How to Make Family Videos

Videos are such a great way to remember a special family trip. Today I’m sharing all about how I make our family travel videos! 

Want to make a family travel video? It’s easier than you think!

Today I’m sharing how to make family videos. I love making videos of our trips – whether it was just Philip and I or the whole family. They give a different memory than pictures ever could and my boys LOVE to watch our travel videos and remember specific things they wouldn’t have otherwise remembered. Also it’s the best way to capture their ages and mannerisms, and these are just treasures for me.

Every time I share one of my family videos, I get a ton of questions asking how I make them. Today I’ll show you how!

Also, remember…there are lots of ways to make your own videos, but I’m just sharing the resources I use.

This is the travel video I made for our Christmas trip to Hawaii

The programs I use to edit my videos:

• iMovie
  • I use the free version that comes with any mac computer. There is an app version, but I think it’s terrible to use. I majorly prefer the desktop version.
• InShot App
  • I use this app to edit all of my videos for my blog and instagram, and it’s also super great for long form videos. There is a free version, but I pay the $3.99 for them to remove their watermark. Worth every penny for me cause I use it all the time. But even if it you don’t, it’s a good deal.

The programs I use to purchase background music

• MusicBed
  • This is my favorite resource for music, but it’s also the most expensive. It’s around $50 for the license for each song. That adds up if you’re doing fairly regular songs. But I like background songs with vocals because I think it’s more interesting to watch, personally, and they have a huge database with tons of unique and fun songs.
• Soundstripe
  • I bought a subscription for this one last year and I like it, but I think the song choices are way more limited. It takes me a long time to find a good song for longer videos (3-5 minutes). But it’s way less expensive and a good option!
• Pleasant Pictures Music Club
  • This is another good option but as far as I can tell, all of their songs are instrumental only. But they have some AMAZING songs.

Where do I store my videos once they’re uploaded?

I upload them to YouTube.

It’s an easy place to keep them and it’s a platform that’s not going away. You could also do Vimeo, but Youtube is free and you can create a private YouTube page so you only have access to it and it’s not viewed by strangers.

You can see my travel videos HERE. Just looking through that list reminds me that I have a few more past travel videos to edit and add.

How do I film all of these clips?

I use my iPhone and film everything horizontally so it can fit on a TV/computer screen nicely. These are not videos for instagram where they’re vertical.

I have used my fancy DSLR camera in the past, but it’s so clunky and heavy, and impossible to pass to my husband or kids for a few good clips of me. The iPhone is easy for everyone to use and the quality now is so good that it makes gorgeous videos.

Here’s a basic step by step of how I create my videos:

1. Put all of your videos in a folder for easy access.

If you’re making your video on your phone, create a new folder and add them all there. If you’re making it on your desktop, select all the videos you want and then airdrop them to your computer.

2. Upload all the videos to your editing program.

I’m going to show you with iMovie here, but InShot on your phone is fairly similar and very intiutive. Once all your videos are uploaded, you’ll see them in the grid on the left side. (SEE BELOW)

3. Drag your desired clips down to the editing area.

Hold down the “R” key and drag across a clip to grab a section of it. You’ll see the little yellow box grab the section of video, and you’ll see the selected clip on the right side in the large screen. (SEE ABOVE).

Drag that selected clip down to the bottom half of the screen. That’s your editing area and each clip you drag down will be shown there. You can can click and drag any of these clips to change the order.

Drag all of your desired clips down to the editing area til you have everything you want.

4. Edit your video clips.

Once you have all the clips you want in your editing area, you can make them shorter or longer, faster or slower. Just grab the edge of the video clip (where it shows 2:26 in the photo above) to shorten or lengthen the video clip.

You can also use the icons above the large screen on the right to change the speed of the clip, smooth any bumpy video clips, mute the sound, and more.

Play around with this– there’s lots you can do!

5. Add text overlays.

On the top left toolbar, click “Titles” and you can add different varieties of text to your video. I like to add the location and year of our videos at the beginning so they’re easy to remember that info. In twenty years it may be hard to remember which year you went to Hawaii, but if it’s in the beginning of the video, there will never be confusion.

Drag your desired text style down to your editing area, click it to edit the text, and then drag it to the point of the video where you want it to start and stop.

6. Add music!

Don’t forget the music– this is what makes the videos so special and fun to watch. Go to musicbed or soundstripe or Pleasant Pictures and choose your song. Usually I’ll turn the song on and then toggle back to iMovie so I can watch the video with the music on top before I choose. It helps me get a good feel if they fit together well!

Once you choose your song, download it to your computer and then go back to iMovie and upload it. It’ll then show up in your downloaded media and you can drag it into your editing area and trim as needed.

Once it’s finished with text and music and editing, click the gray upload button in the top right corner of iMovie and it’ll let you download the video as a file. You can then save that to your computer, airdrop it to your phone, or upload it to YouTube.

A few other details about these travel videos

• I like to keep the videos sort of in chronological order so they tell the story of our trip. Usually I start with us in the car or at the airport, and then driving up to our hotel or going inside the room.
• When I film, I try to film a variety of shots…close up detail shots and wide angle shots, scenery/city shots and family shots. I also make sure to hand the phone to my boys or Philip so they can take videos with me in them. And don’t be afraid to turn the camera around and do selfie shots. The more variety, the better the story in the video.
  • For example: if you’re ziplining through the jungle on your trip, take a video of the ziplining signs on your way in, then footage of you climbing the steps to get up to the starting point. Then get shots of the scenic view, you or your kids getting strapped in (along with nervous faces…those are the best memories to grab!), and then finally clips of you actually on the zipline with your feet in view, or flip it around and get your face as you zoom through the jungle. See how that series of video clips tells a story way more than just footage of the zipline ride itself?
• I try to keep my clips really short, like 20 seconds. You only need a quick clip to capture the feel of something, and then you don’t have 100 hours of footage to comb through when you’re done. Also this means you can grab footage quickly and then get back to enjoying the moment with your family!
• I’ve started editing videos on the trip home. I did this with our trip to New York and it was a game changer. I used the InShot app, which is very similar to iMovie, and edited our entire video on the plane ride home. Once I got home, I airdropped the video to my computer, added music, and the whole thing was done within one day of getting home. If I wait a few weeks, the likelihood of me getting it done goes down drastically.

I hope that’s helpful! If you have any questions about it, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer. Here’s a full video tutorial to watch:

IF YOU LIKES THIS POST, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

• Our Trip to New York – What We Did, Where We Ate and Where We Stayed

• Our Family Travel Bucket List

• All About Our Trip to Hawaii