Tips for Making Fun Vine Videos
OK, I admit, I’m sold on this Vine nonsense. Being a video dork, I like to experiment with new video apps to see how they might be useful or make my life more interesting. Vine delivers on that. For the uninitiated, Vine is an iOS app that enables you to record 6 second looping videos with your iPhone. Sounds stupid, I know, but read on.
Stop Motion
This my favorite thing about Vine. You can easily hammer out a stop motion video by simply tapping the screen during the record process. Just a quick tap to capture a single frame a time. Combine this with a tripod and you’ll a master animator in no time. Ian Padgham has created some great examples.
Dying for a coffee. #magic #vineart #pleaselike vine.co/v/bJwnA9qjYiH
— Ian Padgham (@origiful) January 29, 2013
A little lunchtime dreaming. #loop #vineart vine.co/v/bJrwbPlYiZj
— Ian Padgham (@origiful) January 28, 2013
Fade-in Trick
This is a simple, yet effective trick to fade into a scene from blank white. When you’re ready to record, put your hand over the lens for a few seconds then take it away and start recording at the same time. Your iPhone will auto adjust its iris to accommodate for the current amount of light which has just changed from not much to a lot. This results in a fade from white to your scene.
Fun with fades vine.co/v/bv1vHpBVPUd
— Eddie Codel (@ekai) February 12, 2013
Looping
All Vines are loops, keep that in mind when coming up with ideas. Try ending a sequence so your last frame or clip makes a logical connection to the start of your sequence.
Don’t hurl vine.co/v/bJ3w3vvZn17
— Eddie Codel (@ekai) February 12, 2013
— reggie watts (@reggiewatts) February 15, 2013
Audio
You’re always recording audio. Take advantage of capturing snippets of sound in the same way you are capturing snippets of video. Combine the two for extra epicness!
Red Red #Vine 😉 vine.co/v/bvJMmt6KumT
— Dominik (@domlen) February 10, 2013
#Lego Volume Meter – #Sound check one, two, one, two! vine.co/v/b1p1m1hWdAF
— Dominik (@domlen) February 2, 2013
Hastags
Hashtags are a great way for people to discover your stuff, especially if you use ones listed on the Explore page, but do keep them relevant. No one wants to see your cat drop a load in her litter box when they click #travel. Try to limit yourself to three. No one likes a hashtag whore.
Upload elsewhere
Vine saves your movies as Quicktime .mov files in your camera roll. You can upload those directly to other places like YouTube, Facebook, Path or Socialcam. Yes, the videos will only play out once, but sometimes that’s good enough. Experiment. Better yet, string them all together into one video, like this from my last 2 weeks of using Vine.
If you like what you see, feel free to add me on Vine or find me on Twitter.