Crafting Great Travel Videos 10 Practical Tips for Excellence
In the past decade, video consumption around the world has been growing rapidly. Although videos were made famous with the launch of YouTube, new generation platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels have launched us all into a binge-watching frenzy!
In this age of social media, the quantity of videos out there is much more than we can watch in our lifetimes. Despite all this, it is still rare to find a high-quality travel video amongst all the others. Very few people who record their traveling adventures are capable of producing professional-level travel videos.
Here are ten practical tips that will help you make high-quality travel videos that people would love to binge-watch:
1. Watch Travel Videos
How do you expect to make good quality travel content without knowing what good quality travel content is? A helpful place to start is to set clear goals to mark the minimum number of videos you need to watch by the end of the week.
Watching tons of professional travel videos will give you a better idea of what you should expect from your finished piece. Your goal should be to watch enough videos to get inspired to make one of your own.
However, remember not to cross the line between taking inspiration and copying someone else’s content.
2. Visualize Your Finished Product Before Starting
It is crucial to put some planning behind the video before shooting. Knowing what you want from your video will help you capture shots that complement the type of video you want to make.
A common mistake many newbies make is to aimlessly record many irrelevant pieces of footage and spend days or even weeks trying to figure out how to edit them to make an aesthetic video.
You should be clear about the type of video you want to make as it will help you pack the required camera equipment.
3. Pick The Right Editing Software
A situation you want to avoid as a content creator is having a ton of high-quality footage but not a high-quality video editor. Therefore, you need to choose a video editor capable of creating the quality of professional-level results you desire.
If you are not an experienced video editor or you don’t want to spend a lot of money buying one and learning how to use it, you can use quality video editors available online.
4. Record Sufficient Footage Before Editing
It is common for a professional to run out of good-quality footage during editing. You should record a good amount of footage and some more before you start editing. Not having enough footage will eventually lead you to include sub-par footage to increase the size of your video.
Practicing such bad habits will lead to you consistently producing poor-quality videos which will fail to engage audiences.
5. Shoot For A Story
A vital creative goal that you should keep in mind when shooting and editing your videos is that your video should tell a great story to your audience. You must be clear about the message you want to send through your video. This will help you make alterations and additions to the video according to the story.
You can remove clips that do not complement your video’s theme and story.
6. Have Fun
If you spend all your travel time wondering what you can do to make good videos out of your adventure, you will end up losing your passion for traveling. This will lead to a halt in your video-making career and possibly, to a creative slump.
If you are having fun during your travels, it will show in your work and lead to an improvement in your quality of life as well.
7. Create Motion
The great thing about videos is that, unlike photos, they can capture motion. Motion is what makes videos much more eye-catching and appealing than photos. Try to record things that are already moving.
An example would be people fishing in a river.
If the subject lacks motion, you can use simple camera movements to get fascinating results such as time-lapse and hyper-lapse.
8. Keep Backups Of Your Footage
One thing you should never forget to do when traveling is to keep enough copies of your footage. The worst nightmare for someone who makes travel videos is to come back after your trip and find out that you have lost all your footage just because you forgot to keep backups.
A helpful technique that you can use to backup your data is the 3-2-1 rule. The 3-2-1 rule states that you should make three copies of your footage on two different forms of media, and one of the copies should be stored outside the physical proximity of the other two.
9. The Moment Matters More Than The Gear
It does not matter if you have your expensive equipment handy during all your adventures. When you see a capture-worthy moment, your priority should be to record it.
Many professionals upload photos and videos that were recorded with their smartphones, and due to the editing and the aesthetics, you would not be able to tell that the equipment used does not cost as much as a car!
10. Do Not Compromise On Quality
When you are exporting the video from your video maker, remember to export it in the highest quality possible. Working so hard to record and edit eye-catching footage just to watch it in 360p is a rather underwhelming experience.
Higher resolutions allow you to show more visual detail to your viewers, leading to more engagement.
Conclusion
Making travel videos might seem like an easy task, but it is much more than just shooting random clips of your travels and pasting them together. The art of making travel videos requires planning and effort throughout the production process.
It feels great to travel to different places around the world. This feeling is further intensified if you can share your adventures with everyone. Make notes of the abovementioned practical tips, and you can also make awesome travel videos the next time you set out on an outdoor adventure!
