Creating Mood in Your Video
The feeling and reaction that viewers feel when they watching your video is evoked not only from the actors and actions but also from the effects you make use of while putting your movie together.
Yes, it’s obvious when you point it out, but had it not been mentioned. You might not have realized that your adrenalin kicked in not only because James Bond was maneuvering his Aston Martin DB5 at incredible speeds with his foot on the steering wheel and his gun spraying accurately aimed bullets from the window…but ALSO because during that part of the movie the music went louder and quicker, the scenes flashed between views a lot quicker without subtle fade and disappear transitions. Lighting became intense instead of romantic and candle lit and the angle and zoom of the camera would doubtlessly have been manufactured to draw you closer to the danger, closer to the action, tilt you off balance and throw you around a little.
So the first question you need to ask yourself is: What mood am I creating in my video? 
Nostalgic and Romantic? So that when I watch this video I can reminisce an incredible holiday, a gorgeous city, a time when every one was happy and friendly.
Energetic and Colourful? When I watch this video I want to feel the energy of the people and the place seeping out of the screen – bright cheerful colours put a smile on my face and a skip in my step.
Action and Adventure? Makes me want to jump out of my seat and scream at my team to GO! GO! GO! Makes me want to climb into the TV set and tell the referee he is WRONG! Makes me bite my nails waiting to see if the goal was scored or not.
Lets look at these three moods and see how we would edit our videos to suite them.
Nostalgic & Romantic
Slow motion & soft lighting create a relaxed and comfortable mood. Your transition between scenes would be gentle, easing you out of one image and into the next. A fade out and fade in would work very well. Even something like a dissolve would keep a relaxed atmosphere.
You can make use of slow motion for key ‘happenings’ like a goal being scored or your partner jumping in the air screaming for joy. You could even tone your film with a colour that you think represents your mood.
Seeing as the audio of the footage would most likely be noisy and not compliment your video, you can rather overlay the audio with a song you like. Slow rock maybe? A bit of jazz?
Energetic & Colourful
This would most likely be the most common mood picked to portray the FootBall Fever! With the colours of each nation paint-splashed across the city at the moment! Energetic moods in your film can be complimented by funky transitions between scenes. Diagonal page folds, blurring your scene into rainbow colours and then snapping to the next scene or having one scene ‘wipe’ the other off the screen. You can be outgoing with this mood and have a lot of fun adding colourful frames or titles and upbeat music.
It is most likely that the ambient noises you have recorded will compliment your mood, so there may be no need to wipe out the sounds with music. If you are going to add music, make sure it’s vibey and happy and the words in the song compliment the energy of your video.
Action & Adventure
James bond style, you want tense moments & danger. The pain on a spectators face as his team misses the goal while the opposing team screams and cheers in the background. To create a moment that hints at a tense, unknown outcome; use slow motion, dragging out the nail biting seconds to the final scene that gives the answer. Just as the answer is about to reveal itself smack the video back into normal speed – almost giving your viewers a fright (of relief of horror depending on what the outcome was)
No fading in and out of scenes for this mood – you need high paced transitions that say ‘we have no time to mess around – we are out to save the world” and then flick right into the next scene. You can go from colour to black and white at a moment of horror, showing the viewer that the image isn’t important – it’s the message it gives that is (your team missing a goal maybe or one of the team members horrified by the refs decision)
Zoom into the action when it happens – draw your spectator into the danger zone and let them feel like they are in the moment.
A little bit of Technical Jargon
Something that had me a little confused was the difference between a transition and a cut. To put it simply – a cut occurs when you stop one scene in order to move onto the next one. A transition is what you put between cuts.
The length of video you have between will also impact the mood in your movie.
Music videos are a very good example of this. A fast paced, high energy music video will have cuts roughly every two seconds and a slow, romantic or sad music video will leave much longer stretches of time between each cut, allowing the scene to play out slowly and smoothly.
Maybe the video starts with a slow introduction, then builds up pace and ends with a bang or builds up only to suddenly slow down again and anti-climax.
When you are putting your video together pay special attention to three things: The length of video between your cuts, The colour and style of your video and the sounds or soundtrack you choose to add. Make sure that these three things compliment the mood your are trying to create with the clips your have captured.
When you are done editing your video hand it to a friend to watch and ask them “how did it make your feel? What emotion did it evoke” and see if you hit the spot!
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