Our secret sauce for great family reunion videos

My husband has been filming since he was 10 years old. You can imagine that he has been asked to record many family events on camera. He gladly complies with those requests – it gives him something to do and he doesn’t have to listen to Uncle Joe’s stale jokes over and over again ☺. But one thing he hates is editing the footage afterwards because it is so time-consuming. Sounds familiar? We’ve compiled some tips to you save time and help you film better family videos. Here they are:

Starring Grandma

Let’s say you’re the designated videographer for Grandma's 80th birthday and the whole family has flown in to celebrate. Make sure you show Grandma in detail – not only during her celebration but may also as she’s getting ready to go to the party. Take some close-ups of her at home and later on during the party.

Show the locale
Take what the pros call ‘establishing shots’. Is the party taking place in Grandma’s backyard? Then show the house from the driveway, take some shots of the entire backyard and then zero in on the patio where the party is going on. Are you helping to build the tent in the backyard? Put your camera on a tripod and record the process. Remember to hold still on a shot without zooming for at least 10 seconds.

Co-starring Uncle Joe and Baby Madison
Family videos live from showing the family, so don’t forget to capture everyone on camera. People will enjoy your final movie more if they see themselves in it at least once. Don’t try to record the whole group attending in one shot. Instead, focus on small groups of people at a time and during different activities. One sure crowd-pleaser is to take extensive footage of all children and animals at the event.

Remember the lighting
Lighting is one of the most tricky things when filming a family event. As a camcorder accessory you can buy mountable lights to get properly lighted footage – you’ve probably seen wedding videographers with this accessory. I wouldn’t recommend this for your average family reunion – most people don’t enjoy being filmed that way. Instead, try to take as many good shots during daylight hours and turn on available lighting at the event locale (without ruining the mood). If there are scenes you’d like to capture during the evening, get a monopod/tripod or stabilize your camcorder on a bar or tabletop.

Zooming in on the birthday cake
While a family celebration is all about the people attending, a good movie also shows some of the details of the event. Get close-ups of the birthday cake, the presents, the table decoration and even the buffet. Make sure to do this as much as you can by walking up to the objects, not by zooming in on them. Using zoom too much creates shaky and sometimes pixilated images.

Now get out there and film reunions – armed with these tips you might even get booked for your neighbor’s events ☺. And if editing it is still too much work, Pixability can do it for you. We take the tedious burden of editing off your hands and leave you to bask in the glory of being the creative genius that shot all the brilliant video footage. If you’re interested in how we do it, check out our website.