I bought myself a new phone recently and one of the thoughts that came to me was how good the camera was for shooting film compared to my DSLR. And then of course it’s like, isn’t a phone all anyone needs to shoot an ASMR scene? Well, you still need a real microphone obviously, but between a phone and something like a Yeti you have all you need, right.
So if you’re just starting out in ASMR, or just thinking about starting in ASMR, and you’re worried about the costs, the barrier to entry is getting lower by the day. Something worth remembering if you’re worried about quality, is that audio quality is much more important than video quality. You can save average looking footage with good quality audio, but no amount of video quality will save bad audio.
Thanks to Kai W.
I have a list of ASMR microphones and other gear that I maintain here on Pocket Myriad, and as I research this stuff for you I come across some great videos made by content creators on YouTube demonstrating these points. I really like the whole internet community and how willing people are to share knowledge, and something I like doing for you here is putting my best findings in front of your nose.
Just from a personal ethics point of view I’m also really big on crediting the people who make these videos because a lot of effort goes into them, I’m sure when you come to create content or if you’re already a content creator it’s a really great feeling to see your content splashed around the internet with your name underneath. If you’re not a big star yet imagine how good it would feel to be one!
So, the next thing about shooting on your phone is to be able to take stable footage from the right place.
Get Yourself a Tripod
Just as the title suggests, taking stable footage at the right angle and from a good position is what you really want to do, right? So the easiest way to do that is with a tripod. They come in all sorts of sizes and cost as little as ~£18 for a really good Manfrotto mini tripod upwards. A mini tripod is to put on a desk or table if you want to shoot a scene like that, or if you want a person-sized tripod then of course you can go for one of those.
The Manfrotto Pixi tripod is the one that I use on my desk. It’s super robust and stable, easy to put on top of things, and the legs collapse into an easy carry handle for whatever camera you attach to it, like my Canon EOS DSLR.
Another small tripod you’ll see YouTubers use is the Joby GorillaPod, which comes in a lot of variants. Best just to take a look. They’re basically crazy, flexible tripods that you can attach to trees, handrails, your leg, or whatever, and get some very unusual shots.
And then finally there’s your conventional camera tripods that you can set up at person-height for when you want to shoot at eye level or a little lower, the main consideration being bulk, because you don’t want to carry that around if you can help it. They’re really not expensive though so they’re also well worth a look.