Cinematography with a Flashlight

We're looking at a few things today, like a flashlight that will completely change the look of your shot, a cage for the iPhone, a little baby monitor for the phone, and some magnetic filters. First, let's take a look at this cage since my phone's going to be in it for the rest of the episode. This is the Transformers dual handheld video kit for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. We've shown cages before, like this universal small rig cage. But unlike the universal cage, this is made specifically for my model of phone. So, it's locked in tight and doesn't have that floppy feeling that you get from the universal cage. And for full transparency, Small Rig is our partner for today's episode and did send us all the gear that we're going to be showing. What I love most about a small footprint recording device like a phone and small tight cages like this is it lets you get creative very simply. Like doing a shot like this here.

There was just two of us behind the camera. This was something we did real quick as if it was some sort of previs test. And I just had Josh hiding in the back seat as I passed the phone through the window. Then got in as Justin did to hide the jostle of me opening and closing the door. And that was it. What makes something like this so easy to do is the size and weight of this whole system. Plus the handles here on the cage and this tiny monitor up top, too. I have that turned so I could use the phone screen at first as the monitor. Then once I'm inside the car, I'd shift to looking at this monitor through the little screen up top as I moved around to the front of Justin. And this is a

very inexpensive Wi-Fi monitor. It's $65 and connects straight to your phone through Wi-Fi. Then you just use screen mirroring and you're good to go. So now I can mount it on the cage through one of the cold shoes here or here. Or if you are filming yourself, the monitor has a magnet so you can just stick it right onto the back of your phone. And you've probably already noticed one complaint. It's not a perfect mirroring. The image is getting cut off a bit, but I am getting the entirety of my video image. So, not a big deal overall, but I am connecting it to the cage using the cold shoe mount on the handle to keep the footprint as small as possible. And

speaking of the handle, we also have wireless control here. So, I can connect this to my phone by holding down the button to get it into pairing mode. And after you connect, you can trigger and stop recording right from here. And these handles are pretty great. They attach through Hawklock H11 quick release, which is fun to say, but I can pop these off and move their position to have it for landscape or portrait recording or put one of the handles up top for a top handle. And you also have stepless rotating, so I can position the handles however I want as well. You really can transform this into any configuration you need, which is on brand because this one is branded Transformers and inspired by Megatron. Why? I don't know why not. Another great tool

here is the filter kit. This one comes with quarter black mist. This gives that bloom around highlight areas and softens the look a bit, which helps pull away from that overly digital look you get with a phone. Then you have a circular polarizer. This, of course, will help reduce reflections on things like windows, like with this windshield here. Spin the polarizer and it pulls that out so that you can see inside the car. And then the most important of the bunch with an iPhone especially is the variable ND. This one is 1 to five stops and mandatory for shooting outside with a phone. Otherwise, your camera will shoot with crazy high shutter speeds and you'll get that choppy look. But with the ND on, you can get your settings back to a proper base and return to more natural motion blur. The coolest part about these is that they're all magnetic. So, I put this bracket on here and the filter just snaps right on. And then you can stack them that same way, just snapping them on magnetically. And I love that so much. It lets you move way faster. And this blackness filter is helping a good amount. It does quite a bit to reduce that sharpened digital edge. And I've always been a fan of that soft bloom around highlights, especially with digital. It helps smooth out that transition from hot spots overall. There's more I want to point out about the cage. But first, let's take a look

at this, which just looks like a flashlight, but this is the Small Rig RF10C. It's a dimmable wireless light with RGB colors. But the best part about this is the goos that come with it. There's 20 different shapes in total, and originally I saw this on Tik Tok before Tik Tok's recent death. RIP. But those Tik Tok ads did work on me, and I bought this one myself to try out since it was like 50 bucks. And we've actually been using it a ton in very subtle ways like the lens episode here with these shots, and in very obvious ways, like with these product shots here. And it's always been surprising to me how much shaped light will alter a shot. And for example, we have Justin against a plain wall here. But if we add a shape using that light, we've completely changed the feel of the shot and have taken it from unusable to totally usable with just one change. You can also tap the button here to get red, blue, and yellow. And if you have multiple, you could do a few designs at once to fill out your background if that's what you're after. And of course, you can spin the dial here to dim the light when needed. Mostly the way that I've been using it is more subtle, just breaking up light onto a wall to get more interest there to pull away from that flat feel. But this also works surprisingly well to hit the background with a window look, which I can jump over to that golden color to get a dawn type feel or shift to blue or red to get it more stylized. And as we showed here with these product shots that we did last year, it's not just a background thing. Throwing design light over anything immediately makes it 10 times more interesting. And the ability to break up light in this way is incredibly useful in making a flat area of your shot feel less flat. We've even done this digitally like we showed in the Penny Wise episode, adding sort of digital goos to the scene since it felt very flat. Although, I really wish I would have had this then so we could have done it more in camera. But again, this is another very inexpensive tool at I think 52 bucks as of right now. And honestly, that's what I love most about all of this stuff that we're showing, especially things like the cage. These are really lowcost tools to help me do what I need, which for me is more of a pre-production tool than a production tool. I know there are people who are shooting their final product on the iPhone, like 28 years later for instance. And while I do use my phone often for things, I don't usually shoot

full scenes or the like on it. But what I do love it for is previous. If I'm pre-shooting something to build out an idea, like with this robot episode we did here, because of how integrated the visual effects were and the timeline that we had to shoot, I shot the entire thing on my iPhone to build out the idea and show the visual effect artist we were working with. Same with our micro short sentinel. We pre-shot pretty much the entire short to help us plan out with high detail and move very quickly on the day since we only had one day to get everything. So, testing out ideas is usually when I'm reaching for a rig like this or making Justin fly.

[screaming] And this cage is perfect for that sort of thing or any form of travel since it breaks down and can be built back together. And it's very solid with multiple mounting points like the cold shoe and quarter20s so you can mount audio, lighting, monitors, and whatever else you need. Which speaking of, I also

have this little light here. And the back is magnetized for the phone, so it can snap right on and you can use it for some fill light like an old school cam light or pull it off and stick it to some other metal surface. And again, the best part about this is the price. It's just 30 bucks for this light. They have

some other tools coming as well. A cooler for your phone and a camera booster, which you can see in their promo here. I would have loved to try those out as well, but maybe we'll revisit that when they come out. But that is it for today. If you're someone like me who likes to previs things out in those ways or if you're an iPhone shooter in general, I would definitely take a look at everything we showed today. Links in the notes below. And if you do want to grab them for yourself, you can get 30% off using the coupon code small rig at those links below. But until next time, don't forget to write, shoot, edit, repeat. I'll see you later. T call tall call.