Vine Video Essentials: The Ultimate How-To Guide

Complex's 10-step guide to great video making.

Not Available Lead
Image via Complex Original
Not Available Lead

Written by Kyle M. F. Williams (@keelayjams)

I got into Vine at the same time I was creating short YouTube videos and posting them various places online. When Vine was announced it seemed like the perfect tool to do this a little more efficiently, especially with its Twitter integration. I love how simple it is—just two options: "record this part right now" and "don't record this part right now." Finding a way to maximize and twist and tweak those two simple commands let me actualize all the weird things I've always wanted to see happen in real life.

What follows are 10 essential tips to help you make a memorable Vine.

Basics

Not Available Interstitial

 

Adhere to the basics.

Get a tripod and some lights. These things are pretty basic but make a huge difference and set a tone for the Vine. The bulk of the content created in this app is grainy, dark, jittery video made by shaky-handed tweens so it really stands out to increase the production value with a tripod and a lot of light. Even just a little clamp from a hardware store to steady the phone on something and turning all the room lights on makes a huge difference. The colors are better, the action is smoother and it's more watchable without a jarring cut at the looping point.

Vine: "WELCOME TO THE MANCAVE - NOW GET THE FUCK OUT" was shot in my living room on a tripod. I created a music loop and cued the action, fog machine, and disco lights to all go on at the appropriate time.

Pre-Production

Not Available Interstitial


Pre-production work makes all the difference.

I probably take Vine a little more seriously than most people that want to share what they're doing with their buds, but there is something gratifying about a well-made Vine that months later, as more people are downloading the app and seeing your stuff and sharing, still stands up as something you're kinda proud of. I try to get the final take to be as close to how I envisioned it, and that's hard. Planning, sourcing materials, setting up a scene, rehearsing and filming can take hours. Do a couple takes and see if everything looks good in the app. If you're not totally proud of it, can it and do it again.

Vine: "Endless VCR" required a fake shelf, hollowed-out VCR, and glued-together tapes and two hours to complete.

Sound Design

Not Available Interstitial


Sound design is key.

This is just as important as the imagery of a Vine. I have a semi-strict rule of no talking. Hearing a voice looped over and over again in a Vine is distracting if it's not engineered to be interesting in a loop. I like to either let the action in the Vine become the soundtrack or add a soundtrack via an old phone loaded up with a piece of music (I put headphones connected to the old phone over the Vine-phone's microphone). It is also possible, with some patience, to create a perfectly timed loop of audio in an audio-editing program, which is kind of special when you nail it and it makes the Vine that much more enjoyable.

Vine: "Pizzas Parachuting From A Very Pretty Bridge" had seven assistants throwing pizzas with parachutes attached from a bridge. The music is from an old prog-rock song playing via the headphones of a second phone. I love the sound of the pizzas hitting the ground mixed in.

Special Effects

Not Available Interstitial


Use special effects to wow your followers.

There are no effects or filters in the app so make your own. The Vine audience is baffled when they have no idea how you did something. I've turned all my living room furniture and the camera sideways to make it look like I was floating away off of my couch. I made a little rig with an iPad and an angled piece of glass over it to "project" video and words into a scene. Little screw-on iPhone lenses and color filters are fun. Fishing line is my favorite tool to make things move in real time (rather than using stop-motion techniques). It's better to put the effort in and set up interesting special effects than to fake it by filming a video edited in iMovie and Vining the computer screen.

Vine: "Taking a lil snooze" turned my living room sideways. Here's a behind-the-scenes pic.

Environment

Not Available Interstitial


Use outside surroundings to your advantage.

Take an idea that would be easy and more comfortable to make at home and do it outside in public. The six seconds of a Vine is the perfect amount of time to record yourself (or someone else) doing something bonkers outside where people can see, but not enough time for the cops to come. My favorite Vines to make involve bringing something weird into a public space, setting it up, filming it, and getting the hell out before anyone asks questions.

Vine: "Amanda Bynes graffiti made out of white bread" was filmed in my neighborhood. I stuck the bread on the wall, quickly filmed what I had to, posted to Vine, tore it all down, and then split.

Themes

Not Available Interstitial


Embrace themes.

Get obsessed with something to the point where it's basically telling you what to do next. I've always loved the image of a dude in black metal makeup wearing all black doing normal things and I play with this a lot in Vine. The idea is constantly evolving and making reappearances. Do what you want; craft your feed with your vision. Keep thinking of new ideas and ways to spin previous ideas that have worked for you. Don't mindlessly redo and dilute ideas that were popular for you in the past just for the "likes."

Vine: "Black metal guy riding a bicycle built for two" is the third in a series of a-black-metal-guy-doing-something-weird Vines. The others have him shredding guitar outside of T.J. Maxx, shredding guitar while wearing rollerblades, and having a pizza party for one.

Humor

Not Available Interstitial


A little humor goes a long way.

I prefer Vines that are rather stiff and serious in production but have some humor in content. It's not exactly comedy, but just something that is off enough to make you want to rewatch and try to figure out why it's funny. It's hard to be a comedian on Vine and a lot of videos intended to be comedic are usually pretty shitty, but just a hint of humor goes a long way and leads to a lot of rewatching and sharing.

Vine: "A bowl of salad in the seat of a wheelchair rolling down the street unassisted" was based on a tweet I wrote about a year ago. The image was very funny to me when I wrote the tweet so I rented a wheelchair, bought a salad, and made the Vine.

Hacks

Not Available Interstitial


Hacks can help boost creativity.

Because of the nature of the app, the only way to record is if your finger is in contact with the screen. Finding ways around this is one of my favorite things. Version 1.0 had a great bug where you could swipe your finger up and it would record for the 6 seconds without constant touching, so you could set the phone up, swipe the screen, run in front of the camera, do something, and not need an assistant. This got removed in later versions, but through experimenting with jailbroken phones I've been able to use a second phone and even a Wii Remote as a remote trigger. There is also a non-jailbreak method which invovles using the iPhone's built-in "AssistiveTouch" accessibility setting to register a virtual touch for any length of time. This is great if you need both hands to manipulate something in the scene: Touch once, it stays recording, and perform the action.

Vine: "Self portrait from ceiling fan" was filmed by rubberbanding my phone to the blade of a ceiling fan and remotely triggering Vine via a second phone hidden under my leg.

Supplies

Not Available Interstitial


Have various props at your disposal.

eBay is incredible for finding affordable, weird things for Vines. A bulk of bikini babe posters, old rollerblades, 45 broken Razr cell phones, a used fog machine, or model rocket parachutes are all about $20. Get a plastic bin, fill it full of supplies and slide it under the bed. Having a grip of items that can reappear in Vines are almost like a cast of actors you can call on at anytime.

Vine: "Hanging up some posters of babe in my man cave" has another appearance of a wholesale lot of used bikini babes posters from the ’90s that I bought on eBay. They show up whenever I need an interesting background.

Keep an ideas list.

Not Available Interstitial

Latest in Pop Culture