Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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How We Film & Edit Our Blog Videos

You may have noticed that we share the occasional video or two… or 80-ish, if you’re counting things on our video page:

Video Page

And just like we did with this post with our Photoshop tips, I’m finally back to share some insight into how we go about making these clips since a bunch of you fellow bloggers/family-paparazzos asked for some pointers. Just like with photography, we’re not experts and it feels like there’s lots of room to grow in our video shooting and editing skills, but we were hoping our little rundown might help a few folks out there, whether you’d like to incorporate more video into your blogging routine or are just trying to better capture your family’s antics on film.

Oh, and if your eyes are already glazing over after just these first few sentences, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what I’ll dive into deeper below:

  • I’ve been casually doing video for 15 years, so I’m just a hobbyist with lots of practice
  • There’s no need to buy fancy camera equipment. Most of our videos are shot on a $99 Flip video camera.
  • Think about taking good videos like you take good photos. Good lighting and a steady camera go a long way.
  • iMovie is our go-to editing software because it’s so user-friendly (and it came free & pre-loaded on our Macs)
  • We find most of our music using Jamendo which hosts lots of tracks available under Creative Commons licenses.
  • Keeping it simple is key. Good videos don’t necessitate fancy graphics, sound effects, or editing. So save yourself the frustration of trying to learn how to pull those off successfully if they’re not something you’re great at and try to boil things down to being easy and clear.
  • Find an organization system that works for you and stick with it (don’t be afraid to ditch old videos that aren’t worth saving).

My background: I say “my” because while Sherry is involved in the creation of each of our videos, she didn’t come with any background in video (other than this epic Eminem video). I, on the other hand, have been a video hobbyist of sorts since high school. Yes, you can call me Sir Dorks A Lot. But ever since I bought an 8mm tape video camera in 10th grade I’ve been shooting little videos off and on (many of which are stored in a box in our closet). My earliest “works” starred either my little sister or my cat (still waiting on that Oscar nod, btw). My high school offered a “Video Technology” class that allowed me to spend three semesters shooting and editing short videos using old school reel-to-reel equipment. Once in college my Media Studies major afforded me more than a few excuses to shoot and edit various projects. But alas, the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to doing “professional” video work is what you see here on our site. The point being – I do bring a few years of practice and schooling to this, but nothing was ever terribly formal.

Video Box

Our equipment: Almost every video that you’ve seen here over the years has been shot using a Flip video camera – more recently a FlipHD, which we got about 2.5 years ago. They’ve since been discontinued, but you can still snag one on Amazon. But the reason they’ve gone the way of the Discman is because cell phone and digital camera video has come such a long way. So while we still shoot lots on our Flip, we also use our iPhones in a pinch. Or even the built-in camera on our MacBook Pro…

Bedroom Time Lapse Setup

… when we’re doing things like the timelapse video in this bedroom painting post (we just recorded it directly into iMovie and edited it there, which is where we sped it up and added music – but more on that in a minute).

The point is, don’t feel like you have to splurge on fancy equipment to make yourself a good online video. YouTube has done the world a favor in lowering everyone’s standards for video quality, so people are less likely to grimace if your video is a bit grainy, shaky, or poorly lit. Although there are things you can do to keep those things at bay as well.

Shooting good video: Since most of us don’t use professional video cameras to capture our daily lives or DIY projects, we don’t have a lot of mechanical control over how our Flip or cell phone cameras capture the world. So these are my three main tricks for getting the most out of your “video camera” (that’s in quotes since it might just mean “your cell phone”):

