The art of making a short holiday film 1

(The secret of pleasing your audience)

Introduction

The disclaimer. The following series of articles is my quirky view of film-making and does not necessarily represent the views of any other member of Valley Films.

In this series I define a “short” film as one that lasts no longer than 10 minutes. My dislike of “long” films is well known amongst my friends and wider circle of acquaintances. In my opinion very few amateurs can make films longer than 10 minutes that hold the audience attention. Take note of the audience reaction to “long” amateur films when shown to a mixed audience. I guarantee that before the end someone in the audience starts a conversation.

This seldom happens with “professional” films lasting much longer than 10 minutes. Take note of this when you next visit the cinema. Why this should be is a combination of skills, ability, resources and many other factors and is beyond the remit of this article.

Like you I make holiday films to bring back memories of days gone by. Given half a chance I inflict these on long suffering family and friends. My aim in this series of articles is to help you make holiday films that preserve the memories but do not bore. They may even entertain your audience.

To explain my approach to holiday filming I will use the example of the filming of our holiday to New Zealand. (Took Jennifer, my wife with me …. there’s novel )

In the beginning

Planning is the key to success. What is your film about?

If you are shooting a holiday film what aspect of holiday do you wish to show? You can’t show everything unless you spend the whole time behind the camera in which case you are not part of the holiday, only an observer. Despite what you think, your audience is not interested in the trivia of your holiday but probably want only a flavour of your experiences.

Referring back to our New Zealand Holiday, apart from the obvious planning needed for an extended stay in a foreign country we both decided that the route of our holiday would form the basis of our holiday films. Films? That’s right we were not going to produce an hour long epic of our holiday but a series of short (3 to 5mins) films of our experiences. With the coming of DVD’s this approach is viable. This meant that our potential audience would be able to choose which and how many films they want to watch. See, already we were thinking of our audience rather than our film and this thinking followed through all of our holiday filming.

We could have chosen many different aspects i.e. Food of the region; Landscapes; Culture; Wild life etc.. This is the first step on the road to planning your film shoots. If you think this amount of planning is tedious and boring let me assure you it meant starting the enjoyment of our holiday months before we departed. Research on the Internet enabled us to modify our travel plans to take in the unusual and less visited areas of our country of choice. We discovered many things about the country that we would have missed. Even so there were still some delightful surprises during our stay.

Jennifer concentrated on still shots whilst I shot video. I believe still and moving images require different techniques and disciplines. One captures a moment of time, the other portrays an experience over a length of time. Although a keen stills photographer I have never managed to combine these disciplines during the same shoot. The final films include both our outputs and make the films truly “ours”.

This amount of planning gave us a purpose to our filming. It also reduced the amount of time spent behind the camera on holiday. After all it was the experience of our trip we wanted not a filmic record of the country. Resident professionals can do this so much better having both time and deeper knowledge of the place.

It was during this phase that I started to think of the creative possibilities of filming.

This meant:-

Brushing up on half remembered shooting techniques.
Experimenting with new ones.
Reviewing minimum filming gear to take. (We travel light.)
Consider shooting techniques to aid subsequent editing.

My hobby came alive once more. It had a purpose.

Tip

This is the time to “run in” a new camera. I know of a number of filming disappointments that have been caused by people buying a new camera days before starting out on holiday.

Next time:- Tips on shooting your holiday video.

Jeff Friend