The idea of exploration, beauty, and experience excites everyone. Spending quality time among people of different cultures and visiting new places is, in fact, a lavish lifestyle that not only entertains you but also educates you. Moreover, this feeling increases tenfold for travel filmmakers who turned their passion into employment.
You must have seen travel videos online that are booming with millions of likes and comments. What do you think is the reason for such popularity? The answer is really simple. The main aim of any travel video must be audience engagement.
It is said that most viewers stop watching a video if they don’t feel connected to the first 8 to 10 seconds of the footage. Therefore, user engagement is key. However, sometimes, even the most professional video makers deal with the unpredictability of creating travel stories that truly engage their audience. So it’s only fair that you are confused and are looking for guidance as a beginner. If that is the case, this blog is for you.
Here are 6 steps to help you create your first ever YouTube travel video.
Planning and coordinating prior to the trip
There are many important aspects to consider when going on a trip as a video maker. Moreover, you must figure out all of these variables before your journey. As a travel videographer, your goal is to curate the best possible video without having to burn through your savings. So, budget planning, Ideation, sponsorships, and strategy are a few aspects that you need to figure out beforehand.
When you go on a trip to create a video for your YouTube channel, your work takes priority over personal pleasure. Nevertheless, as a beginner, you may be super excited to start your journey in this new world. This, in fact, can act as an advantage for you. With excitement comes a supernova of creative ideas. Moreover, with the right direction, these ideas have the potential to help create a million viewer travel video.
You may have to finance your trip from your own pocket at the start. But as you progress in the field, it may be challenging to do the same. If you do not have constant income coming from your YouTube channel, it can become far more difficult and result in not enough following or engagement. That is where sponsorships come to the rescue. Pitching your sponsorship idea to travel agencies or tourism boards is the key. Sometimes you might even get paid to travel instead of paying for it yourself.
Packing appropriate film gear
When you travel to a new region, it is wise to assume that things can go south. Your equipment may even get damaged or, worse, stolen. Changing Climate and weather conditions can affect your cameras, thus hindering your progress. So you need to prepare for the worst and pack the appropriate film gear to sustain all these conditions.
Consider this situation. You have partnered with a tourism agency, and they are sending you on a trip to Jaipur for a live video. You assumed that because it is a weekday trip, not many people will be visiting the places. However, after you reach the destination, you observe that there is a huge crowd. In that case, noise cancellation becomes key. So it would help if you had a camera capable of that feature ready to use. This situation is just an example of how things can go wrong.
Similarly, suppose you are traveling to a cold place. In that case, you need to have backup batteries, as the chill in the environment drains batteries quickly. If you are in an oceanic place, then you need waterproof gear.
Conveying your goal at the beginning of the video
Users who visit your YouTube channel always have a plan. The majority of them watch the video with a question in mind. If they don’t find an answer for it within the first 10 seconds, then they skip the rest of the video and migrate to another one. Therefore, you must convey the goal of your video in the introduction.
When you plan to shoot footage as a video maker, you must have a goal in mind. With the objective comes the concept of the target audience. Though extra viewers are surely welcome, your main focus is always attracting users with a similar goal. Thus, it is essential to put forth your ideas at the beginning so that users do not have to scroll through the entire video to figure out whether the footage is appropriate or not.
Choosing the right type of footage to get your story out
The idea of creating videos is very close to the art of storytelling via visual graphics. Moreover, the main purpose of storytelling is to consume the audience’s mind and keep them engaged in the video. Choosing the right tone for your video is key here. Vlogging, B roll and voice-over narration are the three most popular tonalities for travel-based video content. Vlogging involves you talking to the camera when it records. In contrast, voice-over narration is recording audio separately and combining it with video in the video editing process. On the other hand, B roll focuses on alternative shots that convey a story through only pictures.
Background music is key
Choosing background music is one of the most difficult tasks for a video maker. That’s because there are a million audios out there, and choosing one that suits the vibe of your video is a tedious task that takes days. However, this procedure becomes simpler with tools like Epidemic Sound due to the curated music library the application offers.
Video editing is crucial
Now that you have a goal, footage, and music ready, it is time to put everything together to create a kick-ass video. Video editing is the ultimate key to success. It gives you a chance to recheck and cut out all the parts that you feel are unnecessary. It gives you the liberty to spin the captured footage into a meaningful story. With tools like In Video, this editing process becomes more user-friendly.
Now that you are familiar with creating a travel YouTube video, it is time for you, as a video maker, to put this knowledge to use. Go ahead and make your first ever video. Remember that no one is perfect at the beginning. The most important aspect is that you start your journey so that you can open new paths for improvement along the way.