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you only need a phone

2026-05-14 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 24:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Sponsor segment present, AI

Ali shows how to film yourself with just a phone: a big soft light such as a window at 45 degrees, straight lines, eye level with the head brushing the top of the frame, an interesting background, the 0.5x or 1x lens and the microphone close to the mouth; he argues that lower production value now feels authentic because viewers suspect anything polished of being AI.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — What the video covers and who Ali is

  • ★★★ To light a video filmed on a phone, Ali says, find the biggest light source you can, ideally a window, and place it about 45 degrees from where you are. — 00:00:29

00:00:33 — Lighting, background and positioning: window light, straight lines, eye level

  • ★★★ Ali's rule of thumb for a professional-looking shot: straight lines, the camera at eye level and the head just brushing the top of the frame. — 00:01:41
  • ★ A camera placed low and tilted up makes the speaker look more powerful and imposing, Ali says, as if speaking down to the viewer. (hedged) — 00:02:10

00:02:40 — Filming handheld: looking at the lens, finding the right camera, the 0.5x lens

  • ★★★ One of the biggest signs of a beginner filming on a phone, Ali says, is looking at yourself on the screen instead of at the camera and the viewers. — 00:03:07
  • ★★ When it is not obvious which of a phone's lenses is recording, Ali finds it by putting a finger over each lens, so he knows where to look. — 00:03:07
  • ★★ Filming handheld with a phone's back camera, Ali says the 1x lens could work but the 0.5x wide lens often looks nicer. — 00:03:36

00:05:04 — Sponsor read

  • ★★ To Ali, handheld footage without stabilisation generally does not look professional, which is where tripods come in. — 00:05:33

00:05:56 — Tripods and stabilisation, improvised tripods, backgrounds and shooting into a corner

  • ★★ Ali always keeps a Peak Design phone tripod attached to his phone. — 00:06:02
  • ★ Cheap knock-offs of the magnetic phone tripod cost about $5 on Amazon, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:07:01 · Amazon
  • ★★ Phones today are pretty good even with just the basic selfie camera, Ali says. — 00:07:30
  • ★★ A mistake Ali sees many Lifestyle Business Academy and Part-Time YouTuber Academy students make is thinking that a shot must have nothing in it to look professional. — 00:08:34 · Lifestyle Business Academy, Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali shoots into a corner of the room, because that makes the background more interesting than shooting straight on. — 00:09:32
  • ★★ Most movies are shot at 24 or 25 frames per second, while iPhone and other phone footage is often shot at 30, Ali says. — 00:09:57 · iPhone

00:09:58 — Frame rates and pro camera modes

  • ★★ If in doubt, Ali says, switch your phone to 25 frames per second, because footage smoother than expected is a tell that it was shot on a phone. — 00:10:27
  • ★★★ Beginner creators filming video for the first time should not worry about cinematic, professional or raw camera modes, Ali says: just film with the phone's default camera app. — 00:10:27
  • ★★ For most people making basic educational content to build a personal brand or drive leads to a business, filming in the iPhone's raw ProRes format is massive overkill, Ali says. — 00:10:56 · personal brand, iPhone

00:11:27 — Which focal length to use

  • ★ The iPhone's 1x lens is, Ali thinks, a 24 mm lens, the classic YouTuber look. (hedged) — 00:11:55 · iPhone
  • ★★★ Filming with a phone, Ali prefers the 1x or even the 0.5x lens, close enough to touch the camera, because it feels like a friendlier relationship with the viewer than the 2x zoom, which feels like a presenter. — 00:12:54

00:13:38 — Audio: distance to the microphone, EarPods, a microphone into a laptop

  • ★★★ The main factor in audio quality, Ali says, is how close the microphone is to your mouth. — 00:13:53
  • ★★ Filming with just a phone and no external microphone, Ali recommends the 0.5x lens, because the closer the phone is to you, the better its audio sounds. — 00:14:48
  • ★★★ Audio quality is more important than video quality, Ali says: people will sit through poor video, but very few will sit through bad audio. — 00:15:17
  • ★★ Ali always carries old-school wired Apple EarPods, because you never know when you will need reasonable-sounding audio. — 00:15:17
  • ★★ Ali sometimes plugs a proper microphone into his laptop and records the audio as a voice memo on his MacBook. — 00:16:08 · MacBook

00:16:29 — Setting up the shot on a tripod: straight lines, foreground, a cheap setup; vertical content

  • ★★★ Straight lines are the primary thing Ali goes for in a shot, because they are what people subconsciously look at when judging how professional a video looks. — 00:17:09
  • ★★ Ali makes a shot more interesting with a foreground element, such as his laptop and a microphone in front of him. — 00:17:44
  • ★★ Ali keeps the colourful Palettes skin he designed with dbrand on his laptop partly because, in his opinion, a splash of colour in the foreground makes anything look nicer. — 00:17:44
  • ★★ Ali generally likes microphones that look nice, because the microphone is part of the look of the shot, even if others sound a little better. — 00:18:58
  • ★★★ A whole YouTube channel could be built filming with just a phone's selfie camera in a setup like this one, Ali says. — 00:18:58
  • ★★ Without a tripod, Ali says, prop the phone on some books or a tissue box against a mug or glass behind it, for a setup that looks totally reasonable. — 00:20:26
  • ★★★ Gear is not an excuse for not making content, Ali says, if your business, life or side hustle involves making content to some degree. — 00:20:26
  • ★★★ With vertical content such as Instagram Reels, TikToks and YouTube Shorts, Ali says, people forgive poor production value, and lower production value filmed on a phone can feel more authentic than doing it properly. — 00:21:12 · Instagram, TikTok
  • ★★ Ali's team films most of his Instagram Reels properly, with a proper camera and fancy editing, which he calls one of their unfair advantages. — 00:21:41 · Instagram, unfair advantage
  • ★★ For content meant to feel natural and raw, Ali would not worry about lighting at all, but would still care about audio. — 00:21:41
  • ★★★ High production value used to be a flex that set creators apart from the mass of amateurs, Ali says; now less polished production is fine because it feels authentic. — 00:22:11

00:22:20 — Authenticity versus production value, and breaking the rules on purpose

  • ★★ Ali says there is a crisis of authenticity: no one knows what is real or fake any more, and everyone asks whether things are AI. (overstated) — 00:22:43
  • ★★ Ali's team has found that when their editing is too good, commenters sometimes say he is using AI in the editing, though they are not. — 00:22:43
  • ★★ If your brand leans into authenticity, Ali suggests experimenting with filming without a fancy camera; he knows creators who film on fancy cameras but deliberately add grain and noise. — 00:22:43
  • ★★★ Straight lines, eye level and the head brushing the top of the frame are rules of thumb, Ali says; once you know them, you can break them artfully. — 00:23:12
  • ★★ As an example of breaking the rules on purpose, Ali's friend Daniel Dalen puts the camera very high, looking down from a super-wide angle, for a point-of-view feel. — 00:23:34

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

People: Daniel Dalen

Projects: Lifestyle Business Academy · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Organizations: Amazon · dbrand · Instagram · TikTok

Concepts: personal brand · unfair advantage

Places: Hong Kong

Products: EarPods · iPhone · MacBook · Palettes Collection · Peak Design Mobile Tripod · PGYTech MantisPod · Sony ZV-E1 · YouTube Shorts

Only in the description or credits: Elgato Wave Neo

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