Nobody will ever want to see you posing next to the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.

Not ever… No.  Nobody.

That is– unless you watch this and  make your boring vacation clips into something wildly cool.

The Moral of the Story?

Don’t Spoil Harry Potter for anybody, or my knight will kill you.

but you must see this before you lay down your cool cash for those hot camcorder deals out there.

• Did you know  there are 3 different categories of camcorders?
• Can you tell me  the biggest thing to consider when looking for your next camcorder?
• Any idea why I’m grilling you like this?

This is Part 1 of 3 episodes that will help answer all these questions- and more!

To make awesome home movies, you need to take your camera out of the closet.

• How many times have you seen something really cool, and you wished that you had your camcorder?

Say you went out for a beer at the Las Vegas Lounge in Philadelphia.  You order a Miller Chill with lime, and then you see Danny Bonaduce walk in wearing an Evil Knievel costume.  Then, he challenges you to a thumb war.

I mean, just say that happens… and you don’t have any camera.

That would really be a bummer, man!

I’m not suggesting that you should walk around everywhere with your camera bag.

That would be impracticable.

As it turns out, however- I do have a suggestion.

Keep your camera bag stocked  with:

• • Your camcorder (Now I’m just being flippant with you)
  • 2 charged batteries
  • 2 tapes or memory cards to record onto
  • a decent tripod – even if it’s just a table-top model

Then, take it with you whenever it’s practical.

Danny Bonaduce could use the YouTube exposure.

]]> http://www.creativehomemovie.com/2009/09/29/camcorder_ready/feed/ 0 http://www.creativehomemovie.com/2009/09/20/chm2_tripods/ http://www.creativehomemovie.com/2009/09/20/chm2_tripods/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:50:07 +0000 Scott Markowitz http://www.creativehomemovie.com/?p=251 See why a tripod is the best weapon against bad home movies.

(Makes you want to see Scar Face again, doesn’t it?)

We all know that watching a video shot using poor camera work is hard to watch.

You know it.  I know it.  Your father-in-law… needs to read this.

As you recall, telling a story is the most important thing to do when making a video.

The next most critical thing is to use good, solid, time-tested camera techniques.

If the mere mention of watching your videos make people scatter like cock roaches in light, you may suffer from what I call HMD.

6 Easy ways to practice good camera technique

1. Hold your camera steady while shooting - Keep your elbows close to your body.
2. Don’t pan and tilt all the darn time!! - There’s nothing wrong with slowly panning across your scene… once.  After you get your wide sweeping (slow) pan, then concentrate on tighter, and again, steady shots.
3. Hold your Shot – Hold your shots for at least 5 seconds.  I usually shoot between 8 and 15 second long clips.
4. Frame your Shots – Try to make the things your shooting look nice in the image frame.
5. Get Close Ups – Your viewers want to see the details of the who and what your showing them.
6. Get Sound – If it’s a video of your kids, your audience WANTS to hear them SAY cute things.  If it’s a video of your friends, then you want to HEAR them say something clever or funny.

• • To get any decent audio of your subjects’ speech, your camera will have to be within 4 feet of the person speaking.  (Unless you have a shotgun mic or a lavaliere mic.)

Stay tuned, class, for more detailed discussions of all of the above!

Wrangle your home movie acquisition media before it gets out of control.

One of the easiest Home Movie projects to do is the Music Video.

Here’s how to make your own:

1. Pick a fun song from your song library and import it into your editing software.  (I like iMovie ‘09 on Macs or Adobe Premiere Elements for PC)
2. Import footage into our editing software.  I like to use shots from many different events that span a long period of time.  Be sure to grab a variety of different kinds of shots. (Wide Shots, Close Ups, Interior and exterior, etc.)
3. Start putting the shots together to the music.  Play around with it, and try to match the different visual cues to the various audio phrases in the song.

When there’s a big musical “hit” you should show a big camera move, a fast move toward the camera, or any other visual that has high “energy.”

When your music slows down and takes a breath, then your movie’s pace should slow down too.

Try to edit to the beat of the music, but it often looks good to make an edit on the down-beat of the music as well.

Have fun making your own music video!

even though you know you had many minutes of video already recorded to tape.

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO YOU:

You most likely (or maybe it was your friend; why do I always blame you?) switched to playback mode on your camcorder to review some of your footage.  Then, when you were done, you cued the tape back up to approximately where you left off on the tape.

You (or your buddy) thought you were at the end of the last scene, but you actually cued the tape forward just a little too far. (Usually the screen turns solid blue when it runs past the end of picture)

Once cued past the tape’s data, the camera will assume that it to prepare a new tape for recording.  Then, it correctly starts back at time 00:00:00

Solution: Cue your tape to about a second BEFORE the last scene is over on your tape.

Super Solution: Really plan ahead here, and roll each shot about 3 seconds longer than you think you need to.  It’s a good habit to get into- so that you have plenty of extra data on the tape for the camcorder to be able to read when you are cuing the tape.