Elevate your videos by learning insights from Oscar-Winning films

The Oscars in 2025 just wrapped up a few days ago, and films like “Anora” and “Dune” made a significant impact on the entertainment industry. As video creators, what can we learn from these masterpieces to enhance our own videos even as beginners?

Here are some tips we can implement in our editing process to take our videos up a notch and create a more engaging experience for our viewers.

We will use Filmora for this example but other video editors works as well. The principles are the same.

Mastering Color Grading

One of the first aspects is color grading. Let’s look at two examples from the film “Anora.” Towards the end of the movie, the color palette is muted, dark, creating a gloomy scene filled with shadows. The snow and overall ambiance emphasize the sense of sadness and despair.

Contrast this with another scene in the same movie, specifically the divorce scene. This scene is much brighter, with more vibrant colors, enhancing the emotional impact. Films use color grading effectively to convey different moods and atmosphere.

In your videos, you can start by selecting a clip and adjusting the color settings. You can choose from default presets or explore lookup tables (LUTs) to find the best fit for your video. For example, the “Walking Dead” LUT can give your video a cool, dark tone. Once selected, you can adjust the strength of the effect to suit your needs.

Besides LUTs, you can also use color curves and color wheels to fine-tune your video’s look.

Depth of Field Techniques

The movie “Dune” offers an excellent example of using depth of field to enhance visual storytelling. In one scene, there’s an extremely shallow depth of field, blurring even the sand due to the wind. However, not all scenes require such shallow depth. It’s about choosing the appropriate depth of field for the moment.

In our videos, we might not always have expensive lenses to achieve this effect. However, we can fake it. Copy your clip and paste it onto a track above. Select the clip, go to video settings, and use AI tools for portrait cutout. This isolates the subject. Then, add a blur effect to the background clip to create the desired depth of field.

You can turn this effect on and off to see the difference and adjust the blur strength as needed.

Dynamic Camera Movement

In “Dune,” there’s a powerful scene where the camera slowly pans up, revealing a multitude of soldiers. This slow pan adds significant impact to the scene. We can achieve similar effects by using panning and zooming techniques.

Select your clip and set keyframes for position and zoom. Start with a close-up and gradually zoom out to reveal more of the scene. This technique works well for both indoor and outdoor shots, adding a cinematic touch to your videos.

Conclusion

These three techniques—color grading, depth of field manipulation, and dynamic camera movement—can make your videos more cinematic and engaging. Best of all, you don’t need expensive equipment to achieve these effects. Even if you’re recording solo, these tips can elevate your content.

Video Tutorial

I hope you find these tips helpful!

Try Filmora here and check out our video editing training here.