If you enjoy cooking and want to show your cooking skills off, you need to know how to make cooking videos very appetizing. Cooking videos are a great way to share your recipes tips and tricks, as well as even make some money.
If you become a pro, your channel might just be used by big companies for fast food promotions ! Won’t that be sweet?
But to be an instant hit and be known as a culinary guru on social media, you need to create videos that people would want to watch. In other words, you need to make your food look mouth-watering and something your audience would like to try. Here are our top ten editing tips and tricks to spice up your cooking videos.
1. Pre-Planning
If you are new to creating cooking videos for netizens, then the importance of pre-planning cannot be underestimated. You can use a recipe that hasn’t been aired or circulated a lot and make it look appetizing with the right lighting and camera angle.
If you have your recipe or secrets, then even better. Planning to shoot a video requires you to be prepared with all aspects of cooking, whether it is recipe, light, camera, colours or even the cooking area. You should always practice the recipe first before you shoot a video since it would result in lesser mistakes and even lesser time on editing.
2. Make the First Few Seconds Count
The initial few seconds of your video can decide whether your video will be a success or not. Therefore, make them count. Try to begin your video with a lip-smacking picture of the finished recipe. This will tempt the viewer to keep watching until the end and tempt your audience’s taste buds.
3. Use More Than One Camera
Use multiple cameras if you are shooting the video for the first time for better quality and angles. However, using several cameras come with the added cost and operational difficulty. Ask your family members or friends to help you shoot the video initially.
Once you become a pro, hire a professional for better results. If you need a close up of the cooking utensil, you should stop and continue when you feel the right shot is obtained. And yes, use a tripod to shoot the video to avoid getting wobbly shots.
4. Use Pictures to Create Videos
If you think the video may not be your cup of tea, then you can use pictures. Here’s how to make a video with photos and music – simply take the pictures of the food while you’re cooking.
You can download online tools like InVideo to create a stylish video, photo, or vlog. Many of these tools provide features like subtitles, music and even themes to complement the mood of the pictures you use.
5. Have Enough Lighting
Before you even begin filming your cooking video, make sure the lighting is adequate, and there is enough brightness in the room. If required, make necessary connections to the white balance so that you capture the true colours of the food you’re preparing.
It also reduces the chances of getting background hues. To adjust the white balance, simply look at a white sheet of paper through the camera lens and adjust the white balance to get a true white.
6. Make Audio Loud and Clear
Audio is one of the most important aspects of the video that can set your video apart from the rest of the videos on the internet. You can, therefore, set your video to music to set the tone for the frame speed, or you can also use a voice over to have audible descriptions.
If you feel the need to add subtitles, then you can add those too. But remember, having subtitles over the video can interfere with the pictures in the video.
7. Dress Appropriately
While creating a cooking video, it is a must to wear the right clothing so that viewers don’t get distracted. Never wear anything that is distracting, such as loud and bold prints or even white colour since it may distract the viewer’s attention from the recipe.
Focus on cooking and plating food rather than your clothes. It is always advised to wear bright but solid-coloured clothes so that they spruce up the mood around the cooking area.
8. Show Your Final Product
Show your viewers how the dish looks like once you are done cooking. Plate the final dish or keep in a bowl and garnish to finish. After all, you want your viewers to have a mouth-watering experience while watching your video and be hungry for more of your recipes in the coming days.
You can use props to accentuate the look of the dish and provide a narrative and context to your dish. A word of caution: don’t overdo the styling.
9. Video Angle
Do not take too many closeup shots since it can be harder to interpret and appear abstract. Therefore, choose the right video angle. In case you don’t know the correct camera angle, then take a lot of pictures or use multiple cameras, as we mentioned before.
This way, you’ll have a lot to choose from while editing the video. A piece of pro advice – shoot your video from an angle that doesn’t lead to shadows or reflection of any shinny objects nearby.
10. Use Color Correction
If you plan to follow our tip on using pictures to create a video, then use colour correction to accentuate each picture. Colour is one of the most important design elements that can be used to highlight a certain aspect of the picture, evoke a specific emotion, and even set the mood of the picture.
Online video editing tools have a lot of colour editing options, such as colour correction and grading. While colour correction ensures the colours are consistent across pictures, colour grading helps give a different look. Take advantage of both to give your cooking video a realistic look or differentiate certain scenes while you cook.
Nora Reynolds is a major in biology and a minor in Biological Basis of Behavior, writing about science in general. She also likes to try new gadgets and sports about the AI new era.
