Moving pictures have captured our imagination from the wonder of silent-films just over a 100 years ago to YouTube today. YouTube is now one of the most powerful platforms on the Internet. Video is changing the world fast, as people are being exposed to more and more information than ever. These videos serve as invaluable educational content as well as niche pockets of entertainment to suit every personality type on the globe. What was once a complicated task that took an entire production crew to produce, is now possible, by yourself, using your iPhone. The animated paintings in Harry Potter are about to go from fantasy to reality.

As an outdoorsy type, I’m a firm believer of not living through technology. This is especially true for living through your lens. Living in the moment is the most important thing about experiencing something, but our attached-at-the-hip technology has changed our behaviour and made us feel anxious that we are not leaving a big enough digital footprint behind. Enter the pseudo-instagrammer. An obsession with capturing everything from your bacon-avo sandwich & the Dalmatian shaped cappuccino-foam to your new pair of shoes. Hiking up Table Mountain MUST be documented to tell your friends, family & the world: I was here. And what’s wrong with that? I personally love sharing my experiences with my mom, who lives far away. The obvious way has always been to capture a snapshot that you can quickly post to your favourite platform. Its quick & its easy. But in reality you spend all day looking for that one photo that captures your experience. 100 photos later you still at it. Taking one this way and taking one that way. At some point this becomes no different to those days in the 90’s when your friends drag you through endless hours of home video footage after their return from Egypt. In reality it takes a pretty skilled photographer to capture all the action & emotion of an experience in a single moment.

‘Instagram is not going anywhere, but video content is killing the photo-star.’

On the other hand you have the option of capturing some video clips. We all know how this story goes too. You end up regrettably uploading one long video clip in which you try to capture everything in one go by flailing the camera around explaining this & that. Then the rest of the clips sits & clog up your iPhone memory. Eventually you put them in a folder on your computer labeled “to sort out”, one day, never. Sound familiar?

It doesn’t have to be like this. Video technology is improving to make your life easier & easier, but you still need some basic knowledge on how to bridge the gap between filming clips & creating amazing short memory videos. Im going to give you the 5 steps that make this all become easy.

1. Know what to film.
2. Know how to film.
3. Know when to film.
4. Know how to keep organised.
5. Know how to edit quickly.

All of these points are very closely related to each other. They are more of a process than separate topics. If I had to reshuffle them into a new order that makes sense it would go like this: By knowing HOW & WHEN to film WHAT you came to film, you can keep your clips ORGANISED in such a way as to be able to EDIT QUICKLY. Essentially capturing video is actually easier than capturing a great photo. You can very quickly tell an elaborate story using a series of shots & words in a video. The demand for this kind of video is growing faster than we can imagine, and its only a matter of time before everyone understands that self produced video will wipe out the amateur photographer. Instagram is not going anywhere, but video content is killing the photo-star.