How to make better holiday videos (or how to improve any smartphone film).

The smartphone has turned us all into film makers. We're always pointing our phones at friends, family, ourselves and pets. Mostly pets. Here are some tips that will make a massive improvement to any filming you do. Night and day difference, guaranteed. We’re going to assume some basic things like a full battery, plenty of memory space and video quality set to a decent resolution.

1. Clean the lens. Carefully, with a dry microfibre cloth. Most phones are kept in pockets or bags and smudges on the lens are inevitable. 
2. Film in landscape, not portrait! That means horizontally, not vertically. Never, ever, ever film in portrait. Ever. 
   
3. Be close enough not to need to zoom in. If absolutely necessary, only use the optical zoom and never bother with the digital zoom. Digital zoom results in dreadfully pixelated footage which you will delete immediately on playback. A bonus of filming closer to the subject is that the microphone will provide better sound results too. 
4. With sound in mind, be aware of the position of the microphone and don’t cover it with your sausage fingers. Check your phone’s user guide to find out where it is if you are not sure. Most are located on the back of the phone, near the bottom of the handset. 
5. Move the phone SLOWLY. Especially on sweeping panorama shots. Try to cut out any jerkiness or twitching and motion sickness will be kept to a minimum on playback. 
6. Always film in landscape. It’s worth repeating. 
   
   

Landscape!