Holidays In Motion
WHERE ONE VIDEO IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
Among my all-time favorite moments in our family photos collection is a short video clip from the dusty annals of my early parenthood. It’s a random sweep in the way that camcorder clips usually are; amateur attempts to capture anything that moves.
But for me, it’s 15 seconds of magic.
The video is a just a snippet of a moment on Christmas morning long ago. The kids toddling through the frame, dressed in onesie pj’s, and engrossed in electric cars and a toy construction crane against the backdrop of spruce branches and colored lights. Sound of tiny electric motors, the impact of plastic on plastic, and giggles. For a second or two, my Mom happily watching it all from the couch. And her voice.
If we had a family time capsule, it would belong there.
I’m a photographer by habit, but the holiday season is made for video and it pays you back a thousand-fold over time. If you have kids, it’s a slam dunk. Every year they change in ways you forget. The nuance and the outrageous.
Then there’s your own parents. Relatives and friends. Pets. The whole cast of family characters improvising each year’s version of the holiday story.
It’s a rich landscape to capture and the secret sauce is sound.
This is where video stands out. Adding audio that’s so much a part of the season. Conversations, storytelling, music, bells, the chatter of crowds and the silence of falling snow. Sound completes the memory.
The Movie Studio in Your Pocket
The iPhone Camera makes video easy and more immersive than ever. A far cry from those clunky days of camcorders and video tapes. It’s a whole video production studio in your pocket. You have everything you need to record your holiday moments.
And here’s the thing, the iPhone is so good at video that you have a lot of leeway in taking it. Video that’s nicely composed and color balanced is a bonus, but it’s not the deal-breaker it can be with photos. The draw is in what’s going on as much as how it looks.
Choose HD Quality
First, embrace the fact that even at the most basic quality settings, iPhone video capture is head and shoulders above the quality you got on a camcorder. Recording in HD quality is fine for those home grown moments and plays well even on wide screen TVs. It also saves space in your iPhone storage, if that’s a consideration. If you crave finer detail - winter scenes, holiday lighting, concerts - you can up the quality to 4k but you will use about 3 times the storage space for the same video clip. Most times that extra detail is lost in viewing anyway, except on the best monitors and TVs.
Avoid vertical video for anything but Instagram posts. Turn your iPhone to capture moment videos horizontally and you will have a file that can be added to other videos for a compilation edit. It will fill up your monitor and TV screen without black or blurred bars on each side. What looks right in social media is awkward pretty much anywhere else.
Also, using two hands on each end of the phone and your thumb to tap the record button is the most rock solid way to hold the iPhone for video recording, short of using a tripod. Hold it close to your face with your elbows tucked in for steady recordings.
Shaky video is tough to watch. If you are on a bumpy train, walking while recording, or just have a hard time holding the iPhone steady, turn on Action Mode. This adds additional stabilization to the camera and smooths out the footage.
And ironically, good movie footage doesn’t usually move very much. If you are panning from one person to another or sweeping to show a whole room scene or street view, move the iPhone a bit slower than you would turn your head. What may seem a natural speed when filming can look abrupt and jerky when viewed.
One of the magical features of iPhone video capture is that you can pause and restart recording as much as you want. This means you have one video clip with multiple scenes instead of several clips that you have to edit together. There is also a photo button that lets you take a picture while you’re recording video. Dual-tasking as it were.
Short and Sweet
Unless you’re recording a recital or conversation, shorter clips are generally better than long ones, although the point is to capture a whole moment, whatever that may be. The collapse of a Jenga tower, carolers at the front door, kitchen prep, game play.
Movie makers cut between different camera angles quite a lot to maintain interest, but as amateurs we’re limited to a single camera to capture everything in real time. If you pause or stop the video you also stop the audio, so pay attention to that and try to include whole sentences or thoughts if there’s a conversation or important sound to record.
Anticipation is your friend. The power of video is to share a whole story, however brief that may be. People and pets are predictable. It’s seeing when Skipper is about to jump onto Grandmama’s lap. Or the Jenga tower is ready to collapse. Yes, you’ll likely need to edit out some of the waiting moments, and delete some clips altogether, but that’s part of the process. Pro’s end up saving a fraction of the video they capture and you should do the same.
Once you feel comfortable with the basics, you can spice up your holiday videos with some advanced features. Here are some easy ones that are built into your iPhone Camera App. When you swipe right from Video, you get these options:
Cinematic
This is the video equivalent of Portrait mode for photos. By tapping on a person or object in the video you throw the rest of the shot slightly out of focus. When there are faces in the shot the camera will try to feature those.
Slo-Mo
Slow Motion is a fun way to record moving items and see them in detail. Moments that happen quickly become fluid replays. A cat trying to catch a dangled toy, that collapsing Jenga tower, or snowball fights. Great fun when used sparingly.
Time-Lapse
The opposite of Slo-Mo. This compresses time so that a 2 hour task - decorating a Christmas tree, for example - can be viewed in 30 seconds or so. Making cookies, a sunset, passing clouds, or completing a jigsaw puzzle are great subjects. You’ll want to have an iPhone tripod to hold the iPhone steady for the duration. Then just start the Time-Lapse and let it run.
Spatial Video
This is for Vision Pro owners (and wannabe’s). Immersive 3D viewing is what Apple’s Vision Pro goggles are all about, and arguably the next evolution in the picture experience. Even if you don’t have a Vision Pro (yet) you can make a Spatial Video now in the Camera app. You can view it like a normal video on any Apple device but when seen with a Vision Pro you get the immersive view with depth. Imagine kids many years from now being able to see their childhood home in a 3D view. Spatial video (and photos) is accessed in the Photo menu of the Camera app.
Dual Screen Capture
If you have a new iPhone 17 you can become a virtual tour guide by recording in Dual Screen mode. When selected, you capture both the front and backside camera views at once. Perfect for narrating the scene and recording your reactions at the same time.
Live Photo
Okay. So this isn’t really a video. But it’s close to it. When you are in Photo mode, as most of us are, and you turn on Live Photo, the camera continually stores a 1.5 second clip of everything it sees. Which means that if you are slow to tap the shutter button when a cat leaps or a candle is blown or a firework goes off, you still got the moment you wanted as well as another 1.5 seconds after it. You end up with a 3 second video and sound. Not much, granted, but more of the moment than you had with just a standard photo. You can loop that clip in Photos or export the 3 second clip to include with your other holiday videos. During the holidays, when surrounded by people and unexpected moments, I keep my Live Photos setting turned on as a safety net for photos or video clips I might otherwise miss. It’s been a life saver more than once.
So for the holidays, treat yourself to some atmosphere, smile-worthy moments, and once-in-a-lifetime memories. Capture some footage of the holidays in motion for your future self.
HD Quality
Horizontal/Landscape video
Long enough to capture one “moment” but not so long as to include several
Slow camera movement
Use the Recording Pause to minimize editing
What are your favorite holiday memories on video, or ones you’d wish you’d captured? Please share in the comments.
Happy Holidays!
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Thank you for the reminders and new (to me) options to take and make more effective photos and videos, Paul! Happy Holidays!