9 Tips to Incorporate While Making Travel Films

Many think they need a professional degree and a lot of experience to be proficient enough to make travel films that can be exceptional. Although experience counts a lot when it comes to making travel videos – even a layman, who has never made one – can plan, create, and edit a beautiful travel video and mesmerize his viewers with his aesthetic skills. You simply need to develop a niche audience who likes travel videos, and the perfect place along with the perfect technique to create mind-blowing travel films.

9 Tips to Incorporate While Making Travel Films
[image: pexels by erik mclean]

Making a travel video is a great way to share your journey, different cultures, and your interactions with people across the globe. You can relive memories with a first-class travel video. YouTube is full of travel films, many of which can impress the minds of those who watch them. You can increase your travel filming talents and experiment with several innovative ways to create a spectacular travel film.

Here is a compilation of the most useful tips, tricks, and techniques that can help you create fascinating and alluring travel videos for YouTube and Social Media channels.

Choose the kind of travel videos that you can make

Before you start with your travel video project, identify your goal, purpose, and the type of travel video you want to make. Is it educational or for entertainment? Are you trying to portray a culture or describe your personal experience while on vacation? You can make a walk-and-talk vlogging-style travel video or a street-shoot style. You can also try filming your travel with a more fast-paced, influential, and cinematic approach with little or no narration. Let your clips do the talking.

When identifying the goal of your travel video, analyze who the videos are for and what they can expect from these videos. You can highlight beautiful, authentic visual interactions that can be conveyed through image and sound. Or you can go historical or try a listicle video – like describing the top 10 places to visit in a country.

Watch tons of travel videos and gain some experience

Learn from good examples and inspire yourself. Observe the format and structure that the successful ones have chosen. Learn about the scripting, the shots, and everything about arranging video clips in the best manner that can lure your audience in the best possible way.

Minimize your equipment

Avoid the massive cameras, microphones, armor, and oversized tripods while making travel videos. To start with – they are heavy and inconvenient to carry everywhere. Two – they can pose a threat while dealing with authorities at stations and airports. Using DSLRs is very useful. Avoid using built-in microphones instead of wireless microphones. No one can see the equipment you are using to make travel videos – so don’t invest too much in it. There are times when simple smartphone-made travel videos create a story on online channels and make the video a huge success. So, go minimal and shoot as a tourist, not as a Discovery Channel agent.

Be focused when downloading and saving images. You must recharge again and again. Keep your computer, chargers, and batteries all ready before you sit down to extract the outcome. Traveling and creating videos is already a time-consuming and stressful process, so take your time and relax while saving the final edit.

Shoot wisely

Create a wealth of data to work with. Don’t record unwanted clips, but pay more attention to the lighting, angles, shots, people, natural beauty, culture, and location. Don’t forget that you are on vacation and you also need to have fun. Capture the best experiences you want to cherish and want others to experience. 

Create a story

Travel, generally, is spontaneous. While filing your travel, make it in a story form, adding the right sequence of clips, and settling for the exploration that your viewers would want. Always carry a camera with you when out, and capture the most astounding moments when you find any. Attach a storyline and make it more attractive.

Find the right beginning, middle, and conclusion and weave it beautifully into a story. You don’t have to be a top-notch director to create stunning travel videos, but being a little aesthetic, a great storyteller, and a lover of beauty and culture can help your audience stay engaged long enough to watch your travel videos until the very end.

Script the video well

This is if you want to share a story or add a lot of educational or informative content to your travel film. Prepare your script one night before and plan nuances like body movement, tone, and clarity of speech. You must not fumble on words, else it may have a poor impact on the overall quality. This also creates trust issues, if you are unable to narrate a well-scripted story to your viewers. So, work hard on the words, and say them with ease and confidence.

Use a wide array of your shots

Don’t just stick to a single style as it may sound and look monotonous for your viewers. Instead, research more, watch a lot of successful videos, and experiment with your shots. Use graphics, filters, glamour, and sparkle while crafting your shots. The rest can be taken care of by the video editor you use. You can also inject excitement into your film by using panning and hyper-lapse features while shooting.

Involve local people, capture the right expression, and reveal the beauty of a place and its culture by taking close-up shots. You can evoke a more human emotion and add the same in your travel videos to help your audience feel the same. Shoot their story, and make the conversation authentic, before you create the final shot.

Don’t influence them to act – the local people are not professional actors – but inspire them to be natural and influence them to talk beautifully about the location you are shooting. Close-ups help in identifying the right expression and induce transparency, which is highly appreciated by viewers.

Editing a video prudently

You must give it maximum time, sit back, relax and focus on key points before you prepare the final draft. A well-edited video can include the most notable scenes and eliminate everything that’s a waste. Get rid of blurry shots and associate every shot with the story you're trying to convey. Using an online movie maker can help you crop unnecessary parts and add the most beautiful designs, styles, colors, and graphics.

Rely on innovative technology

This is the time of 4K DSLRs, an abundance of storage sites, and minimum resolution requirements that can help you create a stunning travel film if compared to the traditional and outdated technology used in the past. You can record your travel film at high frame rates along with slow motion footage which can reveal all sorts of possibilities that were previously unthinkable without large and expensive film and video cameras.

Conclusion

Always create travel films using a well-thought-out plan. Layer your cinematic travel lenses with your practical needs and showcase the exquisite locations, exotic food, local culture, and wonderful people everywhere. Creating a great travel film isn't easy, but you can be well-rewarded with the experience and the results. Find your inspiration before you start making a travel video for a specific audience considering their likes and dislikes and appetite to explore more.