Guest post by John D.
Whether you like making videos for fun or your profession, you can never deny the significance of a great video.
However, one of the most tricky things about travelling videos is that you have hours-long footage to shrink into a short video. With the number of creators producing travelling videos, being creative and innovative with your video creation has become more of a necessity than a choice.
And while it does seem fairly easy to make videos, the truth is, there are a lot of pieces that complete the puzzle of creating a great travel video. Whatever the reason for your video creation, shaping your video into an absolutely stunning piece of visual content helps a long way.
But are you wondering how and where to get started with creating such a video?
Don’t worry, for we have 10 practical tips for making a great travel video that will get your viewers hooked to your videos.
So let’s get started.
Top Tips for Making an Engaging Travel Video
Here are some tips that will help you create an interesting video.
1. Find the purpose of the video.
From regular vlogging videos to storytelling, there are a few types of videos you can create. But what’s crucial before even filming your next travel video is determining its purpose.
You already have a general direction when you know:
- who you are making your videos for, and
- What do you want your viewers to feel after watching the video?
If you create travel videos just for fun, you can stitch them together with a video maker any way you want. Cinematic shots and rough cuts blend finely with such videos.
2. Get inspired by other creators.
Not just travel videos, but every content gets stale over time till people find something more appealing than what they are currently used to watching. That is why the content on video platforms like YouTube keeps evolving now and then.
Observing other creators and their video formats helps understand what people want to watch. Experimenting with video formats and content styles will give you a pretty good idea of how to shoot, direct, and edit your videos.
A great online video editor should allow you to cut, trim, crop, and do everything else with your video effortlessly. So before you settle for a video maker, make sure it has all the features you need to create the kind of video you want.
Get inspired by watching the top creators and adopt styles you like to watch the most.
3. Be familiar with the equipment beforehand.
If video creation and traveling are already a major part of your life, choppy camera work and sloppy video creation will not contribute to your success as a creator at all.
Setting up your camera and other recording equipment prior is essential in the video-making process, especially if you are new to the equipment. You never know when you would have to capture a timely shot. Wasting time in learning and setting up the equipment then and there might take away the precious moments from your video.
4. Don’t be afraid to do things differently.
Video creation is an artistic approach, and peeking over your boundaries isn’t something you should be afraid of doing. There are only so many ways you can create a travel video. But what’s important is if you are doing something different from others.
Thousands of creators make videos of all sorts. What makes a video stand apart is:
- how good you are at capturing the essence of every shot,
- how great you are with pulling off a different kind of video style, and
- how great your storytelling is.
And these aspects bring us to our next point.
5. Make every video a story.
While your video is serving your viewers visually, you need to give them a reason to watch your videos every time. Thus, a story.
A story doesn’t always have to be a high-production script. It can also be a small incident that occurred with you during this trip, and you can narrate it with the video.
If you don’t have a story, just mention your journey experience. Then transition into every next cut describing what it was like living that moment, or find a common thread that you can weave into a story.
6. Don’t forget the music.
Not just travel videos, but music is practically one of the fundamentals of every video. Using music in your videos can help you fill the gaps you can’t fill with your narration. You can use the best soundtracks that resonate with your video in places and montages you create.
However, if you are posting on YouTube or other places, use non-copyrighted music. This strategy can help you avoid copyright disputes.
7. Create time-lapse(s).
Time-lapses are an essential part of a travel video because they reflect a long video in a matter of a few seconds. A time-lapse video captures those moments that otherwise seem elusive in a regular video.
Such transitions between your videos can capture and reflect the feeling of the best travel moments in the most attractive way possible. The best part is that most smartphones now allow you to shoot time lapse videos instantly.
8. Make your video about your journey and less about you.
People watch travel videos because they either want to know more about the place or enjoy its beauty. Your travel video is the window that allows them to explore the area through your POV.
As such, you would want your travel video to be more about the location, the people, the specialties about the place, and very little about you. You can put all of these things together to make a great story about your travel as well.
9. Take the editing seriously.
Video editing is the most crucial and interesting part of a video creation process.
Your video shooting, time-lapse creation, drone shots, and everything else still are just half of your travel video. The other half is how you edit your video. Video editing can shape your video into a masterpiece or a terrible piece of filming, depending on how you edit it.
10. Export high-quality videos.
After all the effort you have put into your video, you don’t want it to have terrible quality.
Since smartphones and laptops have the option of watching videos in 4K now, it’s pretty obvious that your viewers won’t expect your video to be any lower than 1080p. Therefore, exporting your video in ‘high-quality’ for all screens is relatively important.
As platforms like YouTube already degrade the quality of a video while uploading, try to choose the best output quality in your video editor before you export your video.
Conclusion
Travel videos are a mess of multiple, long, and unedited videos that you show to your viewers in a matter of 5-10 minutes.
With the number of creators creating travel videos now, it has become crucial to be innovative in your video creation process. Everything contributes to a great video that people would love to watch, from planning your trip to editing your videos the right way.
