This short video is a trailer to a 5 part Travel Video series about an adventure in a little sea side village called Hermanus which is famous for whale watching. There was just so much to see and do that only showing a short video like this didnt quite do our trip justice. So what do you do?
Break it down, then break it down again.
If you think about it, a TV series is actually just a really really long movie with one overlying story arc. What makes a series engaging is the individual stories representing each episode. And within an episode there are mini stories. (Honestly i can keep going, read up on the next level here: It's called micro stories) But lets just stop there for a moment and look at the top two levels.
Break it Down 1.
DECIDING WHAT THE BIG STORY IS.
The overall arc of our story is: We are going on a two day vacation trip to see as much of Hermanus as possible. We knew the whale watching season had just begun but were more interested in making a video about what else one can do here.
Break it down 2.
DECIDING IF TO HIGHLIGHT EACH ACTIVITY OR SHOWCASE IT. This is a major decision you need to think about before you start filming anything. It all depends on the outcome you wish to have. If you have been doing this for a while you may want to capture ALL the details of each place you visit (like we did). This SHOWCASE style is a little more time consuming if you don't know what you are doing.
Perhaps you are new to this and just want to make HIGHLIGHT montages to share with your friends or on Instagram. For this you only need a handful of easy shots of each place.
Break it down 3.
ONCE DECIDED ON THE STYLE, FILM EACH PIECE ON IT'S OWN. In the two days we visited about 18 different places and filmed a 2-3min video at each stop. This is the easiest way to manage your footage and get the editing done fast!! (More on footage management in the online course)
You can now upload each one to Instagram or Facebook as an individual video and technically be done with it. But if you looking for a bigger following we suggest you take it a step further and build it up again.
Build it back up 1.
Now that you have, let's say, 15 x 2min videos. Its time to stick them back to back in the most logical order. This is usually the order they really happened in. Stack them up so that you have a 30min video and decide on chapter markers where you could end an episode. This would be after every 3-5 videos.
BIG TIP - when you know you shooting these series style videos its always good to keep extra footage to bridge between videos. Example: "Wow that was great next up we going to ...." You won't need these as individual videos but they are great for series.
Build it back up 2.
Add an overlap section at the end of each episode. When you preparing each episode take the best 4 or 5 highlight clips from the next video and put it at the end of the previous one as a teaser of whats to come next.
The last thing you will want to do is make a Highlight Montage of all the best clips as a trailer to get people interested.
Only starting out? Quickly master the making of the small highlight videos.
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how to prepare, shoot and edit Experience Travelvids like this
using ONLY your mobile phone. It's not as hard as you think!