Social media sometimes reminds me of the board game Othello: It takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. Happily, though, tons of kind strangers on the Internet are more than willing to help us out — like, for example, the folks behind this infographic teaching us how to make the perfect Instagram video. Brought to us by digital ad agency Fusion 360, it walks us through all the basics necessary for transforming a shaky, largely unwatchable video of your cat tossing around her favorite toy into a Hollywood epic of a fearsome beast hunting the dreaded Squeaky Toy of Doom.
Well… maybe one infographic won't up your social media game that much, but you get what I mean.
Confession: I don't actually use Instagram. While I am a visual learner, I don't tend to think about my day-to-day experiences in terms of images — I process them in words (which is perhaps unsurprising, given my profession). Lately, though, I've been toying around with the idea of maaaaaaaybe starting an account and playing around with it; I just moved to a new city, so part of me thinks it might be worth documenting the experience in a different way than I typically would.
So in that respect, I stumbled upon this handy infographic at just the right time. It isn't detailed enough to be the be-all, end-all of Instagram video tutorials — but it provides an excellent place to start. More info about the key terms noted here is just a Google search away: Want some pointers on framing? Here you go. What about lighting? The Internet has that covered, too. Angles? You got it. In fact, here's a plethora of filmmaking basics you might want to brush up on. Thanks to the Internet, it's relatively easy to figure out how to boost your social media posts from standard to wow-worthy — although of course the best way to develop your own skills at it is just to do it, and do it, and do it again.
Check out the full infographic below — and don't forget to apply some of the lessons we learned while researching how to maximize your Instagram likes while you're at it. Happy filming!
Images: Pexels; Fusion360-2/Visual.ly
