Despite the fact that we all carry pretty high quality video cameras with us at all times, parents still seem to rely on photos for the majority of their documentation of their little ones. Sure they'll capture a bunch of videos here and there, but when it comes to either hiring a professional or putting it all together to create a time capsule of sorts, they usually turn to photographers and or create scapbooks. Perhaps this is the case because it's easier to create a photo book than it is to edit a video together, especially with all of the online companies that have such cute templates, or maybe parents are just so used to newborn and maternity photo shoots that they don't think about professional video in the same way.
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of sponsoring the Biggest Baby Shower Los Angeles with Big City Moms. I set up a table like all of the other vendors, and even had a video looping some of the Video Baby Books I've shot. I also spread out some of the photobooks I have created for my little guy, including the guestbook we had for his first birthday party, a hybrid first year baby book and guestbook for our friends and relatives that attended the party. Despite the fact that people enjoyed watching the videos, many still seemed more interested in having me help them to create their photo scrap books. I proceeded to ask them if they are capturing their own videos, which they are, but they still didn't seem to get why creating a video montage ultimately will be so much more powerful of a memory for themselves, and eventually their little one.
My hairdresser reaffirmed my point of view the other day when she told me that her most prized possession is a video she has of herself with her parents at nine months old. Sure a photo from that same time period could be a great memory and could have captured some special moments, but it would lack the audio that can further communicate feelings and emotions. In addition, a lot of photos are posed, and therefore lack some reality behind the interactions. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love looking at professional newborn photos. I wish that we had done a shoot ourselves. However, I would love even more seeing a new mom watching her little one be posed in all of the cute positions and set up with props and wardrobe options. I would empathize with her doing her best to comfort and nurse her baby back to a sleepy state in between clicks of the camera in order to get the timeless shots she so desires.
The newborn cry that seemed to be so ingrained in my head during the early days with my little guy really does fade away. It's only through watching the videos I took during that early time that I can truly remember not only his sound, but how that sound made me feel as a new mom doing everything I could every time I heard it. I definitely "ooo" and "aww" over photos from those early days, but hearing my voice in the videos really brings me back to that sleep deprived time when I was just getting to know my son.
There is no contest when it comes to video over photos of most milestones. I do tell parents that they shouldn't be so concerned with capturing every first, as the second, third, and even fourth time baby does something it will look pretty similar. We have very early footage of my son sleeping and making some very funny faces. I am so glad we thought to film it. Early video footage of my son learning to roll over not only captures his progress, but the pride and joy in my voice as I watch him get closer and closer to accomplishing it. Hearing my son belly laugh for the first time has to be one of my most favorite sounds in the whole world. Sure I could have taken a picture when this event happened, but my reaction to him will be something he will treasure as well. His wobble legs slowly taking one step and then another without holding on to anything could never be duplicated in a single still frame. A slide show of photos tracking development is fun to watch, but the one year montage I created for my son of his first year of life really shows all of the little developments as they occur and how we, his parents, grew more proud with each one he accomplished.
Perhaps I'm just a biased filmmaker that I tend to prefer video over photography. But I truly do believe that when my son grows up, he will treasure the time capsules I have made for him in his Video Baby Book.
Showing posts with label baby videos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baby videos. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Time Capsule Events
I started doing Time Capsule Events in my local area as an opportunity to educate mommies and mommies-to-be on the importance of documenting their little ones from the womb and beyond. I am extremely passionate about this topic, as I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the ramifications of my house catching on fire while I was in the hospital having my son. I was all out of sorts having to spend my first night out of the hospital in a hotel, and that was in addition to the typical stress of being a new parent. I was uprooted from my home for a total of five months, and lived in a construction zone for the following three.
As a professional filmmaker, I am pretty devastated that I was unable to capture any of my son's early moments with my professional gear, but what is even more disappointing is that I didn't do more with the tools I did have at my disposal throughout our various temporary housing situations. And it's because of these reasons I like to help parents feel more confident in capturing their little ones as well as give them a small gift for attending my event, hoping to inspire them to continue to do even more on their own.
