Lifehacker have a post explaining eight things you can do to improve your video. While some of them might seem obvious, it’s worth remembering how important little (and big) things can be in determining whether your shoot looks awesomely pro, or just plain home movie.

By the way, it’s not your usual media guru Chris Van Patten bringing you this post today, it’s Peter Upfold, but I’ll save that stuff for the end of the post.

Out of the eight things the article mentioned, I’ve found in my (fairly limited) video shooting and editing experience (to be honest I focus more on the editing when I do video, and even then I haven’t got any decent projects to my name), I think the following are probably the most important (in no particular order) with some of my additions:

• Lighting – lighting can make or break your video. While professional lighting isn’t easy to do without a semi-pro budget, doing little things like using reflectors can help. Additionally, most cheap camcorders really hate the dark, and de-noising stuff in post production is generally not considered fun.
• Use a tripod – there’s nothing worse than shakiness in something trying to look professional (unless of course the shakiness is part of the effect). If you don’t have a tripod, get one. There’s no real alternative, I’m afraid.
• Be careful with zoom – zooming while you’re rolling should be used sparingly. Zoom in using the optical zoom (seriously, turn off the digital zoom, if you have to use it you can do it in post production) and then start rolling. Zooming in while rolling, as I said, should be used rarely. When done well it works, but don’t be trigger happy.
• Audio is important – if your hardware supports having an external microphone, use that feature. In-built microphones (especially to cheap cameras) generally tend to be not of the best quality. And if you’re outside, you might have wind noise to contend with. You could try recording additional background audio from your scene and mixing it around in post production if you want a more pro effect, too.
• Continuity – if you’re doing something to a script – i.e. anything not documentary, it’s vital that you keep a record of continuity. It’s one of the most overlooked things in amateur video and something that can change your work from looking rather amateur to a bit more professional quite easily.

And just a quick footnote – I don’t pretend to be an expert here. I’ve done a little bit of video and media stuff as I said, but I’m definitely the amateur in comparison to Chris.