How to Shoot Better Video with Your Phone!

Understanding the technology:
The phone's limitations are pretty intense, there are a number of things you can't do AS WELL with a phone that you can do with a normal video camera. Read the manual!
-manual focus
-zoom
-white balance
-shoot in low light
-change shutter speed to capture fast motion
-capture sound
-backlight compensation

With these in mind, you should structure you film to shoot in great light, preferably outside, taking steady shots (no fast moving pans), no background noises, shoot against a window or bright light. Most cameras (minus the 2007 models) will shoot at 15 FPS (frames per second), resulting in blocky motion for fast moving subjects. Some phones shoot at 10 FPS while the late model phones can actually shoot at 30 FPS. If you haven't bought your phone in the last six months, you are probably shooting at 15FPS.

Crafting your story:
Realise that your film is going to be very low quality video, so keep your film short so that people don't have to strain their eyes for a long time. Ninety seconds maximum is what you are going for, short and punchy.

Production:
Get memory cards for your camera if you can. Phone memory is always small and you are going to want to take the best quality of video that you can, which will suck up memory. Memory cards will allow you to shoot more coverage of your scene, which allows for more flexibility in editing. Most phones can take a 2Gb memory card, which is roughly 2 hours of high quality video (high quality as a term relative to shooting with a phone!)

Post-Production:
Transfer your footage to your computer via your preferred method (Bluetooth, IR, cable, memory card). Most phones will record in MP4 format, which is unable to be read in Windows Movie Maker and other low end editing applications. To convert the file, use Super Video Encoder (or a similar application) to convert your video into uncompressed AVI format. Super Video Encoder is at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html. There are other applications that can do the same thing, including the Quicktime Player. Once you have converted your file into an Uncompressed AVI file, you can import it into your editing application to edit as you want.
Once done, you can then export your file as am uncompressed AVI and use Super Video Encoder to re-encode your video to the proper format for the phone (MP4). Keep in mind the original dimensions that you shot your video in, because those are the pixel dimensions (width and height) that you want to keep your video at as you import and export it through the process. Enlarging it will distort your image and reducing it will affect your image quality. Most phones can shoot at 320x240 pixel size. Remember, this video is designed to be seen on a phone, not a computer monitor or television.