Create amazing iPhone videos in 5 steps

If you’ve ever jumped on Facebook for an intended 5 minutes and left 30 minutes later after watching two cooking demonstrations, one baby gender reveal and ten cat videos, you know the power of video. Video is big right now and it can make all the difference in selling your products and preserving your memories.  That’s why it is important to learn how to create amazing iPhone videos.

Last week, my kids and I sat around the computer and went shopping on Amazon for my son’s eighth birthday. We scrolled through pages of legos and monster trucks and guess which ones he chose to put on his wish list. You guessed it, the ones with videos in the description. Videos have the power to involve our sight and our sound and it also creates stories, which our brains are programmed to process.

There are barriers, though, right? You have to have really expensive equipment and a major in videography to get good videos. Wrong. You hold the power to create videos in the palm of your hand, literally. You can create great, fun and profitable videos right from your phone.

Create amazing iPhone videos.  Here are my 5 Steps:

1. Set the scene.

Lighting is crucial to the success of any video. If you are outside, find nice open shade or shoot two hours after the sun rises or two hours after the sun sets. If you are inside, find soft light from windows and open doors.

2. Find the story.

Go into creating your video by having a plan. Know what story you are trying to tell and the goal of your video. The best stories are the simple ones (leave the plot twists to the professionals). For example, if you sell tape that looks like roads that kids can play on with their toy cars, (see the amazingness here) then your story is that kids have a lot of fun using the road tape and it is easy put on and take off.

Or maybe you are a mom that wants to tell the story of her two daughters and how much they love each other. That is your story: you have two daughters and they love each other.

3. List the shots.

Since you know the story, you can decide on which shots you are going to need to tell that story. You always want to include detail shots, whole story shots and movement shots. Make a list before hand of shots that you want to get to tell the story.
For our road tape video, we will want a shot of them putting the road down, the kids playing with cars on the tape, details of the cars, a happy face of the kids and peeling off the road to show easy removal.
For our daughter video, we will want a shot of the girls playing together, laughing together, a close up of their little hands, some hugs, a wide shot of them playing in their room and a dancing shot.

4. Make that movie.

Now that you have good lighting, know your story and have a plan, you can get shooting. For these short videos, I keep clips under 10 seconds. I shoot a bunch of short videos. Go ahead and over shoot because you can always cut them later.
Here’s a sample video I did with my phone:

5. Clean it up.

Open iMovie on your phone and select all of the videos you want to put in your movie. Remember that they will be placed in the movie in the order that you select them. Edit away. Cut and clip and add some music and you will be ready to go.

Check back tomorrow! We will be talking about how to edit your movie in iMovie and will include a step-by-step guide.