Maybe you started planning Christmas back in the summer, maybe you are bit more last minute with your content? Either way, there are some lovely opportunities for using video content to draw attention to your photography brand in the run up to Christmas. These are all very easy to do, you don’t need special gear, tech knowledge or spend hours editing.

Christmas mini promo content

Love them or hate them, lots of us are knee deep in Christmas mini sessions towards the end of the year and video content can be a big help in selling those sessions.
When you test shoot your set up make sure you also get video. I like to get both slightly rough behind the scenes as well as some more “polished” video of the kids in the set-ups. It means I have options when putting my social media and website content together. The old “show don’t tell” is very true. If you can show video of how your Christmas looks, people will get it much quicker than you trying to explain it all.

This year I also made some short pieces of video content to post in local family groups on Facebook.

Do be intentional through about that BTS, it’s not just about slapping any old video out there, know why you are recording/using exactly that clip. I have another blog post up my sleeve about more purposeful BTS video content.

From my test shoot I aim to get:
:: Rough BTS video, wide look that shows me and the set-up
:: Pretty video snippets of the kids in the set-up without any surroundings
:: Rough still image of me in the set-up
:: Of course the final images for promotion

I had M with me for test shooting my set up with two different families (he is 13, your kids are much more capable than you think). He had my R6 on a tripod in the corner as well as my phone. I was taking the pictures and snippets of “pretty” film on the R5. You can just about make out that I had my video light (top left side) to help fill in for filming.
I had M with me for test shooting my set up with two different families (he is 13, your kids are much more capable than you think). He had my R6 on a tripod in the corner as well as my phone. I was taking the pictures and snippets of “pretty” film on the R5. You can just about make out that I had my video light (top left side) to help fill in for filming.

I sprinkled tiny short BTS video into carousels on Instagram and they actually got twice as many views at the reel I made with similar content. Example of Instagram post with tiny BTS videos.

12 days of Christmas reels

I thought I did this last year, but turns out it was two years ago. Anyhow, for “12 days of Christmas”, I recorded 12 very short video reels showcasing 12 different ways to use images around Christmas. By the time we get to December, I’m busy editing and wrapping up all the print orders so I apart from gift vouchers I’m not really trying to book any more sessions, so this was lovely soft/helpful content to post.
I recorded them all in one day, bulk edited them and scheduled them. The “1 of 12” can work well int he sense that people know it’s a series and might come back for the sequence?

Day 1 of 12 – Gift tag
Day 2 of 12 – Image box
Day 3 of 12 – String em up
Day 4 of 12 – Table setting
Day 5 of 12 -Thank you cards
Day 6 of 12 – Card gift
Day 7 of 12 – Album
Day 8 of 12 – Book mark
Day 9 of 12 – print pack
Day 10 of 12 – framed print
Day 11 of 12 – Memo holder
Day 12 of 12 – Poster prints

Christmas family film for client – mini?

Baking is a fantastic activity to film and it’s a tradition that is full of memories for most mums. Unlike a normal big family film, baking is a perfect defined, relatively short event, so if you wanted to offer any kind of “mini at home films”, this is a good little option. Alternatively you could also do putting the tree up and simply film the family decorating their tree.

Christmas family film for you

Capturing our own families is the most important “work” we do, and Christmas is no different. Make a film for you own family this year. If you have young kids start as early as you can with this tradition, you will marvel at those films as they get older. If you have older kids and you feel this will be difficult, maybe do a mix of filming elements of Christmas you like, and back up a bit with footage where you kids get to be smaller in the frame and feature less.

If you can, get their voices in, interview them about their hopes and wishes for this years presents. Ask them about the tree decorations as they unpack them and hang them on the tree – our boys always chat away about when they made those or where we bought them. Anything that gets them talking and chatting. This can all be rough and unperfect, in fact, don’t chase perfect, just chase something that reflects how you want everyone to remember Christmas in your house.

I’m going to do a separate post about how I capture our family for Christmas.