Ideas for Video

Heya all,

I am off to Mount Hutt (NZ) next month and I am looking to put a video together for the school. I am going along with the school trip and have offered my services as a Photographer/Videographer. Since I am not a teacher or student, I don’t have any requirement to help out or take care of students, so I am free to do my own thing and I would like to put a video together.

Since the school really doesn’t have any decent footage to show people, nor any real material to promote the event which happens once a year, I thought it would be a good idea to make a short film about not just the snowboarding/skiing but getting there, the sights and generally “the day in the life of a student on the skitrip” style of things. I am open to ideas you might have and meeting this week with a large bunch of students to discuss what I have come up with.

Firstly I would like to start off with getting ready, this would be shots in quick succession which show packing luggage and getting ready, all of the shots would be close ups and not show too much (for example close up of tightening a boot up etc). You wouldn’t see any faces and there would be music overlaid over the video. I would also like too have a sped up video of the travel, a kind of “dash cam” sped up to make the journey take several seconds.

I think that would be a good way to start the video and what I am having trouble with is footage of the actually place, I will have 2 GoPro3’s with me and my DSLR, where would be a good place to put the GoPro’s to get really decent shots? A few of the students going have snowboarded before and will be a lot better then myself. I have several mount brackets along with a chest mount and helmet mount. I also have 2 handles with mounts on top which can extend to different lengths.

Since I am not there, nor have I been there before, I cannot plan out my shots so I am looking for your opinion on placement of GoPros and maybe a few ideas on what would give a good shot to the general public as the video will most likely be seen by parents and other staff. Also if you have any example videos that would be great.

Appreciate the help

Would be good to make it more of a journey flick so make sure you get the packing, driving shots, flying shots and remember you can always setup the GoPro like the DLSR any way and get two camera setups.

How long are you going to make it?

Hey mate, My friend is an Outdoor Ed teacher in Tassie and loves his film making. Makes films from a lot of trips with students. Some he does just based on the action. Some more of a journey. I think ask the kids what they would want to present in the video.
Check out my mates vids to get some ideas https://vimeo.com/wildoates/videos

@bkrtron, Essential it would only be a few minutes and possibly a longer versions for people who are a little more interested. I think it should be more of a journey flick, just wasn’t sure how I would have worded it but journey flick sounds good.

@k2_TeacherBoy, yea I believe the input from there is essential, since they will be the ones viewing it and students around their age. I will check out those vids when I get home from work, appreciated.

hey mate, sounds like an awesome idea to get a vid going.

My suggestion is to not have too much helmet cam, chest strap POV (point of view footage), when you are skiing wide open runs you need to be going super fast to make it look interesting for the viewers. If you want to have helmet cam footage try and find some tree runs or something to keep it interesting. Otherwise boarding in a group of people with a gopro pole in one hand is the best option. Without a pole makes it super bumpy so make sure you use it! you can ride alongside your friends or even turn it around to make a nice “selfie” as you come down the mountain, get your friends to board behind you in a line so they get in on the action too!

Other cool ideas which even novice boarders can get on the video is to lay the go pro on the ground facing the hill and have you and you friends spray some snow into the go pro, it wont hurt and it gives a cool effect. Some of the better boarders can even pop a little Ollie over the camera.

Be sure to get lots of shots of you guys having fun, snowball fights, flipping and rolling down hills, whatever you can do to have fun.

Watch plenty of other peoples videos on Vimeo and youtube and you can take away so much from them.

One more thing, if its for future trip attendees and their parents to watch, make sure it looks super fun and also super safe. Parents are so precious about their children these days!

One thing my friend does is uses a lot of audio recording with his vids. He might have some action or scenery shots playing with audio of the kids talking about the trip. Just mixes it up and makes it more personal than just having a soundtrack alone

As suggested before, invest in a pole (gopole make a static one and an extendable one,) or you can make them yourself quite easily/inexpensively, and the students can each take a run with it, or follow other students while filming, (our first year, we all did helmet cam, and it gets super boring super fast, (you just see scenery, which is nice, but can be achieved in a photo, and the odd hand/foot movement)  if you make the students the subject, it will be alot more interesting.. 

Watch a few snow videos on YouTube, to get an idea of using a pole,  hope this helps and hope you have an awesome trip!

Yea the pole sounds like the way too go. I have both the static one and an extendable one. I think I might let them do runs then follow them or get in front of them and get shots of them from in front.

Lots of live audio!
Use an external mic for the GoPro and get uncomfortably close when they are talking no matter what camera you use (unless you have body mics).
People talking to the camera about what they are doing and where they are.
Having people pulling up individually after a run and saying something (anything!) to the camera.
Interview as many people in the group as possible, whenever possible.

You will get heaps of action footage - it’s easy to get and there’s always too much.
Put more effort into getting the pretty shots (sunsets/rise, fireplaces, buildings, mountain etc..) Each shot shouldn’t be any more than 10sec (when edited) so unless you’re doing a timelapse style don’t hold a shot longer than a few seconds (excludes action).

Load and catalog your footage each day!!!
Label cards with date/time/location.
Try and do rush edits each night especially the action stuff (crop the footage to just the best bits).