During our time together at the event, I spend the first part discussing why it's so important to capture milestones and which milestones are important to capture. I talk about the benefits of having my own baby book as a reference to use with my son and his development. In addition, I talk about how my son will benefit in the future from the documenting I am currently doing. I spend the next part of our time discussing tips and tricks for filming and documenting their little ones. I talk about many of the things discussed in my earlier blog posts, as well as help them with issues they may currently have with the tools that they are using.
The final part of the event consists of my attendees writing a letter to their children for a special event in the future. I then film the attendees reading this letter to their child and get some great shots of them interacting with their baby. I also get some footage of the letter itself in order to capture the emotion that can only be expressed in one's handwriting. Within the week following the event, I edit it together with some photos that they provide me to create a mini time capsule.
If you currently are in the Los Angeles area and are interested in attending one of my events or hosting one, please contact me. If you are not local, you can check out my next blog post on how you can host your own time capsule event in your town.
As a professional filmmaker, I am pretty devastated that I was unable to capture any of my son's early moments with my professional gear, but what is even more disappointing is that I didn't do more with the tools I did have at my disposal throughout our various temporary housing situations. And it's because of these reasons I like to help parents feel more confident in capturing their little ones as well as give them a small gift for attending my event, hoping to inspire them to continue to do even more on their own.
During our time together at the event, I spend the first part discussing why it's so important to capture milestones and which milestones are important to capture. I talk about the benefits of having my own baby book as a reference to use with my son and his development. In addition, I talk about how my son will benefit in the future from the documenting I am currently doing. I spend the next part of our time discussing tips and tricks for filming and documenting their little ones. I talk about many of the things discussed in my earlier blog posts, as well as help them with issues they may currently have with the tools that they are using.
The final part of the event consists of my attendees writing a letter to their children for a special event in the future. I then film the attendees reading this letter to their child and get some great shots of them interacting with their baby. I also get some footage of the letter itself in order to capture the emotion that can only be expressed in one's handwriting. Within the week following the event, I edit it together with some photos that they provide me to create a mini time capsule.
If you currently are in the Los Angeles area and are interested in attending one of my events or hosting one, please contact me. If you are not local, you can check out my next blog post on how you can host your own time capsule event in your town.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Editing Tips for Home Movies
Happy New Year! I hope you captured some wonderful footage of your little one(s) over the holidays with family and friends. If you've been keeping up with my posts thus far, you should have an abundance of videos of photos of your little one. Unless your little one has yet to arrive, then you probably have a very long list of photos and videos you will want to create. Nevertheless, at a certain point you're going to have to do something with those videos, because you're phone can only hold so much data. As much as it kills me to delete photos and videos of my little guy off of my phone, I know that I have to from time to time in order to make room for MORE photos and videos of my little guy. Make sure you back everything up before deleting anything. I would recommend on-site and off-site back-up. Considering our house caught on fire when I was in the hospital giving birth (thankfully there was mainly just smoke damage), you would think I would take my own advice on that, but I digress.
Editing is actually when the storytelling happens in unscripted material. Just watch the credits at the end of your favorite reality show, there are actually "writers." They don't necessarily tell the "actors" what to say, but they go through all of the footage and create a story out of the hours and hours of chatter. This may seem like a daunting task for your home videos, and that's when you can hire someone else to step in and create the story for you and your family, but it actually can be pretty fun once you get started.
The first thing you will probably need to do will be to find a program to edit your footage in. There are a number of online editing programs that are rather user-friendly as well as simple editing software options for Macs and PCs. There are tons of online tutorials that can make you a sufficient editor without too much time and hassle. Make sure that you know at least how to pick in and out points of the clips you want to use, how to add in simple transitions and titles, and how to export a final file that you can either display online or use to create a DVD.
