---
title: Tell us your story - Part two
description: <p>How to tell amazing stories through video, without hiring a videographer or buying fancy equipment.</p>
---

[Articles ](https://www.fishhook.us/articles)

# [Tell us your story - Part two](https://www.fishhook.us/articles/tell-us-your-story-part-two)

 Written by [Shayla Kenworthy](https://www.fishhook.us/articles/author/shayla-kenworthy) | March 18, 2014

Last week, as part one of our “Tell Us Your Story” series, we talked about ways to harvest the amazing stories of life change happening in your church.

Now how do you do all of this without hiring a videographer or buying a bunch of fancy equipment? 

I once again asked our friend [Tim Broyles](http://golove.org/discover/our-staff/), Associate Pastor of Adult Ministries at [Church at the Crossing](http://golove.org), to tell us how they do it each week in their “[That's My Story](http://golove.org/thatsmystory/)” videos.

Here are some tips and suggestions:

- **Think of the branding for your series and keep it consistent.** Church at the Crossing started telling all of their stories with the person sitting by himself/herself in the empty sanctuary. They also start all their stories with the text “What has God been doing in your life?” to set up the video.  And each person ends their 2(ish) minute clip with, “I’m *name, *and that’s my story.”
- **Think about the video and audio equipment you want to use.** Tim said they actually preferred the somewhat “homemade” feel to the video because it made it real. “If we had the full “professional studio” look to it, I’m sure it would have looked great, but we may have lost something in the feeling that we wanted.” He believes their interviewees felt that it was important but casual as they filmed. It was also important to Church at the Crossing that the audience could tell that the person filmed was “one of our own” and not some canned video. There are many usable options for video and audio. Here are a few suggestions:

- **Upload your video into a good editing program. **There are many options for this too. But for short little segments to tell someone’s story you won’t need anything fancy. If you are an Apple user [iMovie](http://www.apple.com/ios/imovie/?cid=wwa-us-kwg-features-com&siclientid=6381&sessguid=98e1a330-359f-452c-bf42-6d48bfe19ac7&userguid=98e1a330-359f-452c-bf42-6d48bfe19ac7&permguid=98e1a330-359f-452c-bf42-6d48bfe19ac7) will work. There are other inexpensive programs such as [Pinnacle Studio](http://www.pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/us/home/) and [Sony Movie Studio](http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com) you can use. More advanced programs include [Final Cut X](http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/) and [Adobe Premiere ](https://creative.adobe.com/products/premiere).
- **Don’t forget to light the space. **A good way to get a natural look to the person you are interviewing is to use the [3-Point Lighting Technique](http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/three-point/). It’s pretty simple. As the title suggests you will use three different lights. The key light that illuminates the scene, the fill light that fills in the shadows and a backlight to help pop your storyteller off the background.
- **Balance the video in the frame. **Filling 1/3 of the frame with the person you are interviewing is a good general rule of thumb when shooting video. Also, remind the person in the shot to sit straight and comfortable, maintain eye contact and act naturally. [Get some tips here!](http://www.wikihow.com/Shoot-Video-With-Your-DSLR)

 Now start telling those amazing stories of life change happening in your church!

[View full post](https://www.fishhook.us/articles/tell-us-your-story-part-two)

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