Are you planning on getting a new camcorder this holiday season?

 Maybe you have been making home movies and tapes for awhile and somehow your friends and family never seem to want to watch them?

These resolutions may help turn your video experience around...

1. I am going to start using my tripod. Really, I promise. Everyone is sick of my videos jumping up and down like a seasick sailor.  I bought that darn tripod and now I am going to use it. I don’t care how much it weighs or how dorky I look.
   
2. I am going to charge my camcorder batteries before a family event. Never again am I going to get stuck in the middle of a kid’s holiday party with no juice.
   
3. I am going to edit my videos. My computer has video editing software in it that will enable me to cut out the bad parts and quit subjecting my family and friends to outtakes and shots of my feet because I forgot to turn the camcorder off. I am going to edit those parts out. I really am. I promise.
   
4. I am going to learn how to use my computer and the Internet so that I can start sending video clips of my kids and family to my relatives all over the country. And, I am going to learn how to compress those video clips so those family and friends don’t hate me after enduring a three-hour download.
   
5. And if the video clip is just too big or too long, I am going to start putting the video on DVDs instead of just burning CDs of cool music.
   
6. I will learn to label my tapes correctly. Even those tiny little Digital Video cassettes with hardly any space at all to write what the tape is all about. I am going to come up with a plan ... or at least my significant other will.
   
7. I am going to leave the camcorder out on the mantle so that the family can use it whenever it is needed, rather than having to dig it out from the closet, find the batteries and hope it all works before that special moment disappears forever.
   
8. No more zooming. I have learned my lesson. I am not going to zoom in and out and drive everyone crazy. I promise to physically move my camcorder in closer to everyone's faces for those close-ups.
   
9. No more silly comments while videotaping. I promise to never tell people to smile or act natural again. And I promise, no more chasing my family with the camcorder around the house too early in the morning.

Finally, I am going to let the kids operate the camcorder.  We don’t want the family to be watching the tapes back ten years from now and saying, “Where’s Daddy? Anybody remember what daddy looked like before he got chubby and all his hair fell out?”

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