Why you should shoot bad footage

You should probably shoot more ‘bad’ footage. Here’s why.

You never know when the magic will happen
It’s better to start recording before the magical moment happens than to miss some or all of it. You can’t use footage you didn’t shoot.

Filming bad footage is practice
We can all use more practice in shooting, and the only way to get better is to make mistakes. It’s better to make mistakes when nothing in-particular is happening than stuffing it up when something exciting happens.

Stories are better than climaxes
We all want to film those magical moments, but stories are so much more than that.
Stories have beginnings, middles, and endings. Beginnings are needed to introduce characters, activities and generally set the scene. Middles are needed to show the setbacks, the progress, and the struggles of the characters. Then the ending is needed to see how things all turned out and to wrap it all up.
We don’t need to see the beginning and middle of a story because when we see the magical moment we remember what happened, but future us won’t remember it quite so well, and the people who weren’t there definitely won’t. We need to film the whole thing and you never know when you’re recording the start of a good story.

Bad footage can fix problems
Editing is funny — quite often you get your footage into the editor and it has problems.
How do I get from this sequence of being at the football to being at the beach? Or how do I get from autumn leaves to winter?
This shot is great but it looks funny next to that one.
Why does this clip have no sound? or I wish it didn’t have those people in the background swearing.
I’ve got a great opening shot at this location, some great content, but nothing to finish it off.
Often these situations can be fixed with a ‘bad’ shot, or a shot that doesn’t look like much by itself. Maybe we can get from the football to the beach by showing the football boots being taken off and beach shoes being put on. Maybe we can get from autumn leaves to winter by having a nice artistic shot of rain hitting the window. Maybe there’s a shot that doesn’t clash from the footage I shot after I thought the action was over but kept shooting anyway. Maybe there’s some sound from another shot that I can put over the silent clip, or over the drunken people swearing. Maybe one of those random shots I recorded ‘just in case’ will finish off this sequence if I just have it fading to black at the end.

It makes people more comfortable with shooting
I believe there’s an optimum amount of filming. While we need to be careful not to film too much, if we don’t shoot enough then people aren’t used to it and get nervous when ‘the camera comes out’. It’s a balance.
One thing I learned from street photography and photographing strangers is that how you act makes a huge difference to how people react. If you are relaxed and confident then people pick up on that and relax themselves, making the footage better.

Overthinking home videos

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Overthinking home videos — the art, tech, and psychology of documenting your family.

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