• Good Lighting
• Saturation
• Using Available Light
• Contrast
• Creative Lighting

Good lighting can make all the difference to a video. And the smaller the chip in a camera is, the more important it is to think about lighting.

Compare these two pictures:

That's the same building – photographs taken just over an hour apart.

And here's the same chap in two different settings:

A bright, colourful picture can subconsciously suggest sunshine, holidays, fun. A desaturated shot has connotations of dreariness, grey weather, drudgery!

If you want your character to appear happy, make sure the shot says so.

And here's the same group with the sun (mostly) behind the camera instead:

There are exceptions, of course. Some objects with soft edges (feathery leaved trees, for instance) can look very interesting with the light partly behind them. So experiment: use the viewfinder on your phone camera to find the most pleasing picture.

Sometimes a lack of light on the subject can actually make for a better shot:

When you move indoors, things can get a little easier in some ways – and a lot more complicated in others.

For a start, watch out for excessive contrast. Your cameraphone is a clever device, but it suffers from the same limitation as every camera, film or digital - it doesn't like extreme contrast. Here's how your eyes might see someone in front of a window:

Here's how just about every digital camera would see that shot:

Not so good. And easily remedied; move the man so you see little, if any, window in the background:

Here she is again, with some light on her face:

Much better – and done in less than two minutes. Here's the set-up:

So don't presume; look at your viewfinder – and make sure the shot looks as good there as it does to your eye.