  • Find good lighting: Just like shooting still photography, relying on good light (preferably natural diffused light) can quickly save your video from being a grainy, backlit hot mess. So if it means finding a window to shoot near, or stepping out of the direct light and into a shadow – do it. If it means turning on all of your lights (and even bringing in a few spare lamps to fill in some shadows) – do it. For the Blogiversary video below I didn’t like how the overhead light gave us ogre-ish dark eye circles, so I put a lamp on either side of the camera to help direct more light onto our faces. We need all the help we can get.
  • Keep it steady: My partner in blogging crime has extreme difficulty with this one (you’ve seen her house tours, right?) – but try to keep your hand slow and steady when you film. Steady is sometimes hard to control, so I’m often telling Sherry to focus on keeping her movements slow (therein lies the problem, because she likes to describe herself as “flail-ey”). But seriously, if you can help it, try not to whip around or suddenly thrust your camera in for a close-up. It sounds hokey, but you want to be graceful and gentle when you’re at the helm of a video camera… unless you’re going for a Blair Witch effect. And if all else fails, use a tripod.
DayInLife 20 Video Chairs

  • Be mindful of sound: If you’re going to use the sound you capture (i.e. not just a music track) give it some thought before you start. I’m not saying you have to go out and buy fancy microphone equipment (we just use the in-camera mics for our videos) but it doesn’t hurt to do a test to make sure you can be heard (and if you can’t, speak louder or move closer). Also, try to take a listen to what’s around you. Is your washing machine or air conditioner humming in the background? Is your cell phone going to ring in the middle of everything? Might your dog bark right at the end of your otherwise perfect take? Not that that’s happened to us… but give it some forethought and then adjust accordingly. Turn off the AC temporarily, silence your cell phone for a second, and have a heart to heart with the dog about using his inside voice (not that that always works, but sometimes his favorite toys/snacks can keep him busy).

Our editing software: Being the Apple-lovers that we are, our go-to editing software is iMovie, which comes preloaded (free!) on most Mac computers. iMovie is a pretty user-friendly software and the various tutorials in the program, on the Apple site, in their stores, or elsewhere online make learning it achievable for most people. So I’ll skip the potentially lengthy attempt at an iMovie tutorial here. But rest assured that it makes it pretty easy to import your videos from your desktop or your camera, edit them together, add photos, music, titles, sound effects, visual effects, and then export the file – even directly to YouTube if you’d like.

For the purposes of publishing our book, we recently upgraded to Final Cut Pro. It’s also an Apple product but is more heavy-duty than iMovie, giving you much more flexibility in terms of editing, sound, graphics, color correction, effects, etc. It’s software that’s used to edit commercials, music videos, TV shows, and even feature films. It’s certainly a fun upgrade for the person who wants to step up from casual video editing, but there’s definitely a steeper learning curve. I was taught how to use it back in college and I’m still feeling pretty rusty as I find my way around it again. So I’d definitely encourage folks to go the easy route with some sort of beginner software (I’m sure there are free/cheap PC equivalents to iMovie) before deciding to spend bigger bucks on harder-to-master programs like Final Cut Pro.

Video Final Cut

Editing a good video: Our mantra for video editing is keep it simple. It’s easy to get caught up in all of the cool effects and transitions and titles that come with your editing software, but in many cases they’ll just make your life more difficult and your video look a bit more amateur (things can get a little zany and scattered if you toss too much “confetti” into the mix). There’s a reason blockbuster movies usually just cut or fade between scenes (if Scorsese was using the water ripple effect between his scenes I’d change my tune, but for now we try to stick to a simple cut, dissolve, and the occasional cross blur). The same goes for adding text and other effects, so fight the urge to showcase every flashy title effect that comes packaged with your software. Not only are lots of them distracting, but they’ll make your video reek of “I edited this in [insert name of editing program here]” since they can be semi-specific. But if you can’t resist having some fun, just practice restraint and use one effect consistently throughout. FYI, this is also my personal philosophy for Powerpoint presentations (thanks for the Haven pic, Sarah!).

