My name is Zilver Schmitz, and I'm a young filmmaker/photographer from The Netherlands. My camera of choice is the Sony FX3, but I was intrigued by the smaller FX30 and wanted to see how it performed. I had this idea to produce something with a lot of action and thought it would be cool to combine a car and an athlete, kind of like a battle between them.

Back in the day I used to do trampoline gymnastics on a high-level, so I still had quite a lot of contacts in that industry. I asked Siebe, an insanely good freerunner, to help me out with this video. The Papierfabriek in Nijmegen is one of my favourite locations because of the beautiful natural lighting.

I'm so used to the FX3, I felt immediately comfortable with the layout of the FX30. I had a quick look through the available settings - 4K 120P, S-Log3, insanely good image stabilisation - and was very impressed.

I think the biggest challenge was the time we had. Normally I love to take the time to check out the location, do some test shots and then start filming. But on this day, we didn’t had a lot of time to do this, so I had to improvise quite a lot. The size of the FX30 came in really handy, since it was easy to switch between handheld and gimbal shots.

The AF worked particularly well, especially on the Gimbal shots. Most of the times I’m working in small teams or just by myself, so I don’t have a focus puller or anything. It’s amazing to be able to rely on the AF and just concentrate on getting the right framing.

The lightweight and compact design for me is perfect. I travel a lot, so it fits easily in my backpack and doesn’t weigh too much. As I mentioned before it’s really easy to switch between a handheld and gimbal setup. It does feel high-end, just like all the other Sony cameras. The cage free design is really nice, especially for content creators I think. You can mount your accessories directly on the body, which can be really helpful sometimes.

I shot mainly with the E 16-55mm f/2.8 G lens which is super sharp, very versatile, and balanced beautifully with the camera.

Do you have any advice for young filmmakers?

My biggest tip is to just go out and try to make stuff. I didn’t go to film school or anything, so I learned everything by doing. Create videos that give you energy just out of passion and in the end those type of projects will come to you. Being able to capture moments and relive them your whole life is something that has fascinated me since I was a kid. I also love to tell stories that touch people. The biggest compliment I can think of is when someone says they experienced emotion when watching my work.

Do you feel that apart from the actual filming, that editing plays an equally large part in your work?

Yes, I do think editing is as important as filming, since that’s when the footage really comes to life. During the editing process you can literally make or break your footage. Sound designing and colour grading are also really important to me. For my projects I love to take care of it all, from start to finish, to keep control over the final product.