The Five Mistakes That Make Your Footage Look Amateur

DaVinci Resolve is where a lot of “almost there” footage either gets rescued or exposed. This video argues that the difference between amateur and paid work often shows up in a handful of choices you keep repeating, especially once you start shooting log and stop trusting whatever look the camera bakes in.

Coming to you from Curren Sheldon, this focused video walks through several common mistakes that telegraph “still learning” even when the shot list looks solid. Sheldon starts with a straightforward challenge: stop leaving dynamic range on the table by avoiding log. He separates log from raw in plain terms, then points out why log is the more practical upgrade for most projects. You get more room when exposure is not perfect, especially in highlights, and that margin shows up when you push the image around in editing. He also calls out the familiar problem of clipped highlights and crushed shadows, and he frames it as a choice you can fix, not a style you should accept.

From there, the video shifts into color, but not in a way that turns into a grading lecture. Sheldon’s angle is that bad grading often comes from doing too much without a plan, then wondering why footage looks harsh or fake. His solution is to get comfortable with LUTs, treat them as a starting point, and keep the adjustments basic when the shot is already exposed well. He references working in apps like DaVinci Resolve and Premiere, then explains the simple workflow: drop the LUT on log footage, check if it lands, and make small corrections when it does not. He also mentions using a set of V-Log LUTs that pair well with Lumix profiles and still behave nicely with Canon C-Log2, which is useful if you bounce between cameras and want less chaos in post. The video does not pretend LUTs are magic, and you can tell he is trying to steer you away from the trap of using a LUT to cover up sloppy exposure.

Lighting is the next place he draws a hard line, and the example is easy to picture. Broadside lighting, where the light comes from the same side as the camera, tends to flatten the face and kill depth, so the frame looks “lit” but not cinematic. His fix is reverse key lighting: set the camera, place the subject, then put your key light on the opposite side of the subject from the lens so the camera sees shadow and shape. If you shoot interviews, this is the kind of rule that saves time because it stops you from improvising the same bad setup in every new room. It also gives you a clear reason to move a key light instead of adding more lights and hoping the scene gains dimension.

Then he gets blunt about audio, because audio is where a lot of otherwise decent work collapses. He focuses on capture, not plugins, and he frames it as a professionalism issue: dialogue has to be clear, and people stop watching fast when they cannot understand what is being said. His field approach is practical, especially if you are running sound alone: use lav mics on as many people as possible, and get close with a shotgun microphone when you cannot. He also talks about leaning on natural sound to build a world, then holding music back until it earns its place, which is a different mindset than “fix it later with a track.” The last segment pivots to story, and he draws a sharp contrast between pretty images set to music and actual characters facing real problems, including a few examples of what he considers empty style. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Sheldon.