Kids In Videos

Recently we did a Facebook promo for our Mother’s Day service, the video featured one of our Pastors’ kids saying a short message to his mom. The video itself was around a minute long but it took ten takes before getting it right. This got me thinking of how can I successfully create a video using children without having to take up half of my day recording. First, I thought maybe it was because he was put in front of green screen and studio lights and was distracted. Maybe, it was the people in the room that distracted him or the concept of the video was too difficult for him to grasp. These are all legitimate factors that can come into play when working with kids in a video production setting. In taking all these factors into consideration I thought I would try making a video using our preschool class as the subject. I thought it would be a cute idea to have the graduating Pre-K class make a video for their graduation program. I had two kids sit at a table playing with Play-Doh and ask each other two questions and it worked! I was able to record 16 kids in less than ten minutes, which was faster than the Mother’s Day session. 

I learned that kids have to be eased into a video production setting, especially if they have never done it before. Staying away from fancy equipment like the green screen the first couple of times and keeping it simple helps them get comfortable being in front of the camera. Originally, I wanted to use the green screen for the preschool video but after seeing the frustration of my cameraman who did the Mother’s Day session I quickly had to rethink my strategy for the video. Keeping the kids in their own environment made it comfortable for them and less stressful on myself, and it made the video fun. 

Here are some tips when filming short videos with kids:

1.     Keep the environment simple and fun. Have them play with toys or games or have those items in the background.

2.     Keep the script short and conversational for the kids. This makes it less stressful on the child and it brings a really fun element into the video.

3.     Keep it fun and be flexible. Kids respond better to you if you are not frustrated or yelling at them. When you’re having fun so are they. Kids can be a bit unpredictable so having flexibility comes in handy.