4 About Your Video s Audience

4 About Your Video's Audience

Before You Begin

2 Plan Your Video

3 About the Camera's Perspective

See Also

6 About Shooting Tirelessly and Editing Relentlessly

Even before you plan your video, you need to have your audience firmly in mind. Who are you shooting for? What is your target audience? What will be their expectations for your video? Even if you shoot home movies to show friends and family, put yourself in their shoes to decide what they might want to see.

Shoot your movies using as many kinds of shots as possible. Shoot from various angles if possible. Don't just interview wedding guests ”show them walking in the church, talking with greeters, and moving to their seats. You can't do this with every guest, but the variety of following at least one group to their seats adds interest to your video. When the outside lighting is good, capture a few shots of the church from different angles. You can cut these shots between some of the inside shots at times to keep the audience's focus on the overall event.

Your audience will appreciate your videos much more if you follow this chapter's simple tasks to improve your shoots. Use titles when necessary (but don't overuse them). Travel videos are more interesting when your audience can read the name of the current site or where the tour is taking them. Movie Maker simplifies title creation so much that adding enhancing titles for your audience is virtually effortless ( see 76 Put a Title on a Clip ).

TIP

Tell a story! No matter what your video's subject matter is, even if it's a wedding reception video, try to shoot your video like a story with a beginning, middle, and end. You'll help your audience stay in tune with the tone you want to portray. Get there early to show guests arriving. Stay late to watch them leave. You'll thus add a wrapping to either end of your video that makes it more enjoyable.

Spelling out a location in a title helps plant the scene in your audience's mind.