Has your friend or family member asked you to videotape their birth? (Do we still call it “videotape” when everything is being recorded digitally now?) Do you want to make it something a little more special than point the camera and record?
I’ve been photographing and videotaping births for over ten years now, and I even shot a professional documentary about birth. Making a birth video is not as hard as you might think.
Here are some tips to get you started:
1. Hold the Shot
Okay, so you know how most people who hold a video camera will move the camera back and forth to follow the action (you know, people like my mother and probably yours)... you don’t want to do that. Leave that camera style to NYPD Blue. Since you don’t have the experience of a camera person on NYPD Blue or the know-how, please avoid that at all costs.
What you need to do instead is find your shot and hold it. Compose the frame like you’re going to take a photograph, and just let people move around within it. This shouldn’t be hard to do because people are not moving around a lot during a birth. When you want to shoot from a different perspective, stop the shot, move, and set up a new shot.
Trust me on this. And, don’t worry, we’ll piece together the shots later in post-production (see Step 4). It will look great.
I’ve been photographing and videotaping births for over ten years now, and I even shot a professional documentary about birth. Making a birth video is not as hard as you might think.
Here are some tips to get you started:
1. Hold the Shot
Okay, so you know how most people who hold a video camera will move the camera back and forth to follow the action (you know, people like my mother and probably yours)... you don’t want to do that. Leave that camera style to NYPD Blue. Since you don’t have the experience of a camera person on NYPD Blue or the know-how, please avoid that at all costs.
What you need to do instead is find your shot and hold it. Compose the frame like you’re going to take a photograph, and just let people move around within it. This shouldn’t be hard to do because people are not moving around a lot during a birth. When you want to shoot from a different perspective, stop the shot, move, and set up a new shot.
Trust me on this. And, don’t worry, we’ll piece together the shots later in post-production (see Step 4). It will look great.
2. Take B-Footage
Here’s a quick definition of B-footage (or B-roll), if you’re not familiar with it already: It is supplemental footage that helps tell the story. A-footage is the main story (in this case, the birth), and B-footage is stuff that visually supports the A-roll. It is important to get B-footage to help break up the monotony of the main story, and to help transition between one cut in the next.
Some things I like to capture as B-footage at a birth are: close ups of objects around the room (what the birth environment looks like), what the birth professionals are doing, and basically capturing anything I think the couple would like to remember (a shot of essential oils that they’re using, a text dad is sending to grandma, the clock).
B-footage is also good to establish location. If it’s a homebirth, get a picture of what the outside of the house looks like. If it’s at a hospital, get a picture of the hospital. Anything to establish location and to help tell the story.
3. Stay Out of the Way
The most important thing to remember about videotaping a birth is that it is not about you. Stay out of the way. Make it seem like you’re not there. Don’t interfere with the birth in any way and act like a fly on the wall. Find your shots, hold them, and do this as discreetly as possible.
4. Edit, Edit, Edit
Now that you have all your footage (both A-roll and B-roll), it’s time to put it together. You can do this, because pretty much every computer nowadays comes with movie editing software. On Macs, it's’ called iMovie and on Windows, it’s called Movie Maker. These are free programs that are probably on your computer right now (go ahead, do a search for them). If you can’t find them, here is a link where you can download iMovie: https://www.apple.com/imovie/ and here is where you can download Movie Maker: http://www.windows-movie-maker.org/
They are easy to use, but you will have to spend a little bit of time getting familiar with them first.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the program, it’s time to put your movie together. Think of it like putting together a puzzle. How can you put your shots together in the best way to tell this particular birth story? This is the time for you to arrange your A-footage with your B-footage to show the best of both.
Please keep in mind that you don’t have to use all the footage you took in the final video. This is why it’s called editing. Edit it down to what you need to tell the story in the best possible way.
