If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

Shooting good Halloween video
The Halloween season offers a perfect time to capture your Halloween festivities on video tape and preserve all the spooky memories for yourself and others for years to come. Below is a basic guide offering tips on how to use your video camera to video tape your Halloween night.

Know your video camera
This is the first and most important step to shooting good video. Your video will look much better if you are familiar with your camcorder's features and its accessories. Read the manual until you understand it. Then experiment using the different controls and features for what, where and when you will be video taping. Be sure to experiment video taping at night, since you will be shooting most of your video then. Do this before Halloween! Make sure you have plenty of video tapes and extra "charged" batteries for your video camera.

Keep the camera still
The first accessory for your video camera should be a good tripod with a "fluid pan head" designed for video camera use. The pan head allows you to move the camera smoothly as you direct the camera. We can't stress enough what a difference a good tripod makes!

When walking with a video camera, perhaps when sneaking up behind trick or treaters, try to keep the camera as level and steady as possible.

The importance of lighting
Most of your video will be taken at night, and a properly lit video can often make the difference between a horrible looking video and a great looking one. Choose the right white balance for the setting. Be sure to select the outdoor lighting selection for shooting outdoors and indoor lighting selection for indoor setting. Use discretion when using the built-in light.

Most camcorders have an automatic white balance feature, but you can manually set the white balance by placing a piece of white paper or cardboard in the same area in which you will be shooting your video and then choosing the correct setting for your video camera's white balance. Manually setting the white balance allows you to fine-tune your camera's white balance.

Creating a Halloween documentary
Transferring video from your video camera to your computer is not very complicated. You will need a video capture card capable of digitizing input from a video source such as a video camera and transferring it to the hard-drive on your computer, and then outputting it back to either DVD, CD or Video Tape after you've edited it.

A basic video capture card suitable for the beginner will cost you anywhere from $100.00 to $300.00. Most capture cards come with some type of video editing software that allows you to edit the video and audio, add titles and credits, insert music, and create special effects such as transitions between video clips. This is known as post production editing.

If you plan to edit your video on your computer think about what you want the finished movie to be, then shoot your Halloween to match. The basic truth is that any video can be improved by editing it. Editing lets you tell a video story in your own way and gives you the ability to use the best shots. Try to tell your Halloween story, maybe start with your Halloween preparations and then the spooky night its self.