{"id":14495,"date":"2024-01-17T19:51:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T19:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=14495"},"modified":"2024-01-19T21:58:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T21:58:46","slug":"how-to-shoot-great-family-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/winter-2024\/how-to-shoot-great-family-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Shoot Great Family Videos"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Steve Stockman<\/p><\/p>\n

I<\/span>n the olden days, when you asked about somebody\u2019s kids or grandkids, they\u2019d pull out their wallet and show you an adorable snapshot of the child and a dog wearing identical cowboy hats and smiling at the camera. You\u2019d nod, say, \u201cCute!\u201d and be off to the next topic in about 18 seconds.<\/p>\n

Now that everyone shoots video non-stop, this brief and civil ritual has vanished.<\/p>\n

Today, if you accidentally seem too interested, you might end up watching an unending series of the most adorable videos of the child running, eating, or reading a seemingly 700-page picture book while the offending party leans over your shoulder and forces you to stare at their phone while saying things like, \u201cWait\u2026wait\u2026this next part is really cute!\u201d<\/p>\n

Or someone will text you a link that\u2019s — and I am not exaggerating– an hour and a half long– so that you can watch a 4th-grader graduate to– you guessed it– 5th grade. Let\u2019s be honest here. Even her parents may find that Felicity\u2019s 4th-grade graduation video doesn\u2019t bear re-watching for the full 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

Who would foist their videos on unsuspecting acquaintances like that? Anyone with a phone. We have met the videographer, and it is us.<\/p>\n

So what if you don\u2019t want to bore people to death with your family video? What if you actually want them to WATCH it?<\/p>\n

No problem. Start by assuming, for the sanity of your friends and relatives, that the mere fact that your kids or grandkids exist is not entertaining.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Steve Stockman<\/p><\/div>\n

To get watched, family videos, like all videos, need to be shot with the audience in mind. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n

1) Shoot Short Shots<\/h3>\n

If you look carefully, you\u2019ll notice that shots in films or TV shows generally last between 1 and 10 seconds before they cut to another person, place, or angle on the scene.<\/p>\n

Each new shot gives viewers new information about what\u2019s going on– and that\u2019s key to keeping viewers interested. That works for home video, too. If you do nothing but keep your shots short, your video will instantly be more interesting to watch.<\/p>\n

A shot is like a sentence. It has a noun and a verb. Together, the noun and verb are what keep the \u201cmove\u201d in \u201cmovies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On your family hike, a random video clip of \u201cBob\u201d is not a shot. \u201cBob picks up his pack\u201d is a shot. \u201cBob hikes down the trail\u201d is a shot. To keep your shots short, stop shooting when the action is complete. \u201cBob hikes down the trail\u201d is interesting for about 5 seconds unless Bob falls off a cliff. So once you\u2019ve got the action covered, be done.<\/p>\n

2) Shoot People, Not Scenery<\/h3>\n

We shoot family video to remember. Props and locations set the scene, but what we really want to remember are the people.<\/p>\n

The Empire State Building will probably look exactly the same ten years from now. In case it doesn\u2019t, thousands of great photographers have already shot it better than you can. What makes your vacation video special is that your family went up the Empire State Building\u2014and your kids, grandkids, and yes, even you will look completely different in 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the scenery\u2019s so beautiful,\u201d you say. It is\u2013 in person. Video of the Grand Canyon looks great in Imax, pretty good on your 60\u201d flat screen, and like tiny blurry garbage on your iPhone. Unless you\u2019re shooting Imax, best not to dwell.<\/p>\n

Frame a great shot of the kids looking over the railing, and that stunning canyon vista will look great, too\u2014in the background, where it belongs.<\/p>\n

Same applies to props: yes, the turkey was great this year, but you can\u2019t taste it on video, and chances are it looks\u2026like a turkey. So once you\u2019ve established that it\u2019s a holiday, move on to the good stuff.<\/p>\n

3) Find the Story<\/h3>\n

Everybody loves a good story. So ask yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s different about this family get-together?\u201d and tell that in your video. \u201cSarah\u2019s 3rd Birthday Party\u201d is probably just a bunch of random shots of the event: guests in the kitchen, what you\u2019re eating, and Sarah ripping open presents.<\/p>\n

But if what\u2019s different about this birthday is that \u201cSarah meets her 92-year-old great-grandmother for the first time,\u201d you now have a story: The video would focus on great-grandma meeting Sarah at the front door and helping Sarah open her present, playing with Sarah and the new doll. Maybe singing a cake-fatigued Sarah, the lullaby your mother sang you when you were a baby as she goes down for her nap.<\/p>\n

