Your guide on how to shoot a cooking video with a phone like a pro, at your home!
Do you enjoy cooking and want to start aesthetic videos of yourself for Instagram preparing your favorite meal?
You can shoot a great video right at your home using just your smartphone (but with a decent camera, I use iPhone 13)
Yes, a great camera shoots a sharper video. But a smartphone can also do a pretty good job.
Here’s a video I shot and edited on my phone for reference:
Table Of Contents
How to shoot a cooking video all by yourself at home
Is this your first time shooting a cooking video?
If this is your first time shooting a cooking video then choose a dish that is easy to make and doesn’t have too many steps involved.
Also Read: 10 Lifestyle Reel Ideas With Templates You Should Save
Let’s start the prep
Collect all of the ingredients that you will be using to cook the dish. To make it look aesthetic, take out the nicer bowls you have to keep the ingredients in.
If you have got a wooden chopping board, take that out as well.
The important thing is to show every small step and make the viewer learn the recipe easily just by watching your video till the end.
Make sure that your hands are clean and that the table or platform you’re shooting on is clean.
It should be properly lit. The best choice is to shoot near a window to get soft indirect sunlight in your video’s frame.
You can even use a textured vinyl backdrop for an elevated look.
Lighting makes a huge difference. Good sunlight will make your food pop and as a result of it, make the whole video more pleasing to look at.
The video link I shared above, was shoot in direct sunlight.
Start cooking & shooting simultaneously
You can either someone help yourself in shooting clips that have you chopping veggies, picking up ingredients, etc. or you can get yourself a phone tripod with an overhead mount.
A phone stand with an overhead mount lets you shoot videos from the top, facing downwards toward your hands. It’s an interesting POV for shooting cooking videos.
Before starting to shoot the videos, think about where you want to post your video.
If you’re shooting a video for YouTube, it should be shot in a 16:9 ratio. If it is for an Instagram reel it should be in the 9:16 ratio.
Also Read: How To Write Aesthetic Text On Reels: SAVE These Ideas
You can also just shoot in 16:9 and post a rotated video on reels. Although that might affect how your video performs a tad bit.
It is a way in which you can share the most information about the scene with the viewer.
This is what a top-down POV looks like-
Shoot every step of the recipe. Even the chopping, picking up the spices, and pouring things are things you shouldn’t miss. Record at least 3-5 seconds of each step.
Don’t shoot the entire cooking video from one angle.
Mix it up to keep it interesting and keep the people hooked. Shoot from a 45-degree angle too like this-
Take a few videos of the final dish when plated tastefully.
How to edit the final video
You will definitely end up shooting 2-4 retakes of one step.
First, go to your gallery and sort the good clips out. Delete the unwanted ones.
This will make it easier to import only the good clips in the video editing app.
I use Inshot or VN to edit my videos on my phone. Open the video editing app and start importing the video clips in the correct order. Beginning from the first step to the last.
You can obviously just select them randomly and change their sequence later on while editing too.
But by selecting them in the correct order a step before, you will make things easier for yourself. It is just more systematic.
I’d suggest starting the video with a clip of the final dish so that people know how delicious it is, and want to stick around and learn the recipe.
Remember to add text over the video. A title or the name of the dish you’re cooking.
To go the extra mile, you can even add text to the ingredients as they come up in the clips.
If you’re an iPhone user, doodle the title in your own customized handwriting in this way.
Summary
- Gather all of your ingredients
- Keep them in your nicer set of bowls & plates
- Set the ingredients & tools on the platform/table you’re going to shoot on
- Choose a well-lit place, preferably with direct/indirect sunlight
- Use a tripod for stable shots
- Ask someone to help you with the clips if you don’t have a tripod
- Shoot clips from different angles
- Each step’s clip should be around 3-5 seconds
- Create the final video by editing all of the clips together in the correct sequence
