Cool Cherry Cream

For the past few days I’ve been attempting to edit the video my family took during our vacation to Boston, Washington, and Virginia Beach. And let me tell you, some of it is not very fun to edit. This is due to the fact that my family sucks at filming. So, if you don’t want to drive your video editor crazy, what with the yelling at the computer and the hitting the monitor and the kung fu-FIGHting and whatnot, then when filming your next video, use some of these tips.

Now, these really aren’t tips to make your videos better, they’re more like tips to make your videos less sucky, and intended for people who aren’t really good at filming (like my family).

I once read that because the zoom is the easiest feature to use, it’s also the most over-used by beginners. You aren’t doing anything groundbreaking by using the zoom, so don’t fool yourself into believing that you are. When you first get your camera and figure out how to use the zoom, yes, I understand that it can be a cause for celebration. But if you continue to only use the zoom, it gets boring. No one cares anymore. You need to do something different every once in awhile. So please, do not use the zoom on every single shot!

Now, that’s not to say that you should never use the zoom. If you do have to zoom in or out, do it slowly. In Washington we have a shot of a building with a statue in the front. The camera person (who shall remain nameless), does a long shot, zooms in, zooms out… all in a span of two seconds! Not good. Linger on the long shot for awhile, then let it linger on the close shot.

Ah, how about some visuals? Apart from this shot being blurry (which we’ll get to later), it is really really awful for another reason.

The intended focal point is all the umbrellas and people, but most of the shot is filled with the sky and the sand. How boring!

This shot is a bit better; it’s zoomed in, but still too much sky. Cropping can fix that, but cropping and zooming loses quality. I know, cameras can only zoom so far, but in this case, we were pretty far away from the action. Moving closer would have given a less blurry shot, with more of the intended focal point, well, in focus.

One of the worst things in these videos is that the camera person is always moving. Again, moving isn’t always a bad thing, but you have to know how to do it. You need a good camera person who can keep the camera still. You can try leaning your camera arm against a wall or against your chest. If you can rest your elbow on a desk or other flat surface, that can really help. Even better, set the camera down on the desk and let it film the action without the risk of any shaky camera person. If the desk is too low, you can always stack books or videos or CDs or whatever under the camera to make it higher; just be careful not to knock it over.

But the best thing you can use is a tripod, especially one with wheels so you can still move, but move smoothly. I understand that it would be a strange to bring a tripod to the beach if you aren’t a professional photographer or doing a film shoot or something, so in that case, you’ll want to use the tips above. But when shooting movie-movie, there is no excuse for not using the tripod (unless you don’t have one). Me and Jada’s Sgt. Pepper movie would not look half as good as it does now if we didn’t use a tripod.

My video camera has a huge menu with a lot of special effects things you can use. Yeah, it’s fun, I know. But you should not use any of these unless absolutely necessary. They can always be added in a video editing program later… however, you can’t get rid of effects you add while filming. I personally ruined a few shots this way. I wanted to get that cool effect where you see the light trailing from the cars, and added the effect while filming. I actually ended up using the footage without any effects, which luckily I also had.

That’s all the tips I have for now, I need to get back to fixing up some of this, eh… lovely footage.

But, just so you know, rules are meant to be broken. Don’t do everything I tell you. A couple of shots that I would normally call “bad” actually looked quite good when I put it together in the video montage. ;)