How to make your own home movies and video tape an event without making it long and boring. Preserve memories people will actually want to see.
You may have had an attic full of them when you were a child. Rolls and rolls of film that could only be viewed on the old family projector. The good old home movies. Most home movies are excrutiatingly boring, especially for non-family members. There are many services around now that will take your old reel films and transfer them onto video tape, some of them even put music in the background for you since there was usually no sound then. Since the improvement of the video camera and its widespread popularity, there has been an explosion of vhs tape after vhs tape full of tediously boring home movies. We want so much to capture a moment forever, we don't stop to think exactly how much of this moment really needs to be captured and who the heck is going to sit through this whole thing? Learning how to make a good home movie is not very difficult if you watch some home movies of friends of yours to know what not to do. There are a few things to keep in mind if your goal is to avoid boring your company to tears.
Talk. Home movies where there is complete silence except for the person being filmed can be quite boring. Especially if the star is a child and you are waiting for the child to say something or do something. Don't be shy, talk while you are filming and let the rest of us know what is going on, for example, "Now we're waiting for Tommy to take his first step!" If Tommy doesn't start walking, turn the camera off! The new digital video cameras allow you to hook your camera up to a home computer and edit your video. This will be great if you want to let the camera keep rolling until you subject does what you were hoping he'd do. Unless you are planning to edit your video, don't leave long stretches of nothing.
Make sure your lighting is right. Most indoor shooting requires a light and if you don't have one, your video is going to be dark. This doesn't seem very annoying while you are filming, but when you are the viewer, trying to make out who is who, it can get old really fast. Don't use a light that is too bright though, or you will have folks who look like they have spot lights on their heads!
Keep the action moving. Instead of just focusing on one person who you are waiting for to perform, move the camera around, talk to people, you can always swing back if something starts happening. This is especially nice if you happen to catch the reaction of someone who actually saw little Tommy walk for the first time. When nothing is going on, keep your camera on pause so you can have it rolling again with the push of a button. Try and get everyone to say something into the camera instead of waving you away or pretending like you're not there. These are the moments that will be appreciated in years to come.
Make copies of your video tape and hand them out as gifts during the holidays. This will assure you that your film will not be lost forever if more than one person has a copy of it. Video tapes make great gifts for far away relatives who don't often get to visit with the family, but keep those movies full of action and minimize the "˜dead air.' The most candid shots are the funniest, get everyone to act natural!
