Basic Training: 11 Steps to Add Some Spice to Your Video

Kyle Cassidy
February 2005

There are many ways to make your video dull. We speak derisively of "talking heads" on television because they're not exciting. It's one thing to be in a room with someone who is talking for an hour, but it's something entirely different to watch that as a single, unbroken video image. Unfortunately, natural selection doesn't always decide who gets to make the video. As a videographer, you have an obligation not to bore your viewers and hopefully, you have the desire to make their viewing experience pleasurable. There are plenty of ways you can make your video more interesting with just camera placement, angles, and movement. Here are a few ideas.

1. Get down to their level

One of the most common mistakes made by videographers photographing pets and children is point of view. Adults see children and pets from a wholly different perspective than they see each other. Don't be afraid to crouch down and shoot from the floor. Photographing a Chihuahua from five feet in the air is just plain lazy.

2. Plan for your background

More than making certain that a light pole isn't growing from someone's head, planning for your background might mean scouting locations before you start shooting and then moving your subjects into a more suitable area. Bad backgrounds can be "busy"--filled with complicated and confusing elements that distract from your subject. They can also be too bright, causing your subject to be backlit (shooting a subject on a shaded porch with a brightly-lit beach in the background, for example). A little time spent planning your shots can go a long way.

3. Use cutaways

If you're going to be on one particular master shot for a long time--a bride and groom exchanging vows, for example--consider editing in some cutaways to break the monotony. Show some closeups of people in the audience, pan across the cars in the parking lot, a child fidgeting, or even closeups of the bride and groom's faces, shot later. This means, don't forget to shoot cutaways--the church windows, the spectacular ceiling, etc.--whenever you get the chance. Shoot more footage than you think you need. It may save you in the editing room.

4. Use wide or telephoto angles

Wide-angle and telephoto lenses have other properties than simply making things look closer or farther away; they also change the apparent distance between objects. A wide-angle lens will seem to increase the distance between an object in the foreground and another in the background; likewise, a telephoto lens will compress the distance and make objects in the frame appear to be closer together.

It's common, for example, for movie makers to film dangerous looking car chases with a long telephoto lens to make the cars seem closer together, while in reality, there may have been thirty feet between the two cars in that "near miss." Wide-angle lenses will make objects close to the lens appear larger than objects further back. You could, for example, have a child in the foreground who appears taller than an adult several feet back.

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Basic Training: 11 Steps to Add Some Spice to Your Video

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