5. Add Music
There’s nothing like having background music in a birth video. The legalities here get tricky though. If you own the song and if it’s for private use and if you’re not getting paid for it, you can probably get away with using any song you want. Heck, you could even put it up on YouTube, because most musicians will consent to letting you use it and then YouTube will stick an ad on the video so the artist can make money, and then everybody wins! (Here’s a link that will tell you if YouTube will if the copyrighted music will be blocked or not, and here’s a link that tells you more about adding legally copyrighted music to YouTube.)
But, if you want to REALLY be on the safe side, here are some sites where you can find royalty free music, with no monetization of videos, and no strings attached:
http://www.adweek.com/digital/royalty-free-music/
https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/25/youtube-launches-free-audio-library-with-150-royalty-free-tracks/
It’s nice to have music with a birth video because births have a lot of quiet moments, and music helps in creating the feeling you want the video to have.
That’s it! Seriously. It's fairly easy to photograph a birth. The emotion is already there for you. All you have to do is sit back and capture it.
Take a look at this birth video I did and see if you can spot all the steps that I talked about (and where I broke my own rules). Please note, this birth video will probably make you cry.
Here’s a quick definition of B-footage (or B-roll), if you’re not familiar with it already: It is supplemental footage that helps tell the story. A-footage is the main story (in this case, the birth), and B-footage is stuff that visually supports the A-roll. It is important to get B-footage to help break up the monotony of the main story, and to help transition between one cut in the next.
Some things I like to capture as B-footage at a birth are: close ups of objects around the room (what the birth environment looks like), what the birth professionals are doing, and basically capturing anything I think the couple would like to remember (a shot of essential oils that they’re using, a text dad is sending to grandma, the clock).
B-footage is also good to establish location. If it’s a homebirth, get a picture of what the outside of the house looks like. If it’s at a hospital, get a picture of the hospital. Anything to establish location and to help tell the story.
3. Stay Out of the Way
The most important thing to remember about videotaping a birth is that it is not about you. Stay out of the way. Make it seem like you’re not there. Don’t interfere with the birth in any way and act like a fly on the wall. Find your shots, hold them, and do this as discreetly as possible.
4. Edit, Edit, Edit
Now that you have all your footage (both A-roll and B-roll), it’s time to put it together. You can do this, because pretty much every computer nowadays comes with movie editing software. On Macs, it's’ called iMovie and on Windows, it’s called Movie Maker. These are free programs that are probably on your computer right now (go ahead, do a search for them). If you can’t find them, here is a link where you can download iMovie: https://www.apple.com/imovie/ and here is where you can download Movie Maker: http://www.windows-movie-maker.org/
They are easy to use, but you will have to spend a little bit of time getting familiar with them first.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the program, it’s time to put your movie together. Think of it like putting together a puzzle. How can you put your shots together in the best way to tell this particular birth story? This is the time for you to arrange your A-footage with your B-footage to show the best of both.
Please keep in mind that you don’t have to use all the footage you took in the final video. This is why it’s called editing. Edit it down to what you need to tell the story in the best possible way.
5. Add Music
There’s nothing like having background music in a birth video. The legalities here get tricky though. If you own the song and if it’s for private use and if you’re not getting paid for it, you can probably get away with using any song you want. Heck, you could even put it up on YouTube, because most musicians will consent to letting you use it and then YouTube will stick an ad on the video so the artist can make money, and then everybody wins! (Here’s a link that will tell you if YouTube will if the copyrighted music will be blocked or not, and here’s a link that tells you more about adding legally copyrighted music to YouTube.)
But, if you want to REALLY be on the safe side, here are some sites where you can find royalty free music, with no monetization of videos, and no strings attached:
http://www.adweek.com/digital/royalty-free-music/
https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/25/youtube-launches-free-audio-library-with-150-royalty-free-tracks/
It’s nice to have music with a birth video because births have a lot of quiet moments, and music helps in creating the feeling you want the video to have.
That’s it! Seriously. It's fairly easy to photograph a birth. The emotion is already there for you. All you have to do is sit back and capture it.
Take a look at this birth video I did and see if you can spot all the steps that I talked about (and where I broke my own rules). Please note, this birth video will probably make you cry.
And if you want to see more of my work, be sure to check out the documentary that I filmed.
