How I made the #tcMUST video...
The tcMUST video was filmed almost entirely on my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone, (with a few additional clips recorded on Laura’s ‘point and shoot’ stills camera), and put together in iMovie.
Before I arrived in Poland, I changed the settings on my phone so that any photos or video automatically uploaded to my ‘Dropbox’ account (Dropbox is an online storage application, that means things can be uploaded from any of your devices and automatically synced to the others). So I was able to just collect the video clips from my dropbox folder on my laptop after they had automatically downloaded, and drag them into iMovie.
Here’s an iMovie tutorial for those of you that have Mac computers - https://www.apple.com/findouthow/movies/
Windows Movie Maker is also really good for quick movie making - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/movie-maker#t1=overview
The key things I did to make it easier were:
ONLY SHOOT SHORT CLIPS. The hardest bit of video making is editing the clips down from huge long bits of video. The only bit on this video that was from a longer recording was the shot of Marta introducing the program (there’s a 6 or 7 minute video of that that I may upload for reference) - some of the others had 5 or 10 seconds cut off the end to speed things up a little, but required no major editing at all. mix up the length of your shots. Putting in 5 or 10 seconds of footage of the space you’re in can really help set the scene in between the footage of people.
PICK YOUR ANGLE. Choosing an interesting vantage point to film from can make your video a lot more interesting. The second shot starts with my feet walking into the room, and pans up to show the room as we all enter. The film of the first dancing energiser was from me standing on the window sill to get the whole shot from a nice angle.
GET PERMISSION. only one person in the group didn’t want to be filmed or photographed. We respected that wherever possible (they’re in the background on a few shots, but never the main subject).
DON’T INCLUDE HUMILIATING FOOTAGE. Things that you find funny may be things that make the person in the film embarrassed. Make certain the people you film doing funny things are fine with it being in the film. Be prepared to remove it if they aren’t happy.
PRACTICE! Your own camera or phone will have certain things it does well. Can you pan in while filming? Try it out. Does it shoot well in the dark? Try it out. Can you carry it in one hand and participate in the event you’re filming with the other? Try it out. It’s good practice to allow yourself to shoot lots and lots of really bad footage before you get good at it. Experiment, don’t feel you need to put your mistakes online.
GET TO KNOW THE SOFTWARE - every time I use iMovie I learn new things. This time I learned how to change how the photos in the slideshow at the end look, and how to change the volume of the music underneath in relation to the videos on top. I found out by experimenting and using Google. Try it :)
Laura makes incredible videos (here are some of her music videos - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6C2D73B326732795 ) - and here’s a post with some of her photo and video tips - http://www.laurakidd.co.uk/tips-for-great-photos-and-video-for-web/
