How to Record a Birthday Party With Your Camcorder

Birthday parties are fun, especially kids’ birthday parties. When your 2-year-old ends up wearing his birthday cake, you will want that on video. These moments are precious and with a video camera, you can keep them forever. Here are a few simple steps to a record a birthday party with your camcorder.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Birthday party
• Camcorder

1. Keep it steady. Use a tripod, even though this video is informal. Overall, it will look better if the shots are steady. Make sure your tripod is level.
2. Make sure you have plenty of blank tapes. You don’t want to run out of tape during a key moment in the party.
3. Invest in a microphone. Buy an external microphone so your audio will sound better. Many mikes built in camcorders are low quality. A small lavaliere microphone would also be a good investment. These are compact and clip onto people’s clothing.
4. Make sure your batteries are charged and that you have extras.
5. Utilize the light. Many camcorders don’t record well in dark areas. If the party is inside, turn on extra lights. You want the area that you are recording to be bright.
6. Be careful with the zoom. People who are new to recording home videos often use the zoom too much. Only use it when you absolutely need to.
7. Hold your shots. When taking a shot, hold the shot for a full 10 seconds before moving on to another shot. Otherwise it will be difficult to edit really short shots.
8. Let the kids watch the tape of themselves close to the end of the night, while they eat their cake. This will be a fun activity and a great way to end the party.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are doing handheld recording, make sure the image stabilization feature is on.
• If your camera has special features such as the ability to add captions, take advantage of this.
• Remember that most camcorders take a few seconds to start recording. So if you are going to record, turn the camera on about 3 seconds before an event starts or a person starts talking.
• When you aren’t using the camera, turn it off and close the LCD screen in order to save the battery.
• Make sure the camera and tripod are in a safe place so they will not be knocked over.

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