How To Make Better Home Videos

Trying to figure something out…

For the past week we have been running TCA at Sea, in partnership with Crystal Cruises.

As I write this we’re off the coast of Mozambique, headed north to Zanzibar, our next port of call.

Yeah, life is hard.

We’re running a whole spectrum of video training courses on the ship, and of course, we have never done anything like this before so we’re figuring it out as we go.

The first thing we figured out is that the vast majority of passengers on a round-the-world cruise do not want to become documentary film makers, or even produce cable reality shows (shocking!). What they universally want to do is to make better home movies (or videos).

Most people on this ship are vintage travelers. Some are on their 30th or 40th trip… some on their 40th around the world.

They know how to travel.

And most of them carry a video camera with them when they go.

It’s almost a matter of habit.

Now, here is the interesting thing: Even though they shoot video all the time, most of them never watch it. They never watch it themselves, let along inflict it on friends and neighbors.

This seems to be fairly standard.

And why don’t they watch it?

“Becuase”, they say, almost to the person, “its boring”.

And, of course, it is boring.

When people take out a video camera, they tend to shoot everything that happens in real time. Also, almost no one edits their own stuff.

So when they come back with hours and hours of The Great Wall of China – in real time, it is unwatchable.

But there’s a challenge here, and a great opportunity.

What is home video – or rather, what should or could it be?

When George Eastman brought home photography to millions, he also introduced the notion of editing, even if defacto.

Cameras were limited to 24 or 36 exposures.

So when you photographed, you inherently limited the number of shots you took.

When the prints came back, you culled through them, threw out the worst, and put the very best in a photo album. That was editing as well.

When my father shot home 8mm movies when we were kids, each film only ran 3 minutes. He was also careful in what he shot.  And film and processing were so expensive, he might shoot a total of 30 minutes of raw material on a week long trip.

Today, one ramification of the digital revolution is that memory is cheap and you can shoot endless hours of video -either on tape or card or disc, and it costs nothing. There is no natural incentive to stop. Even with VHS tapes, people just rolled on and on and on. And in those days there was no editing.

But now, with simple digital transfers and simple digital editing software, it’s a whole new ballgame.

We can take the old ‘home movie’ and turn it into a real movie – music, text, story line, good shooting.

But what should it look like? What should it contain?

Is there a template of sorts?

Over the next two and a half weeks, from here to Mumbai, I am going to try and figure this one out.

One thing I know already and that is that these things have to contain people.

A few weeks ago, back in New York, I started to cull through some old photos that my father had taken of our trip to Europe in 1967.  90% of this photos were of buildings and monuments. Universally uninteresting probably then and certainly now. The amazing stuff is the stuff of my mother, my sister, my relatives.  People. And more everyday things than standing in front of a monument.  Making breakfast.  Driving the car.  It’s a bit like watching Mad Men sometimes. Look! There’s that old toaster! Look how we dressed.

So I am learning what makes compelling video.

Slowly.

I’ll show you the results as soon as we start cutting stuff.

Let me know what you think.