too high (over 200 Mbits/s). It is a shame that we can’t setup the bitrate during the conversion. I used ffmpeg to reduce bitrate down to 45 Mbits/s.
I used telephoto, wide lens with the Pixel 3A. ND Filters to keep shutter speed down.
In the future, I will try to avoid using 18mm wide Moment with an ND filter: vignetting effect is visible.
Footage was taken in 2 different days. Shotcut’s colour grading worked great.
Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
Maybe it’s just my old eyes, but I’ve noticed that, in some parts, the video seems a bit jerky (or choppy?). Did you apply slow motion to the original 30fps file or to the 25fps converted file?
Using a 30 fps video in a 25 fps project would have made the slow motion look a bit smoother I think.
By the way… You wouldn’t happen to be related to Peter Gabriel, by any chance? There’s kind of a family resemblance.
Hi MusicalBox, thanks for your interest. After converting the video, I couldn’t see any problem with motion; every movement was smooth. I think this can be caused by YouTube… I saw some posts saying that it’s optimised for 30 FPS content… No connection with Mr Gabriel, I’m afraid…
Great first attempt! Next I would play around the Color Grading and White Balance filters. Your highlights are a little blown out so I would drop the highlights a little.
Thank you for your support.
I actually followed your tutorial about colour grading (the lazy way)… Great tutorial!..
Highlights are always below 100… Perhaps the midtones are too high? But your tutorial doesn’t mention them. In that area, I’m just guessing…
One part of the shots were taken before 9 AM and others were taken before 11 AM in 2 different days, so light was totally different.
I reckon I made several errors, like not tuning the white balance…
Any further recommendation is most welcome.
Cheers.
It’s hard to perfect because it’s subjective, but I always found that smartphone videos tend to blow the highlights. For videos that don’t have too much dynamic range once the highlights are blown you can’t recover even after color grading. We can only do the best we can with the equipment we have.
You are absolutely right. Phones do have a poor HDR…
I’m using the Pixel 3A for testing and for learning before spending more money on a more decent camera. Shooting at 4K helps me to correct “bad” compositions by cropping to HD without losing (HD) resolution.
I also have a Lumix FZ200 (only shoots in HD) but I will start using it after a couple of projects.
Dealing with the smartphone’s limitations is giving me some experience before using better cameras.
Thank you for your comments.
Sometimes you can only do so much with a less-than-stellar recording device. It’s also hard to lock your exposure and white balance unless you download a 3rd party app, but the camera sensors on the older smartphones are also pretty small
