Break away from your friends and family and get shots that put them in a time and place. I remember one morning looking at a home movie shot in the hills of Kentucky at a family funeral, probably 60 years ago. There were white frame houses, the family all dressed in black, old square cars, a white frame church and spectacular shots of a cemetery on the side of a hill on a green and golden fall day. I didn't know are care about the family faces but the cameraman had so captured a time and place that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was a glimpse into an era that no longer exists, and it was caught very simply by a novice family member with movie camera in hand.

However, you and most of your audience will care about the family faces in your video, and this is where you really have to go to work. Some of the best shots occur when you behave like a fly on the wall -- the actors in your video no longer care or know that you are there. It's actually a lot of work. You need to shoot, or look like you are shooting so much that everyone starts to ignore you. You aren't asking them to smile or say cheese. You aren't interviewing them. You are simply making a fool of yourself standing on a chair in the corner, crawling on the floor chasing the cat, pushing in on the stove while someone tries to stir a pot, eavesdropping in on every conversation. You tell everyone to not worry, that you'll probably throw 90% of what you shoot away, and you well might.

With the fly-on-the-wall technique you are hoping to capture real people in action. Twenty or thirty years from now you'll want to know what grandma sounded like as a young mother, your kids will laugh that their uncle still walks just like he did when he was a kid, they'll be amazed at how playful all the old goats were back then. These reactions don't come if every shot is posed. A few interviews and testimonials may be good, but if they're bad, what do you do with them -- throw them on the floor and hurt someone's feelings?

The fly-on-the-wall technique assumes you will follow up and edit out the junk and the boring but you don't just want to leave the camera running endlessly. You want to get shots from different angles. You want to grab snippets and move. You need to hit the red button and stop the camera before you hunt for the next shot. Sentences have periods. Don't be guilty of taking run-on videos.

If your subjects get busy and decide to do something interesting, grab the camera. Maybe the guys will tear into a car or motorcycle, maybe everyone will play a rousing game of Monopoly, perhaps the women will go shopping, how about a pickup football or basketball game, and certainly get shots in the kitchen. Get dad in his tool room, get mom picking flowers, film washing a favorite pet, capture a stroll through the park.