Are You Creating Boring GoPro Videos?

Can you remember the last time you watched a video and thought to yourself, "I wish I had that time in my life back"? Far too often boring, mundane, or lackluster videos are posted on social media resulting in wasted time and frustrated audiences.

However, have you ever considered if you are the culprit? 

We recently read a very interesting article on www.diygopro.com about creating non-boring videos and how to do it. 

Essentially the article explores how our brain acts as quick in recognizing visuals as it does in retaining the visual information. In conclusion; prolonging yourself to visual stimulation for a longer period of time may not necessarily help your brain retain any additional information. In essence, you're boring your brain! 

Try and recall the last really great video or edit you watched online; chances are the shots in the video did not last any longer than 5 to 10 seconds before it cut to another scene. Maybe we're an impatient society but our brains have been hardwired to be satisfied by quick cuts and short scenes. 

Don't take our word for it, the masters at GoPro certainly know how to make a video. This one below has close to 30 MILLION views - I had a hard time finding a scene that was longer than 5 seconds, let alone 10. Short shots = more impact!

Okay so now that we've cleared that up, the next part is explaining on how to properly execute it! Spoiler alert: CUT OFTEN.

Next time you go to film your adventure instead of turning on you camera and leaving it running, get engaged and get creative. Even something as simple as a forest walk can be made more dramatic with cuts. 

Record you leaving the house and walking to the car - CUT.

Film your friend doing up their hiking shoes at the trail - CUT.

Film the entrance of the forest - CUT.

Record your feet and pan up to the trees - CUT! 

I think you get the idea; the more cuts the better. 

When we were designing the Spivo Stick we had captivating (non-boring) videos in mind, hence the ability to instantly rotate the camera 180 degrees. The transition effect the Spivo Stick function creates is what expert videographers call a "whip-pan". Whip-pans act as excellent effects for scene cuts and transitions. 

Words are great but videos are better, take some cutting inspiration from one of our favourite customer videos below.

What makes this video so cool is how the two travellers took advantage of Spivo Stick's whip-pan effect. Instead of showing the audience what appears on the other side of the rotation, they often cut the scene and show a completely new scene as if rotating the camera transported them into a new place! So cool. 

To do this, attach your camera and every time you want to cut, hit Spivo Stick's trigger to rotate the camera - when you begin editing that will be your scene cut transition. 

Compiling all the short scenes into one video will make a rich and diverse story actually worth watching. 

Don't waste your audience's time - cut often!

Thanks for reading :)