jack-o-lantern how-to

Think of Vine and Video on Instagram as a video version of a Tweet. When you post on YouTube and your blog you can go on as long as you want (just don’t expect everyone to keep reading), but on Twitter and Vine, Instagram’s video, you’re dealing with some serious time/word limitations. You have to get your point across succinctly.

Vine gives you 6 seconds to tell a story. Instagram video gives you 15. You start recording by placing your finger on your smartphone’s screen. When you remove it, recording stops.

After some trial and error using these mediums, I’ve come up with tips to help you create better videos than I did in my first attempts. Learn from my mistakes!

  1. Pick an extremely simple subject. You can only convey so much in 6 to 15 seconds. I thought my video of turning peaches into peach cobbler was simple enough. I was wrong.
  2. Remember: If you lift your finger off your screen accidentally, you’ve paused your video, and you can’t scroll back to create a seamless scene. This is a problem if you’re making a video, say, about turning peaches into peach cobbler and accidentally lift your finger after the peaches are already peeled and chopped, creating a hiccup in your video. Those peaches are peeled, so you can’t start over again with unpeeled peaches.
  3. Make sure the light is good. Natural light is best. My cobbler appeared to take six seconds on Vine, but in reality, it was a couple of hours.  I started my cobbler in the late afternoon, but by the time it came out of the oven, it was evening, so there was a totally different light quality in the first few seconds of my Vine than there was in the last couple.
  4. Keep your hand steady. This is harder than you think.
  5. Decide upfront if you want sound or not. If you don’t, put your finger or a piece of tape over the microphone. (I figured this one out in advance, at least!)

Above is a screenshot of a much stronger Vine than my own.  You can check out Home Depot’s Vine on how to prevent your jack-o-lanterns from getting moldy here!

Please share your Vine and Instagram video tips with us!