Haven Ugly Duckling House

Finding music: Probably the #1 question we get asked about our videos is where we find our music. The answer is a site called Jamendo because it hosts a lot of tracks available for free download under the Creative Commons licenses. You can read more about what that means here, but generally they’re works that are made available assuming you provide attribution (ex: a credit at the end of the video) and use them in a non-commercial way (ex: they don’t pop up in a Doritos commercial without any payment/credit). We actually used a song by one of the artists in a promo video we made for our book, but we paid to use it since that was a promotional video. But if you’re sharing a free video about how to DIY something (or just a cute video of your kid) they’re completely free along with a credit. We have actually heard from some of the artists thanking us for using their music, which is really cool.

As for finding “the right track” it usually takes a bit more hunting to find something we like than “borrowing” mainstream music (since you’ve probably never heard any of the songs before), but you never have to worry about YouTube taking down your video for using unlicensed music. And landing on something that you’re not already sick of hearing on the radio is an added bonus too. I’m not even going to attempt to describe (or even understand) the state of using music online, but ever since YouTube forced us to remove the original track from this personal video of Burger panting after the end of summer walk, we’ve erred on the side of caution and have loved using Jamendo. I promise this clip was more entertaining with Nelly’s “Hot In Herre” than it is with the generic track that YouTube put in its place.


Organizing our videos: We take a lot of videos in our household – especially since Clara came on the scene (who are we kidding, we have about 100 videos of Burger, so that’s where it all began). And it’s easy to get bogged down by all that footage. So our keys to keeping it organized are:

  • Being honest (and sometimes ruthless) about what is worth keeping
  • Having an end use in mind

As cute and entertaining as both of our kids are, not every video of them is worthy of being saved. So Sherry and I have a few check points for filtering out the good stuff from the, um, ordinary stuff. First off is deleting things in camera. If we know a clip is a dud before the recording even stops, we delete it right then and there. Sometimes it takes a rewatching or two on the camera, but if it’s not worth eating up more time or space it doesn’t even get downloaded to our computer. The next filter is the computer itself. All of our video gets uploaded to either iPhoto (from our iPhones) or FlipShare (from our Flip camera). Once they’re uploaded I try to watch everything again to see if it’s worth keeping and if not, it gets trashed. Sometimes I just do this in bulk at the end of the month if I don’t have time to watch things right after they’re uploaded.

Video FlipShare

But the biggest help (to me at least) is knowing a video’s end purpose. For us, we ask ourselves questions like – do we want to share this on Young House Life? Might we want to include it in Clara’s year-end video (you can see the first one at the end of this post and the second one at the end of this post)? For you a better question might be: is this Facebook-able? Do I want to burn it to a DVD? Whatever the filter is, it helps to know whether a clip has a purpose or if it’s just going to eat up megabytes on your computer. Once a video has been dubbed “save-worthy” for us, we put them in a videos folder that gets backed up along with our regular computer back-ups (so a copy of that stuff ends up on our external hard drive). Uploading them to sites like YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, or Flickr are also great ways to back-up your videos. That way if something happens to our computer and our back-up hard drive, we’ll still have copies of everything over there (and we can put privacy settings on the ones we don’t want to share with the world).

There’s plenty more to be said on the topic of video, but I’m gonna stop here for now. If you guys have lots of other questions I’ll try to answer as many as I can in the comments, but also feel free to help each other out. I’m certainly not an authority on the subject, so I’d love to hear your suggestions and tips when it comes to taking video and honing those mad editing skillz.

Comments

  2. Michelle Kersey says

    Awesome. I can’t read it all with two underfoot at the moment, but I’ll be back!!! Thanks for sharing your info, I really need to make some videos of my kiddos!

    Reply

  3. Nicole says

    Great post… thank you! I have a six month old, and one of my goals is to learn to use the video feature on my camera well enough to produce some save-worthy clips.

    Also, do you know when/where your book tour will take place? I would love to meet you guys, so I’m hoping you’ll be within a couple hours of me!

    Reply

  5. Allie ~This Yellow House says

    Thanks so much for writing this. Those were great tips! I love how you said to keep it simple. I’ve watched a lot of videos that turn me off because of all the effects they put on it. It can come off as amateur-ish and cheesy.

