Home Video Hints: Common Camcorder Mistakes

When you pick up your camcorder, do you feel like you're all thumbs? Don't feel too bad; technology can often be unnerving, and the fact that your camcorder captures all the mistakes you make as a rookie videographer probably doesn't do much to boost your confidence.
When you've got butterflies about shooting footage and doing it right, just take a deep, cleansing breath and understand that thousands of people have gone before you, shooting miles of tape with a myriad of mistakes littering their footage. Practice makes perfect though, and it is easier still to achieve perfection when you know some of the common mistakes videographers make, and understand how to avoid them.

Video, by design, is a full-motion medium. However, one of the most common mistakes videographers make is purposely injecting too much motion into their videos. The easiest way to abuse your motion privileges is by walking unnecessarily with the camera. If you are sitting down or leaning against something your body can be a relatively stable camera support. It's not so stable, though, that you can walk around with your camcorder without injecting jitters into your footage. Shoot this way and your footage will look as if you shot it during an earthquake, leaving your viewers reaching for the Dramamine.

Another way that video greenhorns abuse the use of motion in their programs is by zooming in and out unnecessarily. Zooming is a great way not only to magnify a distant object but also to draw attention to details in a shot that the viewer might otherwise overlook. There is a temptation, therefore, to shoot a wide establishing shot, zoom in on a detail for a few seconds, zoom back out, zoom in on another detail, zoom out, and repeat this process over and over ad nauseum (quite literally). While you may feel as if you are doing the audience a service by highlighting the real meat of your shots, what you are actually doing is distracting (and even irritating) them with your incessant zooms.
It's important to choose your zooms wisely. Try to prioritize what's most important in your shot and only zoom in on those things. When you do zoom in, hold your zoom for several seconds. Give everyone enough time to take in your shot before you zoom out. If you feel the need to zoom back in, put the camcorder in pause, then zoom and start recording after you've framed the tighter shot. Remember, when using the zoom, let temperance and patience be your guide.

Because we use our eyes to survey our world, everything we see is at eye level, by default. It is natural to shoot the majority of your footage from this vantage point because the act of videotaping an event usually requires us to stand. However, consistently shooting footage at eye level means you're missing a world of creative camera angles.
Try shooting some of your footage from a low angle, for example. If you shoot a subject from a low angle, you can make it look bigger than it may actually be, or more imposing, even intimidating. Even a child can look like a giant shot from below.
By contrast, if you shoot from a high angle, your subject will appear small and less. Such an angle makes your subject appear vulnerable or fearful. The bottom line is that different camera angles make for more interesting video.

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