Filmmaker Turns Pro Using Only A Samsung S9 Plus
Some months ago, a filmmaker joined our smartphone movie group on Facebook. Mostly, people join and then you never hear from them again. But this filmmaker was one of the few who immediately got involved, asking lots of questions – and answering them too! I love it when people join the group and get involved (as opposed to just sharing links to their work simply looking for views, likes and subscribes).
Then, a couple of months after joining, this filmmaker announced she had her first paid video shooting job. Personally, I found this to be great news for her, but also rewarding for us as a film festival. We spend a lot of time running our festival, which includes monitoring the group and encouraging people to learn from each other.
So to see someone go from inquisitive smartphone filmmaker to professional while being part of our group made our effort seem worthwhile. Of course, there are other professional filmmakers in the group but I felt particularly inspired to see this filmmaker’s hard work pay off.
We love a success story at MoMo Film Fest (particularly ones involving smartphone filmmaking) so we decided to ask her how she did it. And here’s her reply…
First, please introduce yourself.
Hey, I’m Anna Kincaid
hey Anna! What is your creative background?
What is my creative background? That’s a very loaded question. Growing up I always wanted to be an artist. This dream wasn’t fully supported by my parents though my youth and every time I stray away I always come full circle back to the creative life. Being a creative person I was in music most of my youth playing any instrument I could get my hands on and the section leader in choir. I also attended and completed a commercial acting school in Bellevue, Wa which was my first tastes in film.
Did you study film, other than teaching yourself?
In high School I was part of a program called “Running Start” where you could get your Associate’s degree while in high school. It was during that time I created my first film. It was a film for our final in German class.
The film was about some Young German students that wanted to go to America so they could meet native Americans. They arrived to find out that native Americans were civilized humans just like all other Americans. It ended up being a hit and absolutely hilarious.
I have since unfortunately lost the copy of it that I had. College, I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in interior design. During this time I fell in love with adobe illustrator and rendered several of my own drawings, along with making logos for starter companies in our area.
Time went on and I got a job working for a handmade leather studio named Moxie and Oliver. Some more time went on and I built a successful business doing placenta encapsulation. And still that creative mind came along for the ride, while I made prints for the parents and little leather tags to put with their cord keepsake.
Then that all ended when I had a trauma happen which destroyed my entire world. I had PTSD, postpartum anxiety and depression. I closed my business because emotionally I will not be able to handle doing that line of work any more.
I was lost and didn’t know who I was any more. I didn’t know what I liked or enjoyed doing, or why I was on this planet still.
How did you get into making films on smartphones?
Eventually I told my husband that I wanted to start making vlogs for YouTube and asked him about cameras. He said use your phone (Samsung Galaxy S6 Plus at the time). I was like what? Nah…. but that’s what I had so I went for it. I started making vlogs because I knew I wouldn’t remember this time in my life and with a new baby in my arms I wanted to preserve those memories for when hopefully my brain wasn’t broken. I have always wanted to make videos but never made the leap until then. Now here I am no more PTSD thanks to a ton of EMDR therapy and starting a production company and making personal branding films for people.
How did I get to this point? Having a thirst for knowledge and wanting to do the very best I can with what I have I started researching and learning about mobile film making. Yes, I am fully self taught I started watching the only mobile film making videos I could find on YouTube. Specifically Patrick Levar’s videos.
He introduced me to how to make my films more interesting and less like a home movie. I started applying his tips got a better version of Adobe Premiere so I could edit the 4K footage faster and easier since the latest version I was using was CS6 (oh it was very painful to edit 4K and no proxies).
From following your story in the group, it was great to see you going from making films for a hobby to doing it professionally. How did that happen?
As my knowledge and skill increased, I decided to start a projects called People’s Passion Project on my YouTube channel. Which is my passion to show how and what people do for their passion in a creative and artistic way so when we are all old we can show our grandkids what we did in our lives.
I love this because it allows me to practice and learn new things with filmmaking. Plus it also benefits anyone I film that does their passion as their job. All of a sudden, I was having people asking how much I charge for films. I found an opportunity of my next venture and that is to make personal branding films for people so their clients and future/current customers can feel a connection on a more personal level with them before they even meet in person.
This connection builds trust and trust is a great way to get someone to work with you.
What are your favourite projects you have worked on, paid or unpaid?
By far my favorite projects to work on are the unpaid ones. There’s no pressure to please anyone but yourself when you’re making films for yourself. There is a bit of anxiety and nervousness that comes with making films for other people, because you so desperately hope nothing goes wrong and they love the ending product.
What do you like or dislike about smartphone filmmaking?
I feel the thing I dislike the most about mobile filmmaking is the fact that I am and the mercy of the phone and app companies. For example, Samsung removed their manual controls for video on their native app.
This is an issue for me because I have a US version of the Samsung Galaxy 9 Plus. It has snapdragon which means 3rd party app developers can’t make apps to film 4K at 60fps. I prefer to do a lot of my filming in 4K at 60fps, so I can speed ramp and it stays looking pretty good and crisp. With zero manual controls and that includes locking focus and exposure it makes filming very challenging, frustrating and less professional looking.
What equipment do you use?
What equipment do I use? I mainly use Moment lenses but in addition I use Filters, Rode VideoMic Me, Purple Panda Lav mic and Joby Gorilla Pod. I would like to upgrade my gimbal (Zhiyun Smooth 4) soon to one that can handle the weight load of the mic, lenses, ND Filters and any lights I may get in the future.
You told me you were considering upgrading to a DSLR or dedicated camera, but do you feel smartphone filmmaking has helped you get started?
Speaking of the future but probably not too soon future I would like to get a mirrorless camera for my business but still do mobile filmmaking and make some tips and tricks videos for others starting this journey. Only because again as a mobile film maker I am at the mercy of the companies making these products and when they push an update it can completely remove features that I NEED to make films in a way that I want to make them. I will say though I don’t think I would have ever started filmmaking if it weren’t for starting off making mobile films.
How useful are the MoMo Facebook group and filmmaking posts?
The MoMo Facebook group is so useful! I love that I can ask questions I get lots of different feedback from other filmmakers also using mobile phones. It’s a great place to find support especially in this world where there are still a lot of people that look down on mobile footage.
My YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtD-O_nUzve3bMBvqeOX0Q
My Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Annakincaidproductions
IG: Annakincaidproductions
Website coming soon: Annakincaidproductions.com
Email: [email protected]
