The KISS rule (Keep it Simple, Sam)

“Mr. Spielberg”, someone says. “Yes,” you answer, turning around. Spielberg indeed, or Tarantino, Lucas, Lassiter or countless others, that’s you now, armed with your new iMac and a shiny miniDV camera. Ready to take on the world. Or at least Aunt Miriam’s 30th Wedding Anniversary, coming this Spring.

By now you have read your camcorder’s manual and played around with iMovie, maybe even bought a reference book to this last one, a very good idea if you haven’t dabbled in editing before. A 5-unit DVD-R pack is standing by your Mac, waiting for you to use iDVD and share your cinematographic talent with others. So what are you waiting for? Get on with it, make good use of your investment in time and money. But before you do, just a few rules that will let others enjoy watching your movies as much as you will by making them.

Shoot me!

First of all, I’d strongly recommend you take on simple projects at the beginning, until you become familiar with your equipment, including camera, tripod, external microphone and editing/DVD creator software. A weekend trip, family picnic, birthday, there are many occasions where making a mistake won’t be as costly (measured in the Spouse Glaring Scale, or SGS) as in a wedding or anniversary, where many more relatives and friends are expecting to see something other than the lens cap you forgot to take off.

Steady as she goes

News station photographers (don’t ever call them cameramen) have the right idea: a well-framed, steady shot tells more of a story than a wild camera panning and tilting all over the place. Choose your shots carefully, just as you would with a still digital camera, as they and camcorders have a lot more in common than we have been lead to believe. It is what is framed that is important, camera moves can be good if done properly and with a purpose, otherwise they are very distracting and take people off the tale you are trying to tell.

A steady shot, with your camcorder in a tripod (you bought a tripod, right?) allows you other luxuries, such as setting focus instead of relying on the automatic setting. This is pretty decent in most cameras, but it still can’t tell the difference between a table in the foreground and your cousin Ingmar ten feet behind. Other settings, such as iris control can be left in auto for now, although eventually you’ll want to play with them, as you become more experienced.

The second KISS rule (Keep it Short)

iMovie comes with lots and lots of effects. Sound effects, video filters, all kinds of cool wipes and transitions. Don’t use them. Ever.

Well, not really. Titles can be very useful and often funny. A sepia filter or a sci-fi effect can add to the viewer experience, if used in moderation. Please do use it in moderation, I’m begging you. Overdoing effects is funny only when making the movie, so if you can’t stop yourself then by all means, use every effect available and for the whole duration of the movie. Once you are done, save the movie as “My version of Sunday’s Picnic”. Keep the original version for showing to your family and friends. They will show their gratefulness by not rolling their eyes all the way to the back and remaining awake until the end. Try it, you’ll like it.

As the second rule states, you should aim at keeping the scenes short. Trim away the fat: if nothing happens for two minutes, delete that time and use a dissolve transition (see, sometimes transitions are useful) to indicate the passage of time. If your uncle starts rambling on as usual, speed up his speech, everyone will have fun watching that, other than your uncle, but he lives across the country so you don’t see him that frequently anyway.

Keep only the footage you need to tell the story in a clear fashion. If you have bloopers, they can be shown when rolling credits at the end, that will add a professional touch to your production and leave everyone with a smile at the end. It doesn’t get better than that.

Now go have fun with your camera.