89 Video Ideas to Jumpstart Your Creative Juices

Published on May 5, 2011

Do you need video ideas? Looking for some inspiration to help you make your videos more creative?

Everyone needs a creative kick in the pants on occasion. Personally, I find creative prompts helpful for starting a brainstorm.

Here's a list of 89 video ideas that you can reference again and again for inspirational launching points...

The Big List of Creative Video Ideas

1. Desaturate your video, and make it black and white.
2. Oversaturate your video.
3. Add a vignette to your video image.
4. Choose an interesting camera angle, such as a low angle.
5. Choose a high camera angle.
6. Isolate one color and make everything else black and white
7. Make one person black and white, and make everything else in color.
8. Move the camera toward the subject to reveal emotion, such as a dolly shot.
9. Move the camera away from the subject to reveal surroundings.
10. Move the camera around the subject to emphasize dimension.
11. Shoot from a character's point of view.
12. Use slow motion video.
13. Use fast motion.
14. Use a combination of slow motion and fast motion (ramping or time remapping)
15. Use a fast shutter speed to reduce or eliminate motion blur.
16. Use a slow shutter speed to add motion blur.
17. Add contrast to the image.
18. Add a glow to highlights.
19. Add a color tint to the image.
20. Add fast music in the background.
21. Add slow music in the background.
22. Use rapid cuts to increase the pacing of the video.
23. Use long cuts to slow down the pacing.
24. Back light a subject to create a silhouette.
25. Light from beneath to make the subject more sinister.
26. Light from the side to make the subject appear conflicted.
27. Light from the top to make their eyes appear in shadow.
28. Use a soft light to make them more beautiful.
29. Use a hard light from the side to emphasize angles and texture in their face.
30. Add environmental sounds (such as birds chirping or traffic) in the background to make your video more present.
31. Use a cookie in front of a light to cast a shadow pattern on the background.
32. Include lots of interesting diagonal lines in the image.
33. Put a color gel on some lights.
34. Shoot with a shallow depth of field to separate your subject from the background.
35. Shoot with a deep depth of field so everything appears in focus.
36. Add some motion graphics.
37. Add some stop motion animated video.
38. Add voice overs to your video to help tell the story.
39. Use a short duration transition between video clips to increase pacing.
40. Use a long duration transition between video clips to slow down the pace.
41. Choose a straight cut instead of a transition effect.
42. Choose a transition effect that's different from what you usually use.
43. Limit yourself to one focal length for the entire video.
44. Limit yourself to one f-stop for the entire video.
45. Give yourself the freedom to zoom.
46. Capture lots of B-roll surrounding an event.
47. Shoot with multiple cameras at the same time.
48. Limit yourself to only one camera.
49. Use traditional framing such as the rule of thirds.
50. Use non-traditional framing, such as placing your subject's nose right against the side of the frame.
51. Use a subdued color palette within the image.
52. Use a wide variety of bright colors in the image.
53. Use low key lighting with lots of shadows.
54. Use high key lighting with almost no shadows.
55. Use filtration on the lens when you're shooting.
56. Shoot without filtration, but then add it in post.
57. Don't use any filtration at all.
58. Build a montage.
59. Shoot with a dutch angle.
60. Eliminate camera movement; lock it down on a tripod.
61. Handhold the camera.
62. Shake the camera as you shoot.
63. Shoot with a slower frame rate.
64. Add time-lapse video.
65. Zoom the camera during the shot.
66. Avoid zooming completely.
67. Mount the camera on a crane or a jib.
68. Mount the camera on a Steadicam.
69. Mount the camera on a car.
70. Use a green screen.
71. Intentionally white balance your camera incorrectly.
72. Superimpose one image on another and try different blend modes to see how the images mix.
73. Use a tilt-focus lens.
74. Shoot in a visually rich location.
75. Shoot in a bland, boring location and see if you can still make your video interesting anyway.
76. Get a bigger crew so you can focus more on your job.
77. Use a smaller crew so you can play more roles.
78. Add smoke to the scene.
79. Add fire to the scene.
80. Shoot in the rain.
81. Shoot at night.
82. Intentionally capture lens flares.
83. Pick a scene from a film and try to emulate the look.
84. Pick a music video and try to emulate the look.
85. Pick a classic painting and try to emulate the look.
86. Pick a movie trailer and try to emulate the look.
87. Pick a song and try to capture the essence in your video's look.
88. Pick any of these ideas and try to do the opposite.
89. Shoot during magic hour.

Well, hopefully that will get you started. These are just some of the ideas I was able to generate this morning. You can probably think of others. If so, please leave them in the comments.

This article was last updated on December 8, 2016