A story is always more interesting than a bunch of random shots.<\/p>\n

With practice, you\u2019ll learn to hear potential stories on the fly. If you\u2019re at the beach and your 6-year-old suddenly announces that he is going to find a crab on the beach– it\u2019s time to break out the phone and shoot \u201cKeenan searches for crabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

4) Great Family video is About the Journey, Not the Destination<\/h3>\n

Another way to put it: Kids are not their accomplishments.<\/p>\n

Emma may or may not hit in her first T-ball game. If you focus on capturing a moment that may not come, and it doesn\u2019t– you\u2019ll be disappointed. What should have been a fun video will be a total washout. But if you focus on the journey, you get all the great stuff around her: The field, the interaction with her friends, her emotions as she comes up to bat. And who she is whether she hits or not.<\/p>\n

5) Never Underestimate How Entertaining Bad Behavior Is<\/h3>\n

Nobody wants to watch a video about nice families doing nice things nicely. That includes you ten years from now. Don\u2019t believe me?<\/p>\n

Which family story are you more likely to remember from your childhood\u2014the one about when you all sat down to dinner, and it was perfectly cooked, and everyone was polite? Or the one where somebody told a joke at the table, and your sister laughed so hard milk came out her nose?<\/p>\n

So if your kids dipped their hands in paint and put prints all over the living room wall or \u201chelped\u201d the cat climb the Christmas Tree, as long as nobody\u2019s bleeding, shoot first and fix it later.<\/p>\n

In 20 years, when it\u2019s time to compile the obligatory embarrassing wedding video, you\u2019ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n

6) Add Interviews to Your Family Videos<\/h3>\n

Just as our faces change over time, so does how we think.<\/p>\n

An on-camera interview with your five-year-old about almost anything will almost always be great.<\/p>\n

So ask about the wedding\/his grandparents\/the new baby\/ his first day of school. Over time, you\u2019ll see their minds grow and change with their bodies.<\/p>\n

Frame your questions so they don\u2019t yield one-word answers. \u201cAre you excited to go to the circus?\u201d gets you a nod. \u201cTell me everything you know about clowns\u201d gets you a story.<\/p>\n

Kids say the darndest things and all that– but so do Grandmas–and anyone else who\u2019s been tailgating or hitting the Holiday Cheer.<\/p>\n

7) Don\u2019t Try to Hide the Camera<\/h3>\n

Kids (and many adults) may be camera-shy, but they\u2019ll be much more self-conscious if they think you\u2019re trying to trick them into being filmed. If it\u2019s a firm no, be respectful. But for most people, if you\u2019re obvious about shooting, they\u2019ll get bored with you and start acting natural.<\/p>\n

8) Final tip – Resist Your Own FOMV<\/h3>\n

Fear of Missing Video. If you shoot everything your family does, you\u2019ll pile up a ton of footage that will take years to sort through– which means you\u2019ll never do it because you have a family, and who has the time? You will also miss being truly present when things happen. Sometimes, it\u2019s good to put down the phone.<\/p>\n

Steve Stockman is the author of How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck: Advice to Make Any Amateur Look Like a Pro\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/h5>\n
Steve Stockman<\/a> is president of LA-based Custom Productions, Inc<\/a>.\u00a0 and a producer, writer and director of over 200 commercials, web series, films, music videos, and TV shows.<\/h5>\n
Steve wrote, produced, and directed the award-winning MGM feature film Two Weeks<\/em>, starring Sally Field, Ben Chaplin, Tom Cavanagh, Julianne Nicholson, Glenn Howerton, and Clea DuVall.<\/h5>\n
Other credits include writing, directing, and EP for the Comedy Central digital series Gnarnia<\/em>, and Kitchen Think<\/em> at Food Network. Creating and Executive Producing 3 seasons of Brew Dogs<\/em> for NBC\/UNI, Dogs Of War<\/em> on A&E, Discovery Channel\u2019s 3-season hit series, The Devils Ride<\/em>, and Creating, Executive Producing, and directing $24\/24<\/em> for Food Network. Custom and Steve have completed pilots and development projects for A&E, AMC, BET, Comedy Central, CMT, History Channel and Food Network.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film producer, writer, director offers tips for the best home movies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2024","category-winter-2024-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14495"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14837,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14495\/revisions\/14837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}