How To Make Great Travel Videos

The King of Travel Videos – at least at the moment…

Bhisgen posted a question a few days ago that really got me thinking.

He asked how you apply the 5-shot rules to travel videos.

This made me realize that what I need to do is create a whole set of ‘how to’ videos for travel.

At the moment I am in London at the Guardian Media Academy, so I don’t have the time, yet.

But instead of making you wait, I am going to at least give you a few pointers about making a great travel video.

1.  Travel videos are NOT about the location, or the place that you are visiting – strangely enough – they are about people.  Case in point:  If you have ever watched Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, for years the most popular show on The Travel Channel (and still cranking), they are about 30% about the places that Bourdain is going and 70% about Bourdain.

Anyone who watches the shows watches for Bourdain, NOT for where he is going.  If they love the show (and many do), they don’t really care where he goes, so long as he is going there.  They would never tune in and then say ‘Oh, Japan. Not interested’. And change the channel.  Where he goes, strangely, is a complete abstraction.

2.  The interest is in what he does.  And what he does is goes to interesting and unusual places and injects himself into them.  It’s HIS story, NOT the location.  Those ‘location’ videos are the kind of things that people in the TV business used to call ‘destination videos’:  (ie:  “This is Boston, the home of the American Revolution.  Boston has many interesting places to visit….” Are you asleep yet?    Great travel videos, like great movies (or great storytelling) is about characters, and what happens to them. NOT where they go.

3.  If you want to make great travel videos, you are going to need a character, a ‘star’ of your videos.  Your own Bourdain. And probably, it is going to be you – or someone close to you. That’s great.  That’s what makes this work.  (Do you remember the pilot we showed you a few weeks ago done by Captain John, our professional airline pilot?  When we pitch his series to the networks, it’s going to be about him – where he goes is incidental.

4.  Once you get somewhere, go someplace interesting.  If you are going to Paris, the Eiffel Tower is NOT interesting. Not that it’s not interesting, but everyone on the planet has seen it about a thousand times.  To go to Paris and put your camera on a tripod and shoot video of the Eiffel Tower is a total waste of time. Just to to Youtube. It’s a lot less trouble.  What you have to do is to find something offbeat, interesting, unusal and engaging. Then – inject yourself into it.

5.  Your home is someone else’s travel destination.  That’s right.  You don’t have to wait for that trip to Bhutan to start making great travel videos.  Where you live may be boring and commonplace to you, but to someone who has never been there, it’s a travel destination. So it’s a great place to get started. If you can make Parsippany, New Jersey compelling, you’ll be a killer by the time you get to Bhutan.