Should you hire a video production company, use an iPhone, or both?

Making effective video content for your business is important to building your brand. Should you hire a video production team or just find the youngest person with the newest iPhone and put them to work? Or should you do both?

Let’s set the scene for this conversation, because we need to get deep enough to understand.

We’re on location in Bloomington IL providing video production to one of our newest clients. We’re in a bright and clean modern office and It’s after hours so no one is in the building except for the talent, the marketing lead, and the business owner. We’ve already spent hours in pre-production preparing a script, story-boarding, and planning a commercial campaign that needs to be the main marketing tool to generate sales for the company’s newest product. We’ve brought studio lighting, professional audio equipment, and a number of props to complete the scene plus a full production crew. This company has invested a huge amount of money in their products, and they’ve hired our video production company to make sure the rollout goes as planned.

In prepping for this shoot we decided to use one of our own cameras, a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K Pro but we added enough budget to rent an Atlas Orion Lens Kit because we wanted a certain look that would make this commercial really stand out. If you click the link, you understand why we rented them. 

As the shoot starts, we frame the subject and then reframe the subject again. I can hear the voice Elijah Settles, our head cinematographer, in my head as I frame the shot. He just keeps saying the word “composition” like a broken record and of course he’s right. Finally, we’re ready to shoot and we spend the next few hours, scene by scene, capturing all of the video content that we need.  When the night is done and our production has wrapped, we know that we have a lot of work to do in the editing room to match the quality of the gear, investment, and time our client has already invested in this project, but we are confident that everything we need is in the footage. It will be our goal to provide video campaigns that give the client a great return on their investment, and of course we’ve spent countless Central Illinois nights editing these types of product videos.  

Fast forward a few weeks when we’ve sent out our first draft to our client. They have a couple minor revisions, but overall they are already thrilled about the commercial. All their local competitors have cookie-cutter content shot by local tv networks and we just made them a cinematic commercial that looks and feels like a movie and that puts their newest product front and center. Plus we provided them with a plethora of short form content that they can use on their social media platforms. As we get off the call, the marketing lead while expressing their satisfaction with the video says this sentence to me: 

“To think, one of our employees almost talked us into doing this with an iPhone.” 

It’s probably every videographer's favorite sentence. When you are in a profession that often has you carrying a massive cinema camera, there is no shortage of people that want to show you what they’ve done with their phones.  Recently I was at a surprise birthday party for a friend down in Carbondale IL, and as a “camera professional” I was introduced to the photographer for the party. He took one look at my iPhone and said to me “one day you will figure it out and get one of these.” It was a newer android phone and with a certain app he could get unmatched quality. He rattled off sentences seemingly forever to which I responded “OK.” I’m trained for this conversation so it doesn’t bother me….much.  

The only android I like

Here’s the thing, all androids aside, the iPhone is a great tool and is capable of producing superb work in the right environment. We’ve all seen the commercials shot on the latest iPhone or the movies shot entirely on iPhones (High Flying Bird is the best one in my opinion, watch it on Netflix). They are devices capable of great things, multi-purpose tools that represent modern technology at its finest. I don’t leave home without my iPhone and I use it in some capacity at every video production job. I’ve heard every argument for using an iPhone, some grandiose. I’ve heard a few diatribes against it as well, all mostly false.

Let’s set the record straight, you absolutely could shoot a sick commercial or movie on an iPhone. Matter of fact, movies are stories and if the story is good enough, you can shoot it on whatever you want, but before you replace a video production company like ours, let me ask a couple simple questions.

Question #1: Do you think just a random Apple employee whipped out an iPhone and made those Apple commercials on the spot?  No, of course you don’t because you’re an intelligent person. You know that one of the most valuable companies in the world making a commercial for its flagship products absolutely spent a metric ton of money to produce a commercial where every element was perfect for the iPhone. The time and money spent in post production was surely outrageous, and the lighting, plus the actors, and the perfect music. They could have shot the commercial on a corn dog and it would have honestly have been pretty good.  

If you’re a director of photography and you have experience shooting on a corn dog, get at me

When shooting on a phone there are often variables that people don’t fully understand. There are a number of lens mods that professionals use to get a better shot. You still have to have a good understanding of the technical aspects like adjusting the ISO and the F stop, which you can do on the newest iPhones. You need to have a seriously good eye for composition (let Elijah Settles live in your head too), and you may spend a lot of time using keyframes to make sure the digital cinematic focus is just right. 

You will need other accessories as well like a stabilizer, a cage, a tripod, microphones, lighting, c-stands, a crew…If it’s starting to sound like a big production, that’s because it is. It's still a massive production. Now if you were going to rent a camera that cost thousands per day and you’d rather spend the money on better lighting or crew and adjust the budget, then it’s possible and maybe worthwhile in the world of film. Just like anything there are pros and cons worth measuring out. If you need a director of photography for your “iPhone movie,” go ahead and drop us a line. Our camera operators aren’t that picky. 

I used to own a restaurant outside Bloomington Illinois in the small town of Atlanta(never again). We had a small kitchen with a grill, two fryers, and one stove for all of our cooking. When it was busy, you had to be really talented to get the food cooked and out to the customers in a timely manner. Like you had to be Spongebob good, and it was hard work. 

I had one customer that would come back to the kitchen and open the door and he’d tell me that I was working too hard and making it too difficult. So one day I asked him what he would do. With a half a smile he told me he’d fire every single person that worked there except one waitress, he’d put all the food in crockpots, and he would sell the crockpot food and nothing else. The overhead would be great, the variety and texture of the foods, not so much. 

I’m not saying that using your phone to make a commercial is the same as running a whole steakhouse with a crockpot. But I am saying that unless you're only making soup, you might need a few more tools in the kitchen.  

Now is there a time and place for iPhone videos? Of course there is. We use phones all the time to create social media content, behind the scenes footage, and reference photos. Our phones are valuable tools that I enjoy fully. If I want to highlight my favorite coffee shop in Lexington KY, I’m probably going to get my phone out, and get those videos recorded quick and sick if you know what I mean. I actually don’t know what I mean but I know that we can make a phone video look pretty good and sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes it’s truly the best tool for the job. To go to the paragraph before this, sometimes you don’t need to make other food, you just need to make soup. 

But if you want quality videos with a variety of purposes, and I know that you do, then the phone is just another marketing tool in our video production arsenal and it’s all about the deliverables. Hire a team of professionals with the right tools and right skills for the job and your commercial will look movie ready, your promos will be quick and effective, and your behind the scenes footage will be engaging content that keeps the sales and engagement funnel moving forward, and that’s the point of video marketing. 

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps you make a more informed decision. If you are looking for a video production crew in Harlem that’s ready to make you a great documentary, film, or commercial, or if you are seeking a content marketing professional to capture footage in Champaign IL? Well we got good news, you can get you a partner that does both and contact Mecoclub Video Productions today. No matter the scope, size, or location, we are ready to build a video and content production team that is tailored to your specific needs.