    Thanks for the tips! I’ll be referring back to this when I make a video in the future. :-)

    Reply

  6. Bethany says

    Thanks for sharing your video tips! ~love the keep-it-simple approach. Ditto on the Nicole’s comment~ fingers crossed for a stop in Chicago! You know you need some Chicago style pizza, right!?!?!

    Reply

  7. Amy says

    are you in my head? i was literally thinking to myself last night “self, you really need to figure out iMovie so you can make vidoes of the kids.” (i’ve used iDVD in the past and its so 2009) and actually was going to search your blog today to see if you talked about what you guys used to edit videos. this is awesome, thank you! off to apple site i go to learn more :)

    Reply

  9. Asha says

    Thanks for the iMovie tutorial links…recently have been thinking I’d like to learn how to use iMovie, but was a bit overwhelmed. Can’t wait to give it a shot with these tips! Do you have any other tips or tricks with iMovie for someone who is just getting her feet wet?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I would just try to keep things simple and focus on mastering: trimming your clips to the length you want them and combining multiple clips into a sequence. All of that is really drag and drop type stuff. Once you’re comfortable with that you can try adding transitions, titles, or even background music. Good luck!

      -John

  12. Jess @ Little House. Big Heart. says

    This is great! Thanks John! I love the tip about being honest whether something is worth keeping or not… I struggle with this with still shots too!

    We’ve only had one video over at LHBH (and it was a not so steady house tour for our Blogiversary). We shot it with the hub’s iPad and were really surprised at the quality (other than my flail-y-ness).

    Reply

  13. Faith says

    Great post! I noticed you mentioned a book promo video…. did I miss that or has it not been posted yet?? I’ve already pre-ordered 2 copies of your book, so the video won’t away me…. ;-)

    Reply

  14. Mary says

    Great post! I personally never delete anything directly off the camera, though. If the camera card ever got corrupted before uploading the photos/video to the computer, deletion of photos could mean you’re toast. If you never delete anything, a corrupted card can be recoverable. (Obviously, I don’t mean _never_ clean up the card! Formatting the card after an upload is a great way to keep it clean :).)

    Reply

  16. Tami says

    Hey! Thanks for the tips! I have one question though..all of my videos I take are in the AVI format but they won’t work with my windows software. Do you have to convert your videos to a different format before you can use the imovie software? Thanks!!

    Reply

  17. Cheri Moser says

    LOVED this post. I am a stay-at-home mom who is a video-taking-aholic. Seriously, when the kids and I get bored, we make videos! Everything from my baby announcements to our own “Call Me Maybe” music videos.

    You can find those videos at these two links:

    http://www.mcgregormosers.blogspot.com/2010/10/moser-movie_17.html

    http://www.mcgregormosers.blogspot.com/2012/07/call-me-maybe.html

    Video addiction. I have a problem. But I’m glad to see others do as well! :)

    Hopefully our kids will appreciate it later in life!

    Reply

  18. Sophie says

    One tip about deciding which videos to take. We, of course, took tons of our daughter (and still do) – and she grew up, we only “saved” the ones where she did something “worthy” of saving… whether it was smiling, clapping, or something that we thought we’d want to see over and over again. The last couple of weeks, I finally got around to properly organizing my pictures and backing them up, and now looking back, I realize all these “gem” videos that we originally thought weren’t worth it. When you’re in the moment, you see your child all the time, so when he/she is not really doing anything, you think those videos are boring. But looking back, it was so nice to see my daughter just being a baby.. even if she wasn’t doing anything interesting, it is SO interesting now to see, because it’s they are only like that for so long. It totally changed my philosophy on taking videos too. I now also take videos of the mundane, because I know she’s only going to be at this age for a moment, and I know I’m going to want to look back.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      So smart! We definitely try to keep a mix of everyday/mundane and doing things/activities for our yearly videos of Clara. You’re so right that sometimes it’s those random “normal” moments that are the most fun to look back on!

      xo
      s

  19. Stephanie says

    Great tips! There is a program that comes pre-loaded on Windows computers that lets you edit videos. Not sure what it’s called since I’m at work but it’s pretty simple to use.

