Making Memories out of Moments

Words and pics are a great combo but to really make a story compelling we need to add video.

We all know this, and many of us find it too daunting.

We get brave and shoot video on our phones, review all the not so great footage, think about editing it and just… #CantEven.

Travelstart hosted an evening of gin, coffee and snacks and added a couple of speakers to demystify creating video. Here are the top tips and tricks.

Dean and Darren from Travelvids love to teach and offer a great course on how to shoot and edit video on any device.

• Before you start shooting, stop.
• Think.
• What is the story you want to tell?
• Look around, observe, consider angles and then make a quick shot list.
• Your outline can include signs, people, wide angle, close up and talking to the camera.
• Now #JustGoShoot
• There are loads of editing apps, many are free. Go and browse, play around until you find one that suits you.

They took us through the process of making a video with a combo of video and stills using Splice. Very user friendly. They also recommended Power Director which is great for Android and costs around R80.

Craig Howes was up next speaking about the reality of being a travel photographer and why you probably should not consider trying to make Instagram your main source of income.

• To be good you must be a good photographer. This requires some talent, hours and hours and hours of practice and lots of experimentation.
• A travel photographer must have a broad skillset and be able to shoot according to the brief from the client.
• You need to think on your feet and observe an unknown location fairly fast for the best angles, objects and whatever else is required to tell a compelling story.
• What will you use to capture the vibe of a new place?
• Creativity and competency in street, landscape, portrait, action, objects and food photography is important to be a successful travel photographer.
• Capturing that unique moment of someone doing something can be the highlight of the visual story so you need to be hyper aware of your surroundings all the time.
• Instagram will not sustain you so rather use it as a portfolio and be a great content creator.

Craigs top tips to rock Instagram are very clear.

• Content is king.
• Know your style, then be consistent.
• Only post your best pics. Quality is much better than quantity.
• Never, ever, ever post more than 1 pic every 3 hours.
• Build your community by engaging on Instagram.
• Grow by collab’ing, using hashtags for possible features on other accounts.

 

GoPro

Craig Rhodes-Harrison probably could have sold 15 GoPros right after his talk.

They are getting more user friendly all the time making it easier to

CAPTURE  |   EDIT   |   SHARE

The slogan “enabling stories” is a true story.

With great interfaces between your GoPro and your phone, voice activated shooting and a tiny camera that slips into your pocket, a GoPro is an essential addition to your gear.

• Craig advises playing to the strength of the equipment you are shooting with.
• Experiment a lot, know your purpose when shooting.
• GoPro apps. CAPTURE is an easy to learn editing tool. Craig also recommend Quik which is suitable for mobile and desktop.
• Good to know about are the GoPro Awards.
• Submit your unedited content into the appropriate category and you might even get some bucks.
• If GoPro use one of your stills you will get about R8000 and R15000 if they use your video footage.

Get shooting and remember to tag #WOH

Thanks to Lee Watts and the Travelstart team for bringing us this event, to WestCoastWay for the great prizes and to all the speakers for inspiring and showing us that video is not so scary after all