15 Tips & Tricks For Taking Amazing Videos of Your Kids

As a pappa who spends his days cutting video for television, I train IT as a personal take exception to capture the best possible videos of my kids and family. Simply even with my background, it's not ever easy ⏤ a lot of external factors come into play that can bring on mayhem on what should otherwise be a pretty light videos shoot.

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We've totally had the live of expiration back to watch that clip of our child doing the absolute cutest matter but to find a wobbly, granulose mess. It happens. Sometimes conditions aren't saint. Past times we're in much a rush to capture the moment before it evaporates that we don't have time to set up the perfect shot. Either way, thanks to the quality of telecasting technology in our smartphones these years, we're completely capable of creating more or less amazing videos for our kids to cringe at when they become teenagers. IT impartial a matter of followers a few sagittate rules. To help gain your videos even better, here are easy (and not-too-technical) tips I've put together from my receive.

1. Move around the damn photographic camera sidelong

With so many fleeting kid moments on a daily footing, IT's comprehendible that parents whip stunned their phones and straight off hit record without flipping information technology sideway. The unfortunate result, even so, is an awkward vertical file that's much unusable outside of viewing connected your phone. That cute shot of your toddler eating their first ice cream conoid will look little when played vertically on an High-definition television. Not a good look. So, always shoot horizontally.

2. Set about to their stratum

In terms of composition, this single lean will change the quality of your videos all but dramatically. Because you're a good three- to cinque-feet taller than your kid, near of the footage you capture while standing is of the top of their heads ⏤ not to mention a muckle of floor. But when you sit or kneeling kill at their level, you see their face, features, and the world around them. Whether they'rhenium flying downfield the sidewalk or picking flowers in a theater of operations ⏤ the only way you'll capture the full picture is aside shooting from their level.

3. Follow the carry through

This is where we can get a little Hollywood with our recording. Patc it's easy to stand or ride in situ while filming our kids (who doesn't deficiency a break?), sometimes the coolest videos are guessing when we adopt the action. If your tiddler is spurting finished the resort area, try holding the sound down by your side and chasing after them. By doing so, the video will look ilk it was pellet from the stand of a child playing aboard them instead of a passive parent from afar.

4. Get close

No, you need to shove your phone or camera in anyone's face. But just remember that the nearer you can get to your kids spell filming, the healthier. Non only will information technology make your videos more sexual, but it will besides allow you to capture the item in their expressions and reactions. This is especially true for baby videos, where the little things such as opening their eyes or cracking a smile are actually huge.

5. Keep it rolling

If I've learned one thing over the past hardly a years filming my kids, it's this: the Sunday-go-to-meeting block happens when I turn the television camera off. Maybe my kid is being cockamamie, so I grab the camera and frivol away the action. No sooner than I turn it bump off, all the same, and atomic number 2 breaks dead in song. And a good one at that. Now, I try hold on the shot moving just a little longer in hopes of capturing the real good overeat. In fact, pretending to turn IT off completely will sometimes make kids less camera-shy, and that's when the magic happens.

6. Watch for backlight

If your tyke is sitting in front of a window or light, transcription them can be a nightmare. They'll be cast in shadow and often altogether you visualize is a gleaming around them ⏤ and zero, that doesn't mean they're short an angel. In fact, what results is normally unusable and unrecognizable. Turn off the light behind the shaver or close the blinds, and if there are other sources of light, use them. If that doesn't solve the problem, try relocating to another area to get a meliorate dead reckoning.

7. Use the Dominicus to your vantage

When filming outside, the sun can be incredibly ministrant, and you can often use sunshine flares to capture some astonishing shots. To create the effect, position or cover the sun either right tabu of the frame of the video, or keister your kid, tree operating room building. Then, by playing with the angle of the lens a trifle, you should be able to throw the flares dance through your shot. This one is worth practicing on your own sans kids, just to get it down.

8. The more ablaze, the better

My kids tend to turn on their enamor right about bedtime, when they wear't want to head on a higher floor. It makes for some cunning moments. The only trouble is that it's usually darker in our house round that time, with no sunlight coming in the Windows and the lights off, and videos rear end turn out dark and grainy. This rule is a bit of a no-brainer but bears reminding: Get off the lights, IT wish reduce the grain and make for a nicer shot.

9. Check the screen backgroun, and scooch over

Sometimes when recording your kids, there's laundry or toys or other uncalled-for clutter in the background. Or maybe just a bland white wall. Either way, aside surveying what's tail end your kids and either shifting over surgery relocating, you can remove unwanted elements and drastically improve the shot. Very much change commute along screen with a little sloping trough left or rightist.

10. Soma it

Entire classes are taught on opus, simply the first matter to be remindful of is framing. For example, ward of awkwardly cropping slay your kid's head in the shot or push them over to one side or another. If they're playing with something, show it in the skeleton. If your phone has a grid setting, turn information technology happening and follow the basic rule of thirds ⏤ so don't put your dependent square in the middle. The main idea is this, really: Think about what's in your shooter and adjust to best seizure the instant.

11. Keep it steady

It power be tempting to moving-picture show your youngster like they're staring in a Jason Bourne movie, just keeping your camera steadied creates a better video and ensures nobody gets queasy watching it. When filming, treat your camera or phone corresponding a live TNT ⏤ do not shake. Hold all quadruplet corners of your phone with your fingers and stretch your arms out. There are also William Christopher Handy phone tripods and grips you can buy to remove the shake entirely, depending on how serious you desire to get.

12. Use the reveal

Your kid is doing something cute, so you should just gunpoint and shoot, right? Wrong. Sometimes you'll get a funnier video if you start filming with your baby offscreen, and then slow pan over to them to capture the craziness. Especially if you tush hear them in the background doing whatever hilarious thing it is that they are doing. You posterior also pan from one kid to another in rules of order to show their reactions.

13. Effort to arrest quiet

In a lot of the inchoate videos of my kids, you'll take heed my voice fairly often. I quickly got out of that habit. Whether it was oblation praise, encouragement, or just locution, "Persist, I'm motion-picture photography!", in that location was much of me acquiring in the way of some nice shots. I learned to quiet down up and, as a result, ordinarily got much nicer videos.

14. Capture the detail

Whether it's a drawing they're color, a toy they're playing with, or a shirt they're wearing, yield attention the little things. Spend a penny sure you capture all the small inside information as well as the big action. When you look back in 20 years, it's going to be those apparently inconsequential inside information that cause all the memories to come flooding back.

15. Don't thrust it

Nothing will ruination a cute moment or precise computer storage more than trying to over-plainspoken your kids. There's no need to go full Scorsese and process their lives like a scene from a movie. It's measurable to know when to turn the television camera off, and when to take a ill-use back. Fastener their haircloth, cleaning them heavenward, moving them entirely to a studio apartment limit in an old warehouse zone, or anything else for the sake of a better video, leave e'er get in the means of a candid moment and reach them feel Thomas More like actors than kids. Don't coerce IT.

Brendan Charles I is a father of two and regular video editor for a broadcast television station in Montreal, Canada.

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