Library · No kit, no budget
Making films on a phone, with no kit and no money.
The camera in your pocket shoots at a quality that would have been a broadcast camera fifteen years ago. It will teach you framing, movement, light, continuity, coverage, sound problems, editing and story — nearly everything that matters — and it costs you nothing you have not already spent.
This is the guide we are proudest of, because it removes the excuse. It assumes no equipment, no budget, no course place and no contacts. If you are reading this on the phone you would be filming on, you already have what you need.
Where to start
Three things, in this order, this week.
01
Fix the sound before the picture
Phone footage always looks better than it sounds. Get the phone close to whoever is talking, film indoors away from traffic, and use wired earphones with a microphone if you can borrow a pair. Bad sound is what makes work look amateur; shaky framing does not.
02
Lock everything the phone wants to change
Phones constantly re-expose, re-focus and re-white-balance mid-shot, which is what makes footage look like a phone. Learn to lock exposure and focus before anything else. It is one setting and it changes everything.
03
Then edit, on free software
DaVinci Resolve is free and professional, and the official training for it is free too. Editing your own bad footage is the fastest way to find out what you should have shot.
Shoot horizontally while you are learning craft, even though the world is vertical. It forces you to think about what is beside your subject, which is where composition lives.
The list
Free, checked, and every one of these links out.
DaVinci Resolve, free edition (opens in a new tab) · Free · no watermark, no time limit · anyone with a laptop
A professional edit, grade, audio and effects application, given away complete. You can learn a paid skill this week, on a laptop, for nothing.
Blackmagic Design — free training (opens in a new tab) · Free · books, videos and project files
A complete written and filmed curriculum to go with the free software, with media to work on. Nobody charges for any part of this.
Into Film (opens in a new tab) · Free · UK · young people and educators
A UK film education charity with free curriculum-linked resources and screenings. The right first step for under-18s, who cannot use most of this list — our own site is 18 and over throughout, so this is a signpost rather than a service.
Crash Course Film Production (opens in a new tab) · Free · 15 episodes, about 10 minutes each
The whole machine in one sitting: screenplays, crew, departments, production management and delivery.
StudioBinder — templates and guides (opens in a new tab) · Free templates · paid software
Call sheets, shot lists, breakdowns and schedules with worked examples. Running your own shoot on real paperwork is the cheapest way to learn how a production thinks.
Moment — mobile filmmaking free class (opens in a new tab) · Free · needs an email address · phone shooting
A free class on shooting cinematic video on a phone. Worth an evening. It is gated behind an email address, because the publisher is a shop.
Curtis Judd (opens in a new tab) · Free · YouTube · sound first
Microphones, recorders and the physics of clean dialogue. Fix the sound before the picture: an audience forgives a soft image and leaves over bad audio.
ScreenSkills — Introduction to working in the screen industries (opens in a new tab) · Free · free account · 18+ · about a quarter of an hour
What the jobs are, how a production runs and what contracts you may be offered. Do it before you decide that making your own work is the only route.
Every link here goes to the owner’s own page, in a new tab. How we treat other people’s work · Last checked September 2026.
Money on it
Three cheap things, in this order
If you have a little money, this is where it does the most good. None of it is a course.
A small tripod or a clamp
The cheapest thing that visibly improves your work. A locked-off shot reads as intentional and a wobbling one reads as a mistake, regardless of what is in the frame.
Cheap
A wired microphone that plugs into the phone
A basic lavalier or a cheap shotgun. It fixes the single biggest quality gap between phone work and professional work.
Cheap
A manual camera app
It gives you locked exposure, locked focus, frame rate control and better codecs. Worth it once you have understood why those controls matter, and not before, because the free camera app can already lock the two that count.
Cheap
The rest of the route is in the library: ten department guides and the stage you are at.
Where the gap gets filled
On a real unit, and we hold places for people with no kit.
Everything on this page is a route to making work. What it cannot give you is a crew, a package and a professional set, and that is exactly what we exist to hand people who cannot otherwise get near it. The courses and simulations run on real equipment, and funded places and travel support exist so that having no money is not the reason you are not there.
If you make something on your phone, we would rather see that than a CV. A bad short film made on your own is more persuasive than any qualification, and it is the thing that most reliably starts a conversation.
Futures in Film Showreel
To be embedded once uploaded.
