The holidays are right around the corner, and you want to make sure you capture and preserve all those wonderful moments so you can enjoy them later. You don’t want your “Baby’s first holiday” video to be dark, grainy and super shaky, do you? Here are some really easy and basic tips for shooting video with your smartphone.
Watch out for “vertical video syndrome”
We’ve all done it. In the moment, we grab our phone and start shooting video without thinking about how it will look when we play it back on our TV at home for everyone to see. “Vertical video syndrome” is when people shoot video with their phones vertically. I think people forget and continue to treat it like a cell phone that you are going to hold up to your ear.
Remember: You’re no longer holding a cell phone! This is now your video camera.
The problem with vertical video is when you play it back on your TV, laptop or tablet computer. On these devices, your holiday memories will only show up on the middle of the screen with two giant black bars on either side. In industry speak, this is called “pillar-boxing” your video. You see this all the time when we play back someone’s web video on TODAY.
Be sure to preserve baby’s first Christmas, Thanksgiving with the family, or your next wedding or graduation by simply turning your phone sideways like a real camera and shooting your videos horizontally.