    I made the best video ever on it. A composite of me and my friends (age range 25-31) playing Skip-It. Yes, SkipIt. We found it in my friends basement. With Spice Girls music and everything.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hahahaha, I want to see that NOW! I still remember the entire jingle from that commercial. Anyone else remember it?

      “…but the very best thing of all, there’s a counter on this ball…”

      xo
      s

    • Stephanie says

      LOL. I will upload it somewhere I can share it from after work today. It’s only on my facebook right now and my stupid work blocks everything. :)

    • Hannah says

      Oh my goodness! As soon as you mentioned the counter I had a weird deja vu moment – had to Google it. I’d completely forgotten about this beloved toy! I had a purple one. Sigh.

  20. Kate Blesener says

    Great post. Wondering if the tripod you use is specifically for the Flip or if you just use a tripod from your regular camera?

    Reply

  21. Aimee says

    Yikes I have just spent an hour looking at all your past video and photo links (I am at work and SHOULD be working!)

    I love the birthday video montages – I think I shall have to give it a go myself for my girls (better late than never, right?)

    Thanks as always for the inspiration!
    (and the work-distraction!)

    Reply

  23. Sarah K says

    Great tips! I always love your videos. We’re getting a lot of practice videotaping our puppy. Hopefully that means we’ll be able to take fun videos of future kiddos!

    Have you seen the “Vertical Video Syndrome” PSA. Cracks me up every time!

    Sarah

    PS I have a post up today in which I totally channel you guys and your art above the couch! Thanks for the inspiration! http://ournextgreatadventure.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/frames-get-a-facelift/

    Reply

  24. maribel says

    Thanks for the tips…just want to say my all time favorite video is the sofa table video…the music was hilarious…I cracked up when John slowly revealed the hidden compartment..

    Reply

  27. Leanne says

    Hey guys, thanks for the behind-the-scenes peek! I was wondering what your backup system is for all of the videos/photos you do end up keeping. Do you use Mac’s Time Machine with Time Capsule, or something else? Thanks!

    Reply

  28. Michelle says

    Awesome post, I’m going to save this so I can go through it again when I’m not at work (oops). I do have to say if anybody is in the market for a camera, the GoPro is ridiculously awesome. My husband straps it to his helmet when he goes out on the motorcycle. We’ve used it filming our dog in the water. It’s an awesome little gadget :)

    Reply

    • Nicole P. says

      Totally agree on the GoPro. I work in television and we use them. They’re also not that expensive and very high quality. A commercial tv camera can be around $10,000! But the GoPro Professional is only $300.

  31. KC says

    This question will most likely reveal my technological skills, or lack thereof….but once you have put your videos on YouTube (or any other video-stored website) do you know if there is a way to get them back on your desktop (to burn to a DVD)? Lets say if you’ve already deleted them from your camera and computer? I have all these wonderful videos of my daughter from 3 years ago on webshots (which I no longer use) but I have no hard copy of the videos (which I would love). Does that make sense?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That’s a really good question! I’m not sure about YouTube.com but I think sites like vimeo allow you to download the original file. You can also buy conversion software that will convert any YouTube video to something you can burn to a DVD. A company called skysoft I believe sells one. Hope it helps!

      -John

  32. Joy says

    Thanks for the tips! Especially helpful to think through the process for sorting and backing up old videos. I am in the process of doing that with our home videos of our two kids from the past few years.

    Also, in case it’s of interest to you, my husband, who is an amateur film fanatic, shot this fun short film on our outer banks vacay and edited it with final cut pro. Fun fact, his entire budget was just $50, since he had family do the acting, and he did everything else down to the score.

