How to Spice Up Home Videos

When you're living in the moment, it seems absolutely essential to capture every moment of little Billy's first baby food feeding on video. True, it is humorous when he spits the mushy peas and apricots in Dad's face. Unfortunately, most families pop in the home video years later and wonder why they taped little Billy for two hours straight. Spice up your home video with these quick-and-easy tips.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Cut your time in half. Reduce the amount of time you spend filming one particular thing. This will make for a much more interesting home video.
2. Follow the action and choose your material carefully. Record people, places and things that are most entertaining. No offense to Uncle Albert, but if he's sitting in a corner picking his nose, he's not the best material.
3. Add music. The easiest way to do this is to make sure your audio is picking up songs as you record. If you don't catch sound while filming, go back and "dub" music on to the tape. This is tricky and requires a certain amount of technological skill. If you don't feel confident doing this, simply play a CD or radio in the background as you're watching the home video.
4. Roll back your tape each time you record. This action eliminates blank time in between takes. To rollback, simply press "Stop" when you finish recording, switch to play mode and press "Play." When the video comes on, rewind about 10 seconds and hit "Play" again. Just before the action on screen is about to end, hit "Stop." Switch back to record mode and begin recording again. This will cause the home video to go from scene to scene, rather than having a blue screen every few minutes.
5. Ask people questions. A home video where people have direct, specific questions to answer is more entertaining than a video where someone is told, "Do something for the camera."
6. Tell a story. If at all possible, capture moments that are pieces of a story. This produces a much more interesting home video. For example, when shooting a child's birthday party, film a few seconds of people arriving, a few seconds of present opening, a few seconds of cake, etc. All of these brief moments sewn together make a nice memory of the event.

Tips & Warnings

• Slow down your zoom. Zooming in and out at a slower pace creates a more professional look.
• Use a tripod to reduce the shakes and keep your viewers from getting motion sickness.
• Remain silent as the videographer. Let others create the dialogue.

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