You are working with charities and, therefore, many of the people you serve are in a vulnerable state or sensitive situation. They could be hospitalized or in need of a home and food. Establish a rapport with people before you stick a camera and microphone in their faces. Many are nervous or just bad on camera. The best way to make them comfortable is to talk to them, conducting an interview without their knowing it.

Another way to teach video is to put the students completely in charge. This works best with one child or a very small group. I learned this approach while working with critically ill children in the hospital. The goal was not to teach video techniques so much as to allow the children to express themselves through video. Whether playacting superheroes or talking about the boredom of living in a hospital, the children found dealing with illness a little easier. The quality of these videos wasn’t as good as it would have been under strict creative supervision, but the children had more fun while learning about video.

In the end. every one of them got to be the director, camera-person, lighting expert, sound person and actor,  digital cameras. I edited the piece myself to show them and their parents what an excellent job they did. The nice thing about educating in this fashion is that you can keep the class well-organized, teach a lot of information in a short amount of time and come out with a coherent video. However, the final video doesn’t communicate the children’s own thoughts.

I set up a program for a children’s summer camp. Many of them had never seen a video camera before. My goal going in was to show them how the video camera works (focus, iris, zoom), sound and lighting techniques and how movie makers tell a story. I went in with a simple storyboard of 14 shots. It was a commercial selling bottled air, a parody of bottled water. After going through a general tutorial on the storyboard and how all the equipment works, we rotated duties for each shot.

You are teaching video techniques and storytelling, and you are not overly concerned about how it looks. I’ve found two productive ways to teach video. One is to start with a storyboard I wrote ahead of time and concentrate on the technical aspects of video. The other is to approach students with an open slate by letting them decide what to say and how to say it. Both have benefits and drawbacks.

When video is used as a promotional tool, quality of the final product is key. The charity is going to show this video to others, so if it looks cheap, your production will hinder rather than advance the cause. Nonprofits can benefit from video in many ways, including volunteer recruitment. Frequently, representatives will go to community groups to talk about the charity. It’s great when they have a video in hand that shows happy volunteers and clients

Why not give your video expertise away for good by helping out a charity? You’ll have a built-in audience, a story to tell and a real reason to shoot. Plus, you will take away some great stuff for your demo reel.
There are three general ways to go about making videos for charity. You can produce promotional videos, do training videos or teach video making as a purely educational exercise. Reading this article will help you decide what type of project to do and for which charity.