People hire production companies for a reason. Video production has always been viewed as a specialized field of work, typically requiring its undertakers to spend years perfecting their craft and thousands of dollars building their equipment arsenal before their work is worth being paid for. That said, there’s a longstanding, widespread belief that most of us don’t have nearly what it takes to film good footage.

That’s untrue. This belief ignores a decade of technological and social revolution. Not only are ever-evolving, high-end, 4K cameras standard features on even the most basic smartphones, but people are capturing and sharing content more than they ever have before, unknowingly becoming adequate videographers themselves.

And sure, while they have the tools, regular folk might not have the eye for aesthetics that a trained videographer has. Luckily, videography basics are fundamental and can go a long way in composing better footage with the phone in your pocket. Here are 5 filming tips and videography tricks to get you started.

1. Framing People

Knowing how to properly your human subjects is the first step to creating polished social edits and, as seen below, it’s pretty simple.

2. Balance Framing

As is the case with all things in life, a little bit of balance goes a long way in shot composition. In production, balance is less of a rule and more of a tool, but knowing the filming basics will allow you to decide what works and what doesn't for certain shots.

3. Camera Movements

You’re likely pretty familiar with different types of camera movements, but you may not know what they’re called or how they’re best used. Using a healthy mix of different movements will make you edit feel for dynamic, so give these a try.

4. Using Focus

Focus adjustments on smartphones are typically automated, with the camera self-adjusting to make the closest subject look as crisp as possible. This works…most of the time. But locking and manually adjusting focus yourself can really come in handy for a lot of shots and enable maximum control over the content you capture.

5. Invisible Cuts

A lesser-known but unbelievably easy technique to add some pizazz to your edits. All it takes is some savvy start and stop on the filmer end. See how it’s done below!