Tips for filming your sailing adventure much better

Getting good video footage from a sailing trip can prove more difficult than expected. Fortunately, with modern gears, it’s easier than ever to capture compelling and beautiful scenes from your trips and weave them into a narrative you’ll be proud to share with friends, family and the cruising community alike. Here’s a quick guide to getting the most from your sailing footage and capturing those envy-inducing shots:

One of the first rules is to think about the story you’re telling before you shoot. Try to capture those seemingly mundane moments such as freeing the mooring or weighing anchor. These introduce the story of “we’re going sailing.” Also, don’t just capture the pretty sunsets, or get up early and catch a beautiful sunrise or two. Try to anticipate some of the scenes you’ll want to feature, such as sighting land after a long passage, or the advancing squall line before the storm hits, and put a camera in place to catch the action before you need to spend time handling the sails. By thinking ahead of time what you really want to capture and by filming supporting content to introduce the subject, your video story will be much more coherent.

Another technique you’ll find very useful is to “lead” the scene. This means that before you just point the camera at the main subject of the shot, you first pan into it from something related. For instance, you might start with the bow wave of your boat and pan through the beautiful turbulent water before finally focusing on the shark that’s been swimming beside the boat the whole time. Or you may catch the glitter of the sun on the lifelines before panning to the sunset itself. After a few edits, you’ll get a feel for how quickly or slowly you need to do this transition for it to make sense. You will discover how transitions can add a polished feel to your videos rather than just showing abrupt sequences of “subject, subject, subject”, one right after the other.

There is always what filmmakers call “B roll.” This is additional footage of all kinds, such as someone at the helm, kids reading in their bunks, the wake of the rudder, or surfing waves on a downwind romp. You’ll use this footage to help build the idea of what life aboard is like. Shooting a lot of B roll around sail and line handling, cooking, weather and scenes at anchor or in the dinghy. All of these “ordinary moments” are an important part of the story and put the significant events into a context that helps them stand out more dramatically later, so definitely don’t forget them.

The biggest mistake beginners making is they make both their scenes and the video too long. For example, imagine you film something that’s really funny in the moment. When you go to edit, instead of looking at what you actually filmed, you’re looking at the moment you had in your mind. The problem is that what’s fun or funny to you, is not necessarily what people who are watching are going to enjoy. You have to create distance from yourself. So a lot of people end up putting in way too much stuff to explain a scenario that doesn’t really add anything to the story. Same thing with beauty shots. If you’re trying to make it beautiful, don’t put 12 sunsets and each sunset for 5 seconds. A 1 second sunset is enough. A good rule when you start, is cut everything by half.

Whenever you see something cool, tell yourself this specific moment will never ever happen again and take the shot. Like say you see tons of fly fish, but you’re in the middle of doing something. You drop what you’re doing and get your camera and film them. It’s the same thing with interviews. If you meet someone interesting, interview them on the spot. It’s tempting to say, “Oh, we’ll come back and interview them later,” but 99% of the time you never do.  Usually there are distractions, you’re off on another part of the adventure, the light has changed… Be disciplined, when the moment is there, capture it.

There are many waterproof cameras on the market today, but not all are created equal. Some of the most versatile and useful cameras out there are in the Go Pro Hero series. Any of these are excellent cameras that will capture beautiful scenes when used properly. The super-wide-angle lenses on the Go Pros capture pretty much everything in the general direction you point the camera. It’s usually best to get these cameras up close and personal to the action—the further away they are, the less they see of what’s really important. Also, buy a few large SD memory cards because video takes up a lot more storage space than photos.

You can film with multiple cameras from different angles to “cut” between them for the same event. This gives more interest to your video and works especially well with one camera catching a wide-angle view and the other focusing on details or close-in action.

 Last but not least, don’t forget your humble smartphone. If it’s handy, smartphones can get some really wonderful shots that otherwise would have been missed entirely.

By employing these tips and techniques, you’re sure to have a lot of fun retelling your stories through video. And you’ll see just how easy it can be.