Top Ten Tips for DIY Videography

This piece is written by Misha Sundukovskiy, Eventbrite’s fearless videographer.

In an era where content is king and over 100 hours of footage is uploaded to Youtube every minute, it’s easy to forget that it takes a lot of time and effort to create content that’s compelling, that tells a good story. Enter the modern videographer: project manager, writer, director, producer, shooter, editor extraordinaire. If you want to be a DIY Videographer, be ready to do it all.

With that in mind, here are some tips every DIY Videographer should take to heart before embarking on their next DIY video project:

1. Before you start, ask yourself: “What’s the story that I’m trying to tell?”

Call this a brainstorm, call it a creative brief, call it whatever, just take some real time to consider what it is you’re trying to say. Whether its a 6 second Vine video or a feature length documentary, the good ones all tell a story. Think about what your subject is. Think about how long you want the video to be. Pick some reference videos or photos or magazine clippings so you can concretely communicate your ideas to a collaborator. And stay away from vague, ambiguous language – like “commercially”, “innovative”, or “cutting-edge” that means something different to everyone.

2. Understand your audience.
Who is this video for? Is it for a room full of suits? Next year’s music fest attendees? Knowing your audience will shape the way you approach telling your story. Don’t get me wrong, some of the greatest works in cinematic history weren’t made for the audience, the audience came because the work was brilliant. But save that for your next Citizen Kane attempt, and consider who’s watching your stuff, now.

3. Shot List!

This is critical for anything scripted. And it actually applies to live events, too. The worst thing any videographer can hear when showing up to film is, “just get everything”. That statement is simultaneously overwhelming and impossible. Take the time to think about which wide shots you’d like, which guests, attendees, or characters are important to the story, and what types of B-Roll, close ups, and cutaways you need to tell your story. This will help you craft your piece, later.

4. Know your locations.

In an ideal world, you do a location scout of every location before you film there. However, especially in the videography world, time and budget don’t allow for this. In turn, it becomes very important to find out the lighting conditions of each location. Are there big windows that will provide a lot of natural light during the day? If it’s at night time, how will the location be lit? Most times, evening events are dimly lit resulting in the need for faster lenses or external lighting units – whether they are on your camera, or off of it. Knowing these things ahead of time and planning accordingly is crucial. I can’t emphasize this enough. CRUCIAL.

5. Know your gear.

This one falls more on professional videographers than the people who hire them, but if you do hire a videographer, you’ll be much more prepared to have an intelligent discussion if you take a little time to familiarize yourself with some basics. Camera technology is evolving faster than ever, so I won’t overwhelm you with details, but here are some basics…

6. Audio! AUDIO! AUDIO!

Audio is of the utmost importance. There have literally been studies about this concluding that people will watch video with crappy image quality as long as it sounds good, but they won’t watch amazing looking videos that have gross audio.

Audio is a technical craft on its own, and we could spend an entire post about it, but remember these basic principles:

7. Get more than what you think you need.

While you’re shooting, you should always try to get a few extra shots that aren’t in your shot list. This is a personal thing that I’ve grown to love. It doesn’t take that much effort to concentrate for a few more minutes and say, “Okay, I got what I need, now what’s fun about this space, this scene, these people?” There have been many times that these extra shots have saved the day in my edit. And logistically speaking, it never hurts to have a little more, but you’ll most likely never be able to go back and reshoot. Especially if it’s a live event!

8. Try to capture people in candid moments.

The best moments are during candid experiences when people aren’t trying to “play it up” for the camera. The trick is finding these moments. It takes diligence and practice as a camera operator to do it, but it’s well worth it. There are definitely people that know how to be natural on camera, but most people don’t and as soon as they are aware that a camera is floating around them they either tense up or over-act. Both of which look cheesy on camera.

9. Discuss revisions and edits ahead of time.

Lay down the expectations from the get go. How long is this video going to be? How many rounds of editing revisions do you plan to have? All of these things matter and can add daysss to the process. Be clear, be professional, and don’t be afraid to bring it up even if the people you’re working with don’t. People will respect you more for it.

10. File structuring and backups!

Organization is important. And it saves a lot of time in the long run. Make sure you have a clearly thought out file structure and repeat it for each project that you do. There’s no standard for this, but I like breaking it down into three main folders…

And back this stuff up! Don’t let a crashed drive rain on your video parade.

I hope this helps you 🙂

If anyone wants to reach out to me directly with any questions, I’d love to hear from you. Holla at ya boy.

My e-mail is misha@eventbrite.com
My twitter is @sunduko
My instagram is @instamisha