Creating Great Birthday Party Videos

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Creating Great Birthday Party Videos

By Colton Wright, Digz-it.com

My son recently had his third birthday party and it was mayhem. There were kids all over the place doing all sorts of funny things with parents following them about trying to prevent the next catastrophe. Believe it or not, this environment does for a fantastic video. The key is to plan a little before heading to into the chaos.

Sequence of Activities 1st think in general terms simply about the sequence of events that go into a party. At first, all you may envision are children running about and the better strategy is to sit back, and tape events as they occur from a safe, comfortable distance. After all, how can you possibly control how your video will turn out with the certain lawlessness that will ensue? Well, the answer is to pick your spots. The ‘spots’ I’m talking simply about are those more creative moments you don’t want to miss.

Preparty • The birthday will list • Causing invitations • Purchasing the cake • Decorating • Creating goodie bags

Party Time • Friends arrive with presents • Everyone gets comfortable • Recreation arrives • Lots of laughing, singing, dancing, kazooing (is that a word?). • Let the games begin • The Birthday Procession • Now the real mess: cake and ice cream • Finally, the presents • The goodie bags and farewell

Perspective To actually do a great birthday video, be creative and think simply about the earth through a child’s eyes for a moment. Kids get excited for a reason. They have all their friends over, most rules go out the door, and there are games, cake, ice cream, and presents; what else could do a child more excited? On top of this, your child is right in the middle of it all, loosing their breath trying to support track of who’s doing what, where, how and why. The goal is to capture that excitement, and it doesn’t mean standing in the corner, lofty 6 feet over the scene panning back and forth with a wide angle lens filming. You’re going to have to do several extreme photography for a few minutes and get down in the action.

Walk Through Now let’s get creative. What I would-be like to do is walk through the party and give you several examples of creative camera activity that will do your videos more exciting to film, edit and share. I don’t expect you to use all of these ideas in one video, but victimisation simply a few will improve your storytelling dramatically.

Preparty tape recording Tape recording all the preparty items will probably only take less than 10 minutes in total but this video will come in handy once editing. These moments are difficult to plan, so an idea is to support your video camera fully charged and in an easy to reach spot. This way once the discussion of what they want for their birthday comes up, you’ll be able to capture the moment quickly.

The preparty video you tape will be good flashback material. For example, as you tape your child opening their favorite present, you may want to include a brief flashback to once they at the start told you what they wanted and how bad they wanted it. Flashbacks can likewise be used to show before and after shots of the cake or your house before and after the destruction.

The Party One of the better techniques to do your final video more exciting is to create a few scenes wherever the viewer experiences the party from the child’s perspective. These are unremarkably called point of view shots. This involves effort down to their level, literally.

Friends arrive with presents This is a great possibleness for capturing several exciting conversations between the children as they arrive. Try to get your son or girl to greet the 1st few arrivals. Kneel down and tape over their shoulder so that the person they are speaking to takes up peradventure 2/3 of the frame. For the effect, it should be recorded from the height of the kids. For a more dramatic, meeting of the minds, effect, come the camera about so that it is looking slightly up at the two as they talk. Or, start over the shoulder of one of the subjects and come about to the shoulder of the other.

Note: An important comment is in order here. If you are photography inside during the day, do sure that you are positioned between your subject and the outside light source (ie. your windows). The primary reasons for this are 1) natural light is an superior light source and 2) if you shoot a darkened subject against a bright background, the auto-exposure on your camera will compensate for the bright background and darken your subject further. You will fundamentally end up with a really dark subject (underexposed) with little color and a really bright, white background. Actually, this is the opposite effect of taking a night, flash icon outdoors of your friends against a beautiful city skyline. Your friends end up too bright (overexposed) and the background is entirely black.

Everyone gets comfortable If your party is at a playground with a slide and swing set, then take the camera down the slide or on the swing set. Climb on the jungle gym and hold your camera knee high and chase the kids. You can manifestly do the same at indoor play areas or at house as the children play with the toys. As you edit your video, you can activity in these point of view clips.

Recreation Arrives A typical setup for an Recreation scene is wherever the children are gathered together and watch a performance. A good shot is to sit behind the children and peer through the crowd at the performer. Then shoot a few close ups of the children’s faces from behind the performer. If the kids stand up and dance or play a game, stand with them, hold the camera knee high and mingle. You can edit these point of view clips to create a good final scene.

Let the Games Begin Playing games is one of the highlights of being a kid. Try to immerse your viewer in the moment and capture the excitement. One of my son’s friends had a piñata at their birthday party. You can create a great scene by photography another point of view shot before the party begins. Hold the camera and stick together so the stick is visible in the shot. Wave the stick about and pretend to hit the piñata. Once you are at the party, and the children have gathered for the fun, stand in the center with your camera knee high and turn about a few times. Now, step back and tape the actual blindfolding and stick waving from a distance. Your final emended clip will include your child being blindfolded, spun about (from their point of view), the stick trying to locate the piñata (from its point of view) and finally the candy and toys that result from a direct hit.

The Birthday Procession Many an several birthday traditions exist in the earth but the one most followed by Americans is the birthday cake with candles, a happy birthday song, a will and processing out the candles. Birthdays were originally reserved for royalty, thus the crowns kids often wear at parties. Tape recording this scene could have a royal feeling to it as you tape a close up of the lighting of the candles, the act of due process of law to the table with the cake, the singing, the will and finally the attempt to blow them all out. Try and create the feeling of a grand gathering, victimisation a wide angle to capture all the family and friends who attended. This does a scene fit for a King or Queen.

Now the Real Mess: Cake and Ice Cream This is a great possibleness to capture several video of several cute mussy faces. Tape a few face close-ups and several wide angle shots of the scene. Once you edit the video, try victimisation the slow motion function as a scoop of ice cream falls off a cone or as the cake doesn’t quite do it into a mouth. Or, try increasing the speed of the scene spell writing and show the kids esurient their whole plate of cake and ice cream in under 10 seconds. Victimisation various speeds can do these scenes actually funny.

Finally, the Presents Opening the presents is a more fun for parents as it is for their children. Bring the camera level with your child’s eyes and catch their reaction as they open their gifts. If you’re actually ambitious, you can cut a hole in the bottom of a box, push the camera lens against the hole and film as they open the box. Place som ething silly in the box so once they open it, you capture their smile. In addition, the video you taped prior to the party of your son or girl explaining what they wanted for their birthday can be used here as a flashback. It’s sorcerous to see a child’s wishes come true.

The Goodie Bags and Farewell The goodie bags and the mess are all that is left. Try to put a fun item in the goodie bags that the kids can wear. A few ideas include a funny clown nose, silly glasses, candy lips, or tiaras. You can gather the kids together at the end for a funny shot of their new identities. Have them wave arrivederci to the camera for the farewell scene.

Parting Words I hope that you have a better understanding of how to create a more exciting birthday video victimisation various camera angles and writing techniques. Remember that the goal is to fit simply a few of these ideas into your finished video. You can accomplish your goal with simply a little planning and by picking your spots at the party. With a little thought, you can adapt these ideas to any party situation. Nice luck and have fun!

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Colton Wright a writer for http://www.digz-it.com , a video and icon sharing website targeted to families.

Copyright 2005 by Colton Wright, Digz-it.com