I have made a few mini movies lately, YouTube style, for RealityAllStarz. In the process I searched around online for tips for making short movies for online consumption and was surprised by how sparse the advice is! After going through the process a few times and reading what advice is out there, here are the basic steps for beginners with simple tips for creating short movies:
General Tips
- Keep the whole video five minutes or less. People have a short attention span online.
- Get straight to the point. People decide in the first 15 seconds if they will keep watching.
- Good movies have a rhythm: have short clips, about 10 seconds each.
- If you have a head shot narrative that is taking too long, mix in video or pictures and use the head shot narrative as a voice over.
- Use text overlays to provide context.
- Avoid always putting the primary object of your video in the center of the screen.
Steps
1. Create video- Use your digital camera, it has high enough resolution for online movies.
- Take a lot of short clips, rather than one long continuous one.
- Tell people what you want while you are recording, knowing you can remove your voice later.
- Give yourself a few extra seconds of recording before and after the action for easier editing later.
- Use strong lighting, angled from the side.
- Expect that for 20 minutes of recording, you will crop the video down to 3-5 minutes.
- I use Movie Maker for the PC, it is very simple to use and you can get it free online. My Mac friends use Final Cut but I do not know anything about it.
- Movie editors come with a timeline where you can arrange your clips by time and play them. Put your videos in all together so you can have a feel for the overall picture.
- Crop crop crop. Seriously, if you are remotely bored or not interested, your audience will definitely be bored.
- To crop middle sections, you “split” the clip into sub clips and delete the ones that are boring.
- Fades are most common. Fades connotate the passage of time between clips. If you want to give the impression there was no passage of time, do not use a transition.
- Avoid getting too fancy with the transitions.
- Add the title, credits, and text overlays.
- Text overlays are good for adding context.
- Music is key! Find anything that fits the mood you are trying to create.
- Ideally, find music that is “open source” so you do not make anyone mad.
- Add in more narrative or voice over if needed.
8. Save as movie, and upload!