Once you have chosen the program, you may have to convert your footage into a recognizable file format for your editing software. If you don't know what format your footage is already in, do a quick Google search of the camera (or phone) you're filming with and the word "codec" and you'll be able to find out. Then you can put that codec into Google and the name of the software you'll be editing with to see if they are compatible. If not, again you can search for online tutorials on how to convert the footage into a useable format. In my case, I had to run all of my iPhone videos and my husband's Galaxy videos through Compressor before I could bring them into Final Cut Pro.
Okay, so now you've got footage ready to edit and a program to edit it in, congratulations, now the real fun begins. Watch all of the footage...a few times. You'll start to see that some clips are more useful than others when it comes to telling the story. Really ask yourself if that clip shows a new milestone, is just too cute not to include, or shows the same thing in a different outfit. Or perhaps the video may include your little one interacting someone else that isn't around very often or may not be around for very long, then you'll want to include it to show to your child in the future.
Now that you've figured out which clips are the most important to include to tell your story, now it's time to really pick out those important moments in each clip. Each clip should be at least ten seconds, but really not longer than twenty when creating a montage for others to enjoy. If you find a clip that you definitely want to use more than twenty seconds of, see if you can divide it into two or more different clips and cut out some footage in between and then connect them with transitions. This way you'll really keep the story moving and your viewers interested.
Depending upon the software you're using to edit, you may be able to add in titles and drop in photos to fill in the gaps in the story when you weren't able to capture video footage, as well as add in a music track. Definitely put in dates and age in months when the footage or photo depict a milestone, especially if you are not keeping a traditional baby book as well. Transitions, such as cross dissolves and fade out/fade in are a nice touch to move from clip to clip. Try to stay away from some of the "cheesier" transitions that will cheapen your story. Remember, the video you are making is about the subjects in the video, not your editing. A rule of thumb to remember, if the editing calls attention to itself, then you're doing something wrong. Cuts should feel motivated and have a nice flow to them.
If you want more specific tips on cutting clips, I will include those in a future blog post. In the meantime, feel free to see some of my storytelling in the video baby book samples on my website.
Editing is actually when the storytelling happens in unscripted material. Just watch the credits at the end of your favorite reality show, there are actually "writers." They don't necessarily tell the "actors" what to say, but they go through all of the footage and create a story out of the hours and hours of chatter. This may seem like a daunting task for your home videos, and that's when you can hire someone else to step in and create the story for you and your family, but it actually can be pretty fun once you get started.
The first thing you will probably need to do will be to find a program to edit your footage in. There are a number of online editing programs that are rather user-friendly as well as simple editing software options for Macs and PCs. There are tons of online tutorials that can make you a sufficient editor without too much time and hassle. Make sure that you know at least how to pick in and out points of the clips you want to use, how to add in simple transitions and titles, and how to export a final file that you can either display online or use to create a DVD.
Once you have chosen the program, you may have to convert your footage into a recognizable file format for your editing software. If you don't know what format your footage is already in, do a quick Google search of the camera (or phone) you're filming with and the word "codec" and you'll be able to find out. Then you can put that codec into Google and the name of the software you'll be editing with to see if they are compatible. If not, again you can search for online tutorials on how to convert the footage into a useable format. In my case, I had to run all of my iPhone videos and my husband's Galaxy videos through Compressor before I could bring them into Final Cut Pro.
Okay, so now you've got footage ready to edit and a program to edit it in, congratulations, now the real fun begins. Watch all of the footage...a few times. You'll start to see that some clips are more useful than others when it comes to telling the story. Really ask yourself if that clip shows a new milestone, is just too cute not to include, or shows the same thing in a different outfit. Or perhaps the video may include your little one interacting someone else that isn't around very often or may not be around for very long, then you'll want to include it to show to your child in the future.
