Behind The Frame 02

My iPhone 12 mini process is almost the same as with any other camera. The only difference is having to manually hold the ND filter instead of screwing it onto a case. Looks pretty dumb, but I really don’t want to buy a separate one for every phone haha. You’ll find my exact filming settings at the end of the newsletter.

Filming-wise, the same principles always apply. I’m looking for:

For this shot I was happy with the lighting, composition, color contrast of the green and blue of the skirt and the gentle wind.

For composition I wanted an interesting foreground, in this case, the tall grass blowing in the wind. The gravel road added some nice depth to the scene too.

I decided to shoot it as a static frame and add a slight push-in movement during editing. That way, I could keep the framing clean and stable while still giving it a bit of cinematic movement.

This frame was shot in H.265 for maximum depth in the edit. Normally, I’d go for ProRes 422 or HQ, but H.265 is the best codec available on the iPhone 12 mini.

If you’re wondering what the hell H.265 is compared to the old and trusted H.264, here’s the quick version: it’s essentially a more efficient compression format. That means you either get a smaller file size for the same quality, or better quality for the same file size. Think of it as an upgraded version of H.264.

I recommend using H.265 whenever possible, even though I still export my final files in H.264 (old habits die hard, haha).

I’ll be doing a full, in-depth iPhone 12 filming “how-to” next week, so I won’t go too deep into the details here.

In the image above, you’re seeing the colors straight out of the iPhone. Not bad, tbh just a little too flat for my taste, and lacking in color contrast. The greens, especially, feel a bit overpowering to me.

As always, I started by applying my LUT, in this case, the “Legacy Look Warm” from my recently released Legacy Looks pack. I was aiming for a warm, a bit more romantic vibe. It’s not the most natural look, but I wanted to create something with a distinct character this time.

After applying the LUT and tweaking the white balance and contrast ratios, I was happy with how the overall mood of the scene came together.

The next step was removing the orange wash that covered the entire image.

My general rule of thumb is this: if the same color dominates the highlights, midtones, and shadows, it tends to look cheap (there are exceptions, of course, but that’s usually the case). That’s why simply cranking up the white balance is almost never the right move. A neat little trick is to head into the Luma/Sat curve and pull down the saturation in both the highlights and shadows as visualised in the image below. You can see the highlights to the right and the shadows on the left.

In this case, I wanted to bring out some blue tones in the sky and especially in the gravel road. I added two masks over those areas and simply lowered the white balance and highlight tint. The added color contrast really brings the scene to life, in my opinion.

My final step is always adding a vignette and darkening any elements that might distract from the main subject. Since there wasn’t anything particularly distracting in this scene, I just went with a simple vignette.

One detail I added here was lowering the white balance of the vignette itself. This created a subtle effect where the center of the frame stayed warm, with a gentle drop-off in warmth toward the edges. Push it too far and it can start looking overly stylized, so it’s something to use carefully.

Voilà, done!

I always love pushing my iPhone 12 mini to its limits. Sure, you can go for a more natural grade, but sometimes I just want to experiment a little, and you guys definitely seemed to enjoy it haha!

Sound design and the right music choice are just as important as color grading!

Sounds by Musicbed just launched! I get everything I need from there, so if you want to try it out yourself, you can sign up for the free 14-day trial below!

I’ve even got a playlist if you want to check out the music I use for my edits!

My Adobe Premiere Pro export settings stay consistent for every project, you can see them in the screenshot below.
The only thing I adjust from shot to shot is the target bitrate. I keep my exports under 50 MB to avoid Instagram’s upload compression. That means I tweak the Mbps value depending on the length of the clip: shorter clips get a higher bitrate, longer clips get a lower one.

Settings from my Blackmagic Camera app

Thanks so much for being here, I genuinely appreciate every single reader.
If you ever have questions or ideas for future issues, feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram!

Until next time,

Stefan

Minimal tools. Maximum creativity.