Summer’s here and people are jetting off across the world for a well-earned break from work. With holidays and trips to theme parks comes an inevitable addition: The holiday video!

We’ve all seen these; Dad stands back recording absolutely everything his family does, whether they want him to or not, these often play out like found footage movies without any scares, and that’s if they know how to work their camera. Last year there was an instance where a father held his GoPro the wrong way round for the entire trip!

So, we thought we’d give you some pointers in how to give your holiday video a bit of a polish, and make something friends and family choose to watch rather than being forced to:

• Get some accessories

Whether you’re using your smartphone, tablet or video camera, there are plenty of accessories available like lens additions and tripods to give videos a much more professional and highly produced look.

• Be sparing with location shots

By all means show where you are; have a shot of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre, these work great to establish where you are and what you’re doing, but we don’t need to see a long zoom in of every building you can see from the London Eye to establish you’re in London; forget them and focus on the people rather than the place.

• Engage

Talk to your family, friends and anyone else who’s in the video, just watching them won’t be as engaging or capture those little personality quirks everyone has. Make it personal to you and your circle.

• DON’T ZOOM!

This is a big one if you want the video to look good; the camera’s zoom automatically cheapens the footage. If you need to get closer to something it’s always best to actually move closer towards it, or better yet, just stop recording and start again closer to your point of interest.

• Spend time in the edit

All videos, no matter how small or trivial, still require a lot of editing. Fortunately, there’s a lot of editing software out there for beginners and pros, so this isn’t as complicated or difficult as you might think. Don’t be afraid to edit things out, especially if they don’t add anything, like if you left the camera recording in the bag.

• Pick some fitting music

If you’re going for a montage style video, pick some music that fits with the scenery and what’s happening in front of the camera, consider what the people involved like, by all means, have a bit of fun, but keep it tasteful.

With these in mind, have fun wherever you’re off to this summer!