    Love your blog!
    Joy

    Reply

  33. Jackie says

    Nice post! This was funny to read because I’m an editor (for film marketing using FCP) who reads your blog everyday at work and I always think to myself “I wish I could do what they do”. So it was entertaining to come in this morning and open up my final cut while reading your post about editing! You had some great advice. If you decide to get more involved with FCP or any other software lynda.com is a really helpful website. I think there’s a subscription fee, but the tutorials they have can be worth it.

    Reply

  35. Lynn @ Our Useful Hands says

    Hooray for AV nerds! I didn’t become one until after we bought our Mac a few years ago and then one day I opened up iMovie and realized I could record life and edit it to reflect only the parts I liked. Haha! Thanks for all these pointers John.

    My best, Lynn

    Reply

  37. Tracey says

    Hi, just want to say that you guys are so incredibly generous in sharing hard-earned expertise – thanks and have a fab day.

    Reply

  38. Kate says

    The free windows video editing is not as good as imovie, but I use Adobe Premiere Elements which isn’t crazy expensive… And I can do pretty much anything I can imagine in there.

    Reply

  40. j says

    i wish i were as organized as you guys. i have so much videos of the kids taken on my sony video camera but they’re on tapes. i’ve been wanting to transfer them to a dvd but don’t know if i could connect the camera to the computer to do so. obviously i’m so not techy and know none of this but if you have any tips, i’d appreciate them. thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hmm, if it’s a really old camera you might need to get special software or a special cable to upload those to your computer, but most cameras made in the last few years come with USB cables that can help you upload to your computer. Good luck!

      -John

    • Nicole P. says

      There are companies that will transfer them for you. A quick online search should turn something up in your area if you’re near at least a medium sized city.

  41. Briel K. says

    I have iMovie ’08 (that’s the year I got my MacBook) and I don’t think it has the option to speed up or slow down clips. Kind of annoying!

    Reply

  42. Sarah @ The Ugly Duckling House says

    No problem! Meeting you three (Clara included, of course) was still one of the highlights of Haven. Great tips, here. I’ve only done one video so far, but it’s taken me a lot to work up to putting my funny-slash-awkward face in front of the camera. Now I at least have the info I need to edit them like the pros, so thanks!

    Reply

  44. Cadie says

    Thanks for putting together such a thorough and detailed explanation of how you do your videos. It’s definitely not as easy as one might think! You guys are so good at so many things…I have skills envy! :) xoxo

    Reply

  45. Claire @ Claire K Creations says

    Thanks John! I always love the movies you guys make. I’ve just recently delved into a bit of video editing (might be because it took me 18 months to work out how to video on my camera!).
    I use iMovie too and it’s fantastic.
    The free music will be handy too. Mum used to make home movies when we were little and they were so wonderful to watch I hope to hone my skills before I have cute subject matter.

    Reply

  46. sarah r. says

    love your posts (including this one) but i feel even more technologically challenged now… iMovie is NOT intuitive to me. i’ve tried on so many occasions and i just can’t figure it out. i guess it’s time to open up some of these tutorials…

    Reply

  47. Laura B. says

    I know I’m kind of late in reading this post, but how do you guys charge your Flip cam? I’ve just been plugging it into my laptop to charge but it seems to take forever/never fully charge or hold a charge for long. Is there a wall charger for it?

    Reply

  48. Colleen in MA says

    Here adding comments to your video post! I hadn’t commented yet because I’m waiting for some spare time to really delve into this. It’s a great resource and timely since I want to start using my iPhone more for video. I used be crazy about our 10-pound camcorder back in the day!

    Reply

  49. Cher says

    Thank you SO much for posting about this. In my professional job, I’m trying to get more into shooting videos and posting on our website, but I didn’t have the first idea how to go about it. I’ve bookmarked this to help me along. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!

    Reply

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