5 Easy Ways to Take Better Videos on your Travels

Travelers, if you’re like me, you’re wondering how to take better videos while you travel. Well, Annabelle Needles with Evergreen Lane Productions is here to help us! In her guest blog post below, she explains 5 easy ways to take better videos on your travels. Thank you, Annabelle!

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If you’re like me, you love that your smartphone has made taking photos and videos of your travels super easy and accessible. However, on the flip side, this means that often we take hundreds of photos and video clips on our travels but they end up just disappearing into the digital void, never to be seen or enjoyed again. So how can we be sure that we’re taking great videos on our epic vacations (the family reunion where multiple generations are all together, the epic honeymoon you splurged on, the precious girls weekend after you’ve all become mothers)? I’m here to help, with 5 easy ways to take better videos on your travels. Yes, even with your iPhone!

5 Easy Ways to Take Better Videos on Your Travels

1. Choose a camera orientation and stick to it

Smartphones can take video in two modes, landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical). Social media videos like Instagram stories are training us to hold our phones vertically to take and watch videos. That being said, I highly recommend that if you’re going to want to watch your videos on a computer or a TV later, shoot your videos in landscape orientation. This is especially the case if you’re wanting to edit them together afterward into a mini-movie of your trip. As a video editor, I often see clients send me videos in both landscape AND portrait, which makes it more difficult to actually integrate those videos together. The most important thing to consider here is consistency – choose one way to hold your camera while recording video and stick to it throughout your whole trip.

2. Capture a variety of types of video clips

We all have a favorite type of photo or video to take on trips. For me, that’s wide shots of scenery or close-ups of flowers. My husband likes to take selfies upon selfies. The important thing to remember while taking video on your travels is to capture a wide variety of types of videos and not get stuck in one “style.” A video full of pretty views is going to be beautiful but won’t tell much of a story. Same with a video with just flower close-ups or just selfies. Think of it like this: to make interesting writing, you need nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Mix it up and your final video will be able to tell a more complete story of your vacation.

3. Get as stable as possible

This strange thing happens when we’re watching back video clips later – we could have sworn our hands were so steady but in reality, we were moving all over the place and the video isn’t very fun to watch! Here are some quick tips to increase the stability of your video footage. Don’t hold your breath – sometimes we do this without thinking when we’re concentrating, but slow, even breaths will help your hands stay steady. Keep your hands close to you; the further you extend your arms away from your body, the shakier they get! If possible, use a prop like a wall or a chair as a makeshift tripod and rest your camera on top while you’re filming. I know not everyone has space or budget to invest in video-taking tools, but if you do, I highly recommend a smartphone gimbal. You can see all my gear recommendations here!

4. Count to ten when filming

It’s true that I often use only 2-3 seconds of a video clip in a final video, but few things are worse than when I want to show something for a little bit longer…and the clip just stops! You can always trim video clips in editing later, but you can’t go back in time and film something again, especially if it’s halfway around the world. I recommend simply counting to ten while you’re recording.

5. Focus on the five senses

When you’re taking video, you’ll be focused primarily on the things you can see. Smell-o-vision doesn’t exist yet, of course. However, the things that will trigger your memories best when watching a video later are elements that engage your other senses too – like the sound of the sea waves, the taste of that delicious street food, or the smell of the flowers outside your hotel window. When I was editing an heirloom travel film of a client’s family reunion in Provence, simply watching the videos she took in the lavender fields took me right back to my own trip there many years ago, and I could almost smell the abundant purple flowers through my computer.

For more video-taking tips, monthly prompts to help you capture your adventures on video, and a free guide to smartphone video, sign up here.

If you’d like to get a custom heirloom travel film edited by Evergreen Lane Productions, message Annabelle today to get started.

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Annabelle Needles is a video editor and owner of Evergreen Lane Productions, on a mission to help memory makers get their videos off their phones and into their lives. With more than 10 years of experience in video production, she believes in demystifying the process and making documenting your life as accessible, easy, and meaningful as possible. She also loves to travel, having visited all 7 continents before 30 and spent 13 months living that RV life road-tripping around the US with her husband. They had a destination wedding in Belize. Now, the videos from all these experiences are some of her most valued possessions. Follow her wonder-seeking adventures on Instagram @evergreen_lane.