Lachie Outhred, media director at AFES, has written a great series of posts for Christian university student groups on campus, all about how to make great (or better!) videos. They are so relevant to creating videos in your church that it would be a shame if no one else reads them!
His points are simple and clear, with advice on planning a video and getting clear sound – relevant to every church wanting to communicate well, and particularly those on tight (or zero) budget so to speak.
Planning your video is absolutely critical to making sure you aren’t wasting time and resources, and that your video communicates exactly what you want, and nothing you don’t. Broadly speaking, he suggests the following questions:
- What do we want to communicate? It could be an event promotion, a testimony, campus report, gospel message, or maybe it’s just entertainment!
- How do we want viewers to respond / how do we want them to feel? e.g. sign up for an event, rethink who Jesus is, feel convicted
- What vibe are we going for? Formal, funny, semi-serious, inspirational, informational…
On the blog, there’s also an example of a plan for a video so that you know what you want to film before it happens – making everything more efficient, and more likely to achieve the purpose of the video.
You can see some of these principles in practice in AFES’ own video
The post about sound is very helpful, and if you are filming on a DSLR or maybe on an iPhone, there are some great tips for getting the most out of your sound for less than $20! Combine that with a tripod mount like this and you’re on your way to stable, clear sounding video on the iPhone you already have. The third post will be part 3 – cameras! (Link to come)
How do you plan and produce your church videos?
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