Now that you've figured out which clips are the most important to include to tell your story, now it's time to really pick out those important moments in each clip. Each clip should be at least ten seconds, but really not longer than twenty when creating a montage for others to enjoy. If you find a clip that you definitely want to use more than twenty seconds of, see if you can divide it into two or more different clips and cut out some footage in between and then connect them with transitions. This way you'll really keep the story moving and your viewers interested.
Depending upon the software you're using to edit, you may be able to add in titles and drop in photos to fill in the gaps in the story when you weren't able to capture video footage, as well as add in a music track. Definitely put in dates and age in months when the footage or photo depict a milestone, especially if you are not keeping a traditional baby book as well. Transitions, such as cross dissolves and fade out/fade in are a nice touch to move from clip to clip. Try to stay away from some of the "cheesier" transitions that will cheapen your story. Remember, the video you are making is about the subjects in the video, not your editing. A rule of thumb to remember, if the editing calls attention to itself, then you're doing something wrong. Cuts should feel motivated and have a nice flow to them.
If you want more specific tips on cutting clips, I will include those in a future blog post. In the meantime, feel free to see some of my storytelling in the video baby book samples on my website.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Why Create a Video Montage of Baby's First Year?
Even though my son turned one two months ago, it is still settling in that I have a one year old! I am so glad that I took the time to create a one year montage for his first birthday party. Although a great deal of my footage is shot from an iPhone or other cellular device, it was so crazy to watch his progression during the first year edited together into a thirty minute video with fun music and titles. I stressed myself out to have the cut ready for his birthday party to play on loop on a television, but the truth is that it really was a video for my family and eventually for my son to watch himself grow during the biggest developmental year of his life.
When Xander was first born, each day seemed to take forever. I was just trying to fill our days with something until nighttime when I could actually get a little bit of sleep. I wanted to engage him and expose him to developmentally appropriate things, but every day was somewhat of a challenge to do so. I was in love with my little guy, don't get me wrong, but adjusting to life with a newborn for the first time was very daunting. Even though filming his twitches during sleep or playing on his activity mat did not seem like such a big deal at the time because I was watching him do these things every day, at the end of the first year you do start to forget those little details and I am so glad I captured them on video. With the video footage edited into a montage, I'm able to not only see them over and over again in the context of his development during the year, but I don't have to scroll through copious videos on my phone to find them among everything else I have shot. In addition, editing only the best part of each video makes the whole thirty minutes very interesting and engaging to watch.
Some of the friends and family who attended his first birthday had only experienced bits and pieces of his first year, some had never even met him. Allowing all of them to get a unique inside look at the ridiculous amount of changes he has already been through in such a short period of time made his birthday party even more about celebrating that whole first year not only for Xander, but for us as parents as well. Overall, a video montage covering such an important year was key for me and I hope to be able to help other parents create lasting memories with their own home movies as well.
When Xander was first born, each day seemed to take forever. I was just trying to fill our days with something until nighttime when I could actually get a little bit of sleep. I wanted to engage him and expose him to developmentally appropriate things, but every day was somewhat of a challenge to do so. I was in love with my little guy, don't get me wrong, but adjusting to life with a newborn for the first time was very daunting. Even though filming his twitches during sleep or playing on his activity mat did not seem like such a big deal at the time because I was watching him do these things every day, at the end of the first year you do start to forget those little details and I am so glad I captured them on video. With the video footage edited into a montage, I'm able to not only see them over and over again in the context of his development during the year, but I don't have to scroll through copious videos on my phone to find them among everything else I have shot. In addition, editing only the best part of each video makes the whole thirty minutes very interesting and engaging to watch.
Some of the friends and family who attended his first birthday had only experienced bits and pieces of his first year, some had never even met him. Allowing all of them to get a unique inside look at the ridiculous amount of changes he has already been through in such a short period of time made his birthday party even more about celebrating that whole first year not only for Xander, but for us as parents as well. Overall, a video montage covering such an important year was key for me and I hope to be able to help other parents create lasting memories with their own home movies as well.
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