I promised you more ice rink footage. We haven’t seen anything since Noah’s ark was erected on Day 1. Well, here ya go. It’s Day 18 and we’re going skating.
First, let’s take a look at the stellar night photography of the ice rink.
The ice rink in action
I love this photo because you can see the fine texture of a backyard rink early in the season. It’s a bit pebbly, shall we say? You have to deal with the pitfalls of leaves falling from a pin oak which forgot to drop its leaves in the fall. You have to deal with snow dumping on the rink while it freezes, then turning to slush, then rapidly freezing to the current pebble-like consistency. It’s all good. You can even see the action in the background of a child gently slipping to the ice.
What you don’t see is his brother hooking him with the hockey stick. It’s all good. I took the photo without flash using the light of the halogen bulb hanging from the roof contraption. Flash photography would have turned the ice white in a small circle and everything else black.
Let’s see some video of the 18th day of Advent.
I call that one Happy Hockey Faces. The video by itself thrown up on YouTube probably would have been a little boring. But here I am, determined to show my out-of-town family my kids skating in the backyard. How can I make it slightly less boring?
Adding the licensed rock music definitely helps. I slowed the action down to 75% speed. It may not seem like it, but life moves pretty quick and it’s hard to see the details at full speed. In retrospect, I probably should have just slowed it down for the initial hockey brawl. The captions (lower thirds for you video editors) are what really helps move the story along.
You don’t have to use custom animated motion graphics as I’ve done here, but try to make sure your caption doesn’t cover the action of the shot. The important thing is to help tell the story. Try playing it back with your speaker turned off (don’t worry that’s pretty close to the original, unless you count the angry screaming). Now play it back without sound and cover the captions. Boring.
And here’s Happy Feet.
Here’s another example where storytelling comes in. This video of people’s ice skates would have been truly boring without music and captions. Ok, you might say it still is. Me, I think it gives a good feel for the amount of people on the ice that night and their size – pint size.
The important thing is that you tell your story about your life in your way. Rather than simply uploading a boring video, personalize it before you share it.
It’s all good. And how was your 18th Day? Did you have Happy Faces and Happy Feet?
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