Plan Before You Shoot

Whether you are shooting footage of your child's birthday, or VideOccasions is shooting a full-blown production, planning ahead keeps things out of the clouds of confusion and chance.

A Beginning, Middle and End

It may seem obvious, but every event has a beginning, a middle and an end. How will yours begin and end?
The Beginning

Begin with information that establishes the "who, what, why, where and when" of the event.

Lets stay with the example of a child's birthday. Did you send invitations to her friends? Use a shot of the invitation to begin our tape. For visual interest, maybe prop the invitation in front of the birthday cake, or in front of some balloons and party hats.

How about putting colored alphabet blocks that spell out the invitation information on top of a brightly colored birthday table cloth? Or shoot a short sequence of Tommy pasting lines of the invitation onto colored paper? Or show the invitation hand-lettered onto a blown-up balloon? Let your imagination be your guide, but do something that signals the start of this event.

The Middle

Show the story of Tommy's birthday with your camera. If your friend called you on the phone and said "I'm so sorry Bobby and I missed Tommy's birthday party. How did it go?" you would launch into a verbal description of the various events that made up the occasion.

Do the same thing with your video. Capture the sequence of events that shows (tells) the story of Tommy's birthday party. How about:

• Tommy greeting his friends as they come up the walk.
• Some of the kids putting wrapped gifts on the gift table.
• Playing games, with parents and grandparents watching (now you're documenting who was actually at the party.) Try to get shots that show both the children's activities and the on-lookers. This is much better than just a rogue's gallary of faces.
• Refreshments
• Opening gifts

There's nothing fancy here. All you've done is follow the events of the party as they unfold. The point, though, is that you had a plan, and tried to follow it.

The End

Going home -- A shot from the street, as Tommy's friends come out the front door of your home. A final shot from inside the front door, showing Tommy waving from the door as Mary Lou gets into her dad's pickup. Follow the truck for a few seconds, then let it disappear out of the frame.

Even if you don't edit this footage, you have a well developed narrative document of the neat things that happened at Tommy's seventh birthday.

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Revised 2/17/08