Filming guide
How to shoot phone footage that actually cuts well
You do not need a camera crew. You need vertical clips, decent light, and slow movement. Follow this and every credit you spend comes back as a video worth posting.
The 60-second version
- Shoot vertical (hold the phone upright) and keep the subject centered.
- Film in 5-10 second bursts — lots of short clips beat one long one.
- Move slowly: one push-in, one pan, one pour per clip. No zig-zag.
- Face the light. Windows and warm lamps in front of the food, not behind it.
- Wipe the lens, clear the background clutter, and shoot at 1080p or 4K.
- Capture the moment of change: the pour, the cheese pull, the first slice.
Set up your phone once
Two minutes in settings pays off on every video you ever shoot.
- Record at 1080p or 4K, 30fps. Slow-mo only if you want a slow-mo moment.
- Turn the grid on and keep the food on the center line.
- Lock exposure and focus by tapping and holding on the subject.
- Clean the lens with your shirt before every session — it is the single biggest quality jump.
- Airplane mode or Do Not Disturb so a call doesn't kill a good take.
Shoot vertical, always
TikTok, Reels and Shorts are all 9:16. Horizontal footage gets cropped and loses the plate.
- Hold the phone upright. If you must go wide, leave room at the top and bottom.
- Leave headroom: on-screen text sits in the top and bottom 15% of the frame.
- Keep the hero item in the middle third so no caption ever covers it.
Light it like a window
Natural light in front of the food beats any ring light behind it.
- Put the dish next to a window with the light hitting it from the side or front.
- Avoid overhead fluorescents — they turn sauces gray and skin green.
- Never shoot with a bright window behind the subject; the food goes dark.
- At night, use one warm lamp off to the side rather than the phone flash.
Move slowly, one move per clip
Each clip should contain exactly one idea so it can be cut cleanly.
- Slow push-in toward the plate (walk it in, don't pinch-zoom).
- Slow pan across the pass, the bar, or a full table.
- Static hold while something happens: a pour, a sprinkle, a cut.
- Start recording one second before the action and stop one second after.
Shoot the shot list
Ten to twenty clips of 5-10 seconds is plenty for a week of posts.
- Hook shot: the most dramatic 2 seconds you have — cheese pull, sizzle, flame, pour.
- Prep: hands working. Chopping, kneading, plating, saucing.
- The hero: the finished dish, slowly rotating or being placed down.
- The bite: someone actually eating it, or a fork pulling away.
- Room tone: the dining room, the neon sign, the patio, staff smiling.
- Storefront: helps locals recognize you when they scroll past.
What kills a clip
These are the clips our editor has to throw away.
- Filmed horizontally with the subject tiny in the middle.
- Zig-zag handheld movement or fast pans that smear.
- Dirty tables, tubs, trash bins or phones in the background.
- Dim yellow light with no clear subject.
- Long clips where nothing changes for 30 seconds.
- Screen recordings, screenshots, or footage pulled from someone else's page.
Build a library, not a one-off
Your uploads stay saved per location, so shoot in batches.
- Do one 15-minute shoot per week during a quiet hour.
- Cover one dish thoroughly instead of ten dishes badly.
- Upload everything — we scan and skip the unusable takes automatically.
- Reshoot seasonal or special items so the library never looks stale.
Got a few clips? That is enough.
Upload them once — they stay in your footage library for every future video.