How much does the equipment cost to film my own content?

Are you looking for equipment to shoot better internal videos on a phone or a small camera? If you’re not sure where to start, what equipment could be useful or equipment cost, you’re in the right place! 

You don’t always need the latest and greatest camera to get started with video. Starting lean is often a good approach to trial it out and prove it works before going further with it. You don’t have to spend too much because you already have the most expensive piece which is the phone itself. 

However, to make filming on your phone a little easier we’ve got a list of items that would really help and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg either. Let us run through each one and what they are.

Equipment Cost

• This extra kit is just to make filming on your phone easier:

• Universal Smartphone Holder (£3) You’ve seen one of these before, you can clip it on your phone and it also has a screw so you can attach it to most tripods

• Small Tripod (£10) – this is great for on the go. You can use this to make holding the phone easier but also this piece of kit is also a mini tripod. This is useful for when you need to put it down on a desk or set it up temporarily.

• Amazon Tripod (£15)- this is more of a regular tripod. This is an amazon branded tripod meaning it is really cost-effective. It’s a decent tripod for filming ideal for filming an event or if you want to film yourself standing while talking. It can extend high enough for most situations, and also has a spirit level to make sure you’re not getting wonky shots. To fix the phone onto the tripod you will need a C clamp which you would get if you brought the small tripod. You can get them separately as well.

• Rig – (£10) this kit is great if you want a steady shot when holding the phone by hand. This kit also allows you to attach a few extra items with ease, for example the small microphone or light below.

• Clip on Microphone – (£10 – £49) It can plug directly into your phone’s headphone jack and has a reasonable length wire so you can clip it onto someone for an interview. It works well if you are outside or in a noisy room providing much better audio than the phone itself. For fancy new phones that don’t have a headphone jack built-in, you can use the adapter that came with your phone to plug the clip-on mic into.

• Ring light – (£10) this provides you with some extra lighting in dark rooms and at night. Good for when filming in expo halls or a room with little natural light.

• Shotgun Mic – (£50) these mics are good for when you are moving around a lot and don’t have the time to clip on a mic to everyone you are filming. It makes it way easier to just point the camera at someone’s face and start asking questions (with their consent of course)

• Depending on the phone, you can do different modes such as time lapse and slow motion. Have a look at some of the extra modes that your phone can already do, it’s likely that there are some you haven’t thought about using.

Video Editing

There are many different editing apps that are great for editing directly on your phone. The one that we use is KineMaster. Kinemaster allows you to do most things that you can on desktop based editing software but directly on your phone. If you’re new to editing, you might open it and feel overwhelmed. The only way to get better is by practising, but after a few hours you will improve a lot – just stick with it.  

Some of the features of Kinemaster include, basic editing, voiceovers, titles, basic animated titles and a music store. You can include pictures and cutaways. If you’re looking for editing software on a computer, iMovie would be a good place to start, or perhaps Premiere Pro which is one of the tools we use ourselves as a video production company. 

Conclusion

If you wanted to buy everything on this list it would come to £187 (prices may fluctuate), which isn’t breaking the bank when you’re talking about film kit. Some of the camera bodies that we use alone cost in excess for £10,000 for example! You don’t need every single item listed here, it’s best to figure what you will be filming first and what kit would be best for that. 

My advice for people that want to get into filming and editing on your phone is to try filming on your phone as soon as possible, you won’t need the kit straight away. That way you will understand the process of filming and work out what you will need and what works best for you. 

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