BEHIND THE SHOT
Make Your Own Nature Documentaries
Filmic Pro－Video Camera
Cinema Quality Video Capture
In late 2018, filmmaker Sven Dreesbach headed to the Indian Ocean to document the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme, a marine-wildlife research charity.
He came back with an eight-minute film, shot entirely on an iPhone XS, that tells the conservationists’ story in gorgeous detail.
Sure, he had some fancy gear, like an underwater housing, a tele-conversion lens, a shotgun mic, and something called a gimbal. But unless your documentary ambitions become pretty intense, you won’t need that stuff.
What you might need is Filmic Pro, an app that gives you manual controls to adjust to a variety of challenging situations. Filmic Pro is modeled after high-end cinema cameras, so it came naturally to Dreesbach.
Since Dreesbach filmed in 60 fps, he set the shutter speed at 1/120th when possible to get just the right amount of cinematic motion blur. And he captured everything in Filmic Extreme, the highest bit-rate encoding option available in the app, to ensure he had the largest files to work with later when making tweaks to the color or exposure. His crop ratio of choice was the wider 21:9 favored by filmmakers.
If you don’t have lens attachments on your shoot, Filmic Pro can digitally replicate the effect. Under the Camera tool in Settings, choose from a wide, tele, or zoom lens. A world of creative composition options awaits.
Here, Dreesbach shares his storytelling tips and explains how you can capture your own nature footage.
Try a few low-stakes takes
“A camera is a tool that you need to practice with until you don’t really have to think about it anymore and everything becomes part of your muscle memory,” Dreesbach says.
So don’t wait until you get into the field to figure out what the exposure setting does. The filmmaker advises that you take the time to film around the house, tweak every setting, and practice recording over and over.
That way, when the big moment comes, you can concentrate on all of the other documentarian duties, like finding interesting camera angles and asking brilliant interview questions.
Anticipate your shot—and then go get it
Whale sharks don’t exactly come when called. Likewise, your own subjects (whether animals, storms, or, yes, certain people) may also be unpredictable.
Be patient. Start rolling anyway. Dreesbach suggests staying in one place, picking a good spot, and letting the action come into the frame:
“Often it’s important not only to push the record button in the right moment but to anticipate those moments,” he says.
“The iPhone turned into a wonderful tool right in our hands that was ready for use whenever we had to capture the moment. The less you have to worry about all the usual technicalities, the more you can focus on story and characters. And that’s what a good film should be all about in the end.”
Start a conversation
Beautiful shots are great, but compelling characters are what bring it to life, so don’t be afraid to interview people for your film.
Dreesbach got natural footage of his subjects by shooting on an iPhone, as opposed to poking a giant camera in their faces. “The compact size is one huge plus for documentary shoots,” he says. “Your subject won’t feel quite as intimidated by such a small rig aiming at them, if they notice at all.”