Kid Vid - The Delicate Art of Taping Children

In many ways kids make perfect video subjects-they're lively natural and up front on camera These same qualities, however, can prove the undoing of the unsuspecting videomaker.

Taping children-whether your own progeny or hired talent-requires patience, planning and above all, stamina. This article will reveal the tricks and techniques of the kid vid trade-from birthday parties to TV commercials

A Trio of Tricks

Lets start with how to videotape your own children. It takes work to do it well but these are your kids we're talking about. So get ready to make some sacrifices (isn't guilt a wonderful thing?).

There are three main ways to get kids on tape: 1) shoot all the time; 2) choose a particular event-and shoot it in detail; and 3) show the passage of time.

The first method sounds toughest because it means hauling your equipment with you constantly. In reality however, this approach often proves the simplest. Why? Because it requires no planning.

For example shoot all the time and you'll already have your video camera in hand when Johnny puts his doggie Ruff into his little red wagon and pulls him around.

If you don't shoot all the time you'll have to run into the house find a blank tape power up the gear and run back out at which point you find Johnny doing something completely different.

But shoot all the time, and you'll capture that Johnny-Ruff wagon sequence without breaking a sweat.

The goal: for your kids to ignore you and just be themselves. Shooting all the time works to your advantage here. Strap that camcorder around your neck whenever you appear, and soon your kids won't even notice it. They won't "ham it up" and play to the camera.

The down side to shooting everything is all that footage. Of course, you can re-use the tape, but you'll lose quality. Another potential problem: a plethora of excellent shots, all of which are totally unrelated. Even if you edit them together, the footage will tell only the loosest of stor…