Videography Tips for Professional Looking Videos

Videography Tips for Professional Looking Videos

Starting out in videography is for the brave and, of course, the creative. Taking reality, or an assumed version of it, capturing it through an artistic perspective and transforming it into a video that contains all the emotions and messages you want to express is a skill that can only get perfected over time. As a beginner in the field (or intermediate level videographer), it might take you a while to get to ‘professional’ status, but no one says you can’t act like one ‘fake it till you make it’ and all right? –with excellent professional-looking videos, by using these tips.

1. Lighting 

The importance of the right lighting for videos cannot be overemphasized, especially if your aim is to shoot a professional-looking video. By creating the right aesthetic effects with lighting, you can also portray the feelings of your subjects and the pulchritude of the environment, to a better degree that will captivate your audience. Mastering lighting skills will help you understand mood settings to aid the realistic visualization of your video by the audience. 

2. Angles 

Everything about your video depends on the angle it is shot at. For a professional-looking video, you need to aim for the right camera angles that will display your ideas appropriately and make sure you have a firm balance on the camera to avoid a shift of angles and/ or focus. This gives a deliberate sophistication to your work as a videographer.

3. Equipment 

In order to achieve the best quality of videos, you need to improve your equipment. While high-tech development allows you to record relatively high quality on your smartphone, you need to make sure the pixel is up to a standard high enough for a professional-looking video. You can invest in external microphones to make sure the necessary sounds are caught with a close precision and save yourself the cost of re-shooting scenes due to lost sounds.

4. Cinematic techniques

Applying cinematic techniques while shooting any video gives the finished work that obvious artistic touch and aesthetic deliberation which was involved in the production process. A typical example is an extremely long or close-up shot. In either case, you need to have a steady grip on the camera and make sure the focus is on the primary subject.

5. Act like a videographer, think like an editor

Lastly, while shooting, keep it at the forefront of your mind that the video will still be edited so, look out for cuts and scenes that would make the editing easier and give you a better-finished product. 

Practice and consistency with the right tips will help you become a professional videographer.

How Do You Make Shawarma Sauce?

How Do You Make Shawarma Sauce?

Shawarma is a middle-eastern dish that has been integrated into mainstream street food culture to the extent that chefs have begun to create their own recipes and versions of the ethnic dish. While you can enjoy this at a street store near you, you can also easily make it in the comfort of your own home. 

Shawarma can be made with just about any meat from lamb, chicken to turkey and you have the liberty to play around with vegetable fillings as you choose to have, a mini-salad combo, (some fast-food restaurants offer mango slices).

While getting the ingredients for the shawarma is easy, it is quite amusing that most people forget about the shawarma sauce when it is literally the ingredient that brings it all together for an amazing culinary experience. It is almost impossible to enjoy delicious shawarma without taking note of that signature creamy sauce that gets interwoven with the vegetable fillings and meat –a taste you get with each bite. 

This tasty sauce is made from a base of thick yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, and some salt –which explains its savory taste. There are some people who choose to add mayonnaise in the making of their shawarma sauce, but that’s entirely optional (you can add to taste). While it is essentially used in making shawarma dishes, if you have excess you can store it up in your fridge and use it as a dip, in sandwiches or for salad dressings –it is a very versatile sauce!

To make shawarma sauce for 3-4 shawarmas, you will need:

  • ½cup of Greek yogurt (optional: sour-cream can)
  • ½ medium-sized lime, juiced
  • garlic cloves, minced 
  • 2 tablespoons of fresh dill, chopped (optional: 1 teaspoon dry dill)
  • ¼ teaspoon of salt, or to taste 
  • Additional, based on preference: 1 tablespoon Tahini, 5 mint leaves (fresh or dry).

You can either place all the ingredients in a blender/ electric whisk and process for a minute, until smoothly mixed, pour into a container and store in your fridge till use, or manually mix them in a bowl with a hand-held whisk or mixing spoon and proceed to store when thoroughly mixed and fluffy. 

For a larger amount, you can multiply the above-listed ingredients to suit your taste and if you have a preference for hot spice, you can add some sriracha sauce to the mixture or pour in dried chili pepper to taste. 

The beauty of shawarma sauce lies in the best thing about shawarma itself, it is very flexible. You can experiment with different flavors and spices to switch up your taste and make your shawarma more exciting!