How To Tips For Making Video Of Your Two-Week Trip |Travel Tech Gadgets

Dec 25, 2017

How To Tips For Making Video Of Your Two-Week Trip

The secret of making 180-sec video travelogues of a two-week trip

This is a guest post by Helen Clark from www.videocaddy.com
A blog post that discusses the best ways to condense your two-week trip into a 180-second travelogue

There are some real challenges to address when you are tasked with creating a short video from a long trip. The primary one is time. How can you possibly organize and present all that’s happened over two weeks into a tight 180-second window? As with many aspects of travel videography, the key to creating a short travelogue that captures the essence of your two-week trip comes down to good planning and smart decisions.

Plan your storyline

Your planning and decision process starts before you pack your cameras. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to shoot footage over the course of two weeks, but much of it may be unusable if you don’t have a plan for what you’re going to do with it. Here are some common ways you can structure the storyline of your video to keep it concise and on message.

Travel guide – A travel guide is a pretty straightforward travel videography technique. A travel guide isn’t so much about your experiences, but a way to let your viewer get a feel for a particular location. One common approach is to look at top attractions, like “Top 5 Things to Do in New York City.” You don’t have to be specific. For example, your NYC video might list “Museums” as an activity and list several, rather than one.
Vlog – Unlike a travel guide, a vlog concentrates on your trip and your impressions. This approach to travel videography will use a lot of selfie-style shots and incorporate your on-the-scene narration or recorded voice-overs. You can structure the video chronologically or break down your trip into categories, like sight-seeing, activities, dining, night-life, and so on.
Montage – A montage can take many forms, but usually works best when you concentrate on action and activities. This is a naturalistic form of travel videography – emphasize feel, rather than trying to tell a specific story.
Special interest – Special interest travel videography will concentrate on one aspect of your trip. Think, “Golfing in the Bahamas,” and keep the focus on that activity, with maybe a few quick montages of other activities, like the spa, dining, and so on.

Plan ahead

Going on your trip with a storyline planned out will help you get the kind of footage you need for your travelogue. Physical planning is also important. Be sure you’ve made a comprehensive gear list and planned ahead for other important logistical details like lodging, permits, and transportation.

Have the right gear

Consider where and what you’ll be shooting so you can be prepared. If you’ll be doing a lot of landscape and scenic shots, consider taking a drone for dramatic aerial views. If sound will be an important part of your travelogue, equip yourself with a variety of microphones and booms for different situations. Two items you should always have are a sturdy but portable tripod, and a couple of hard drives for backing up your daily footage.

Take your time with the edits

The first cut isn’t always the best cut. Take the time to experiment when you’re in the editing suite, and critically appraise the different sections of your video. You want to ensure that your travel videography truly captures the essence of the location you’ve visited, so it’s worth taking the extra time to rearrange footage, play around with different music, and swap different shots in and out. Careful and creative editing is one of the keys to producing an attention-grabbing travelogue.

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