Great thread, guys. And just so happens it's right up my alley. I work for a small video storytelling agency in Toronto, so do this kinda stuff every day for a living. Sadly, I keep pretty busy at work, but none of our clients are in the car world - I hope to change that fact sometime this year
Dave made a lot of great points that I can add too...
Equipment - cost on entry for good quality video is always getting cheaper and cheaper, especially with the DSLR's these days. We shoot almost exclusively on Canon DSLR's, and the footage comes out nice, and you can do a fair amount to it before quality starts to break up (the more effects and colour correction you do, the more it degrades your footage). The key with these cameras is to spend money on good lenses. A "fast" lens where your focal ratio is 4 or less will be really sensitive to light, so you won't need as much light to correctly expose your shot. They also provide a nice shallow depth of field, which the effect where your foreground object, or the thing in focus, is nice and clear, but the background looks really blurry. We use many lenses that are actually more expensive, sometimes twice the price, of the camera itself. the focal length of the lens is also very important - a wide lens, like an 18mm or even a 35mm (and GoPros), will make things look larger than life, and cover a lot of area in your shot. A long zoom makes your frame very intimate, very detailed, nice close-ups - your lens plays a big role in the "feel" of your shots.
Movement - a few people so far have mentioned movement in their shots. This is a big one. Even an ever-so-slight pan or tilt will help engage the viewer. It doesn't take much, but you should always think about moving the camera while shooting, no matter whether what you're shooting is moving or not. Many companies make reasonably inexpensive dolly "sliders" now, and they go a long way to giving your footage a pro quality
Pocket Dolly v2.0
edelkrone SliderPLUS v2
Also think of the kind of movement. A smooth pan or tilt is good for emotional beauty shots, hand-held shaky movement is good for action, and creating a feel of excitement or slight nervousness
Lighting - Magic hour does make for a great lighting. So do overcast days. Blazing sunshine at 1pm does not make for good footage. You only really need to light interviews, so if you're shooting cars and crowds and beauty shots, natural light should be all you need. Be conscious of where the light is coming from as light has different temperatures, and you need to set your camera to match the temp of the ambient light - Google light temperatures and you'll get lost in tech articles for days.
One of the most important things Dave said was "think before you shoot". People have such a bad habit of mounting the GoPro on the windshield and driving around for 20 minutes and they end up with 20 minutes of driving around and it comes out boring. Think of it this way - once you have 30 seconds of that shot, unless something crazy happens, you don't need any more of it, cause only the surrounding scenery changes. Try to edit in your mind when you're shooting, and rather than shoot a still subject for 3 minutes from the same spot, frame it up , hit record, count to 10. Then move, get the same thing from another angle, frame it up, hit record, count to 10. Do this over and over - wide shots, close up, change focus of your shot while recording (this is called pulling focus) - variety is key! Another important thing in this day of info overload is to keep it short. Unless you're telling an amazing story, all you need is 2 minutes to show off what you wanna show off.
Last but not least, no matter what camera you have, learn what the functions do, and put it in manual mode. Don't let the camera decide things for you - you are the artist and you need to make the choices. It's a lot to learn, but there are plenty of tutorials online, and once you figure out that it's all about combinations of light sensitivity, it's all smooth sailing from there.
Just my 2 cents for now - let me know if you guys have any questions.
And here's our YT channel and website if you want to see what I get up to...
FlashFrame Digital
FlashFrameDigital - YouTube