Graduations: An opportunity to be with family and create memories, Graduation video: An opportunity to, if you’re not careful, shoot some of the most boring footage ever. Read on for more tips on how NOT to shoot graduation video that sucks (Did you miss part 1? It’s here):
4) Think in Shots: Short shots involve viewers more than long, rambling video. Don’t run the camera continuously. Just because you can shoot for 2 hours on your camera doesn’t mean you should.
5) Find Your Hero: Every shot in a video should have a hero—the person or thing the shot is about. “Sarah giving her speech” or “Emma high-fiving her friend.” Your job is to focus your shot on that person or thing that interests you so that we see it too.
6) You represent your children: Older graduates can take the stage armed with smartphones or other small video devices. But smaller graduates can’t sneak video while graduating, and no graduate can shoot themselves from the audience’s point of view. That makes you your kid’s best hope of seeing what it all looked like 20 years from now. Take some great shots of their closer friends or teachers. Interview some of the relatives. Give them a great video to look back at.
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Steve Stockman is a writer/ producer/ director in Los Angeles. How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck, available in 9 languages, is the best selling video how-to book in the world. You can find the updated (2017) edition from Workman Publishing wherever you get books, ebooks or audiobooks. 