Is your loved one’s birthday coming up, and you want to record it for posterity? If your filmmaking skills are a bit lacking and you’re not sure how to make an amazing video, we have a few tips for you. Keeping audiences engaged can be tricky; attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, so how do you get people to stay engaged?
A Good Story
The theme behind your video is very important; it helps you know what props you’ll need and what scenes to shoot. A good, coherent story keeps your viewers engaged and immersed, as they will be on the edge of their seat trying to figure out what will happen next.
By creating an interesting plot, you can turn any video from simple to amazing. Your daughter’s birthday can become a great quest to defeat an evil robot or to destroy a dragon – even if the dragon happens to be a stuffed animal because budget limitations are a terrible, but real thing.
Lights, Camera, Action!
Know the limitations of your equipment. If you know your camera has trouble picking up the audio at long distance, don’t shoot a scene several feet away. Keep a close-up on the action to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
When editing, think about fun and creative ways to engage your audience. A time-lapse of the sunset will require a lot of planning and recording space, but it will look amazing and is sure to impress everyone with your skills.
Have you seen Nightmare Before Christmas? Stop-motion is also a beautiful editing style. It’s time consuming and it takes a lot of work, but the finishing product is amazing. Go for small projects, like shooting the candles being lit: photograph each process in lighting them, like placing the candles getting the matches, and when you put them all together they will tell a story.
Be careful with zooming! You lose image quality when you zoom with your camera, and it can get shaky if you have trouble finding the zoom button. A tripod will be a saving grace for steadier video, but be careful to not zoom too much! It’s always better to walk up to your subjects and edit the footage later.
Make It Funny
Comedy is a great way of engaging an audience; comedians use timing and jokes to keep their public laughing and they’re successful because laughing makes people feel good. And who doesn’t like that?
Laughter is the way to go; after all, a birthday party is a joyous occasion! Make sure your story has plenty of funny twists in it. Your guests will leave the party feeling like they had a great time and it will make them look forward to next year’s film project.
If you have any VHS tapes you want to transfer to DVD, here at Video2DVD Transfers we offer convert your memories onto longer lasting media at an affordable cost. You can contact us on 800 592 433 if you have any questions, and our friendly team will happily help! Alternatively, you can also find us on Twitter and follow our updates and news