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As a new parent, you know how hard it is to capture a sustained, coherent shot of a young child. Once a kid is mobile, keeping them in focus or even in the camera’s field of vision requires superhuman amounts of concentration. Short of hiring a professional cameraman to follow your children around, what can you do to capture those magical, free-spirited moments that make parenting worthwhile? Read on for five do-it-yourself tips to turn your home footage into something worth cherishing.
In This Post:
1. Use a Tripod
Take an hour to look back at old home-movie footage with fresh eyes. The first thing that jumps out at you may be the distracting shakiness of the frame. It’s difficult to enjoy any footage, even raw video of your precious kids, if merely looking in its direction is enough to make you queasy. You don’t need a professional-grade Steadicam to shoot without jerkiness, just one of the $20 tripods available at your local electronics store. Don’t worry too much about putting it together quickly at first: The more you use it, the better you’ll get at setting it up.
2. Keep It Light
Good lighting is essential to making a memorable home video. Among other reasons, the clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos are unintentionally funny because they look washed-out and careless. To achieve professional-looking lighting in your frame, you’ll need much more light than you think: Flip on all the lights in the room, as long as they’re not coming from the same direction, and fully open the blinds if it’s daytime.
3. Use an External Microphone
Like tripods, microphones are another surprisingly cheap piece of equipment that can radically improve video quality. Invest in a camcorder with an external mic jack and use either a “shotgun” or “tie clip” attachment. The former works best when the subject stands directly in front of the camera lens while the latter is better for quieter settings in which your child is speaking or singing.
4. Keep Your Family In Mind
Before you shoot your next home video, ask yourself if Grandma would approve of what you’re about to film. Since peer pressure can be a great performance-enhancer, always keep your extended family in mind when you’re making home video of your children. Keep your shots tight and the subject matter interesting, then follow through on your promise of quality and copy a DVD of your footage for distribution to members of your extended family. You’ll get some “oohs” and “aahs” out of them and earn some deserved praise for your film-making skills too.
5. Get Down
Make each video count by making it about your child, not about the space that they’re occupying. Since you’re quite a bit taller than a small child, you’ll capture a lot of awkward background and empty space if you film from your own shoulder level. Avoid this classic pitfall by squatting down and holding the camera at your kid’s eye level instead.
Years from now, when your kids are grown and think they know it all, you’ll want to have some adorable home videos of their younger days to show their significant others while they cringe in embarrassment. Follow the tips above to make sure your videos don’t embarrass you too.
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