With the growing camera and computing capabilities of smartphones today, creating movie-style video effects on your smartphone has never been easier. You don’t need expensive equipment or even a PC to achieve these effects seen in films. I’ll walk you through some of the most famous techniques and how to recreate them all on your phone.

1Vertigo Effect (Dolly Zoom)

The Vertigo Effect, also known as the dolly zoom, creates a disorienting visual where the background seems to change size while the subject remains the same. You’ll see this in movies likeJawsandVertigo.

A vertigo effect is traditionally created by simultaneously zooming-in on the subject while also backing away from the subject. Although we can certainly do this on our smartphone, an easier way would be to edit the video in post.

Here’s how I do it:

Though you can use regular angle shots to take the vertigo effect, a wider angle makes the effect more noticeable. You can also speed up the video to further exaggerate the vertigo effect.

2Slow Motion Effect

The slow-motion effect is used to emphasize a specific action or add drama to a scene. You see it all the time in action movies and sports highlights. Most phones today have slow motion built-in within its native camera-app.

However, these modes do not provide much flexibility and make it harder for you to control the quality and framerate of your video. A better approach would be to shoot in normal mode and edit it later using your favorite editing app. Here’s how:

As a rule of thumb, you’ll want your slowed down scene to be at least 24 frames/sec. Anything slower than that would start to make the clip choppy or jerky. So, if you shoot the video at 60 frames/sec, you can slow it down by -2.5x to -3x with little compromise on framerate.

3Lens Flare

Lens flare adds a dreamy, cinematic touch to scenes by capturing bright light directly hitting your lens. It’s a favorite in sci-fi and action films

You can incorporate the lens flare effect if you:

There are manyother ways to create lens flare using your smartphone, but the simplest I’ve found would be to simply put a thin line of grease or moisturizer on your lens.

4Stop-Motion Animation

Stop-motion animation is a technique where individual frames are captured one at a time, with slight movements in between each shot. When the frames are played in sequence, it creates the illusion of movement. This method is commonly used in films like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Wallace & Gromit.

It’s perfect for bringing inanimate objects or miniatures to life, and surprisingly, you can achieve this using just your smartphone by doing the following:

Stop-motion can take up a lot of time and effort to make. To help make the process easier, you can try usingdedicated stop-motion apps. Additionally, getting a Bluetooth-controlled shutter remote for your phone can help you hasten the process while shooting.

5Time-Lapse

Time-lapse condenses hours of footage into a short clip, creating an accelerated view of processes like sunsets or traffic. It’s a classic technique for showing the passage of time. The most efficient way of taking a time-lapse is by simply using the time-lapse feature on your smartphone.

Here’s how you can do it:

6Chroma Key (Green Screen)

This technique is used to replace a background and add special effects which you’ll often see in news broadcasts and many blockbuster films. It’s easy to pull off using a green screen and the chroma key feature found in most editing apps.

Here’s how:

You don’t need a fancy camera to pull off incredible movie-like effects. With just a smartphone and your favorite video editing app, you can recreate many of the techniques seen in popular films. Try these out in your next video project and watch how they elevate your storytelling!