Video on a Budget

Video is the most expensive thing most campaigns think they cannot afford, and the cheapest thing they could do well. A phone made in the last five years shoots better pictures than the television cameras that covered Idaho legislative races a generation ago. What it does not do on its own is record good sound, find good light or decide what the video is for. Those are choices, and they cost almost nothing.

This lesson is the production how-to. The strategy of what to post and why is in Content Science in the social media strategy module, and the basics of doing interviews and forums are in Canvassing, Forums and Media. Paid video ads also follow the platform authorization rules in lesson 5 and the "paid for by" rules in lesson 6. If a video uses any AI voice, face or footage, read lesson 9 before you post it.

Sound first

The rule every video editor learns the hard way: bad picture with good sound is watchable; good picture with bad sound is not. A phone's built-in microphone sits at the bottom of the phone, picks up everything in the room equally and makes a candidate sound like they are calling from a stairwell. The fix is distance. Every halving of the distance between mouth and microphone makes the voice much louder compared with the room noise, so a microphone six inches away beats an expensive one six feet away.

Three cheap ways to get there, in order of cost:

• Free: film close. Hold the phone or put it on a stack of books at arm's length, not across the room. Turn off the furnace fan, the fridge and the TV. Shoot in a room with a couch, curtains and a rug instead of a kitchen with tile and windows.
• Low cost: a wired or wireless clip-on (lavalier) microphone that plugs into the phone. Clip it to the shirt about a hand's width below the chin, and keep it off jewelry and collars that rub.
• Also low cost: a second phone running a voice memo app in the speaker's shirt pocket. Clap once on camera at the start so the editor can line up the two recordings.

Outdoors, wind is the enemy. A foam or fur cover on the microphone, or simply putting the speaker's back to the wind, saves a take that would otherwise be a roar. Record ten seconds of the empty room or field before or after each take. That "room tone" lets the editor patch gaps without a jarring drop to silence.

For the theory behind levels and noise, Jeff's free AV craft chapters on levels, headroom and loudness and making a voice sound right go further than this lesson can.

Light and framing

Light is free if you face it. Put the speaker facing a window, with the phone between them and the glass, and the face will be bright and even. Put the window behind the speaker and the phone will expose for the sky and turn the face into a silhouette. Overhead office lights make eye sockets dark; a lamp with a white shade set off to one side at face height softens them. Lock exposure and focus on the face (on most phones, press and hold on the face on screen) so the picture does not pulse when someone walks past.

Framing follows a few habits that make amateurs look careful:

• Phone at eye level. Below the chin looks up the nose; above looks down on the viewer.
• Eyes about a third of the way down the frame, with a little space above the head and the shoulders in the frame.
• For vertical video, keep the face and any text in the middle band of the screen. Platform buttons, captions and the account name sit over the top and bottom and along the right edge.
• Pick a background that says something true: the road that needs fixing, a shelf of binders from the budget hearings, the storefront the candidate owns. Avoid clutter and anything with a logo you do not have permission to use.
• Clean the lens. A phone lens carried in a pocket is smeared more often than not, and a smear makes every light glow.

Shoot extra footage to cut over the talking: the speaker walking up to the courthouse steps, hands sorting yard signs, a slow pan across a crowded meeting room. Editors call it B-roll, and it is what lets you cut out a stumble or a long pause without a visible jump.

Vertical or horizontal, and how long

Shape is set by where people watch. Most social video is now watched on a phone held upright, and the short-video feeds (YouTube Shorts, Instagram and Facebook Reels, TikTok) are built for 9:16 vertical video. Websites, YouTube's regular player, streaming TV and projection screens at a forum are horizontal, 16:9. A square or 4:5 frame is a middle ground that still fills most of a phone feed. Shoot for the main destination. If you need both, shoot horizontal with the speaker centered and wide margins, then crop a vertical version in editing; the reverse loses too much.

Platform limits change often, so the table gives only what each platform's own page, or a dated guide where the platform's page would not load, said as of October 2026.

Platform (organic posts)	Shape that fits best	Length and size limits as of October 2026	Source
YouTube Shorts	Vertical	Up to 3 minutes; uploaded as vertical video, up to 1080p	YouTube Shorts help
YouTube (regular)	Horizontal 16:9	Long uploads allowed; the forum, the town hall, the full interview go here	YouTube Help
Instagram and Facebook Reels	Vertical 9:16, 1080 x 1920 recommended	Instagram extended Reels to 3 minutes in January 2025, and a guide updated September 25, 2026 reports longer uploads that are not recommended to new audiences past 3 minutes. Instagram's own help page did not display the figure when we checked.	PostFast guide (third party)
X	Vertical or horizontal	140 seconds and 512MB on a free account; paid plans allow uploads up to 4 hours	X video help
TikTok	Vertical	Organic posting only for campaigns: TikTok does not allow paid political promotion, political ads or fundraising by politicians or parties	TikTok guidelines

Paid video ads have their own specs inside each platform's ad tools, and political ads need authorization first (lesson 5). Check the upload screen the day you post.

The limit is not the target. A platform that allows 3 minutes is not asking for 3 minutes. For a feed, the first two seconds decide whether anyone sees the third, so start with the point: the candidate's face and the sentence that matters, not a logo animation or "Hi, I'm..." For most campaign messages, 20 to 60 seconds is plenty. One topic per video. Save the 12-minute version of the water rate explanation for YouTube and the website, where people who want it will find it.

Captions on everything

A caption is the only part of a video that works with the sound off, in a noisy room, for a viewer who is deaf or hard of hearing, and for a viewer whose first language is not English. Accessibility guidance treats it as basic: WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.2.2 is a Level A item, the lowest bar, and calls for captions on all prerecorded audio in synchronized media. Good captions carry the spoken words, who is speaking when it is not obvious, and sounds that matter ("[crowd applauds]", "[siren]").

There are two kinds. Burned-in captions are part of the picture, so they show everywhere, including in a feed that autoplays silently, and they cannot be turned off. A caption file (SRT is the common format) uploads with the video, lets the viewer turn captions on and off, and can be searched. For short social clips, burn them in. For long videos on YouTube or a website, upload a caption file; for important videos, do both. Auto-captions are a starting draft. They mangle names, place names and numbers, which are exactly the words a campaign needs right: the candidate's name, the district number, the levy rate.

Editing with free tools

A phone's built-in editor will trim, add titles and crop. When you need more, Jeff's free browser tools cover most small-campaign jobs without a subscription:

• VideoStudio is a browser video editor for cutting takes together and adding B-roll.
• StudioConverter compresses a file to a target size, converts formats and adjusts loudness. Use it when a file is too big to upload or email to a printer, station or vendor.
• AVPrep is a browser converter that can strip metadata and has an images tab. Stripping metadata matters when a phone video carries the location where it was shot, such as a volunteer's house.
• For a narrated video, Voice Studio does text to speech. A synthetic voice in a campaign video raises the disclosure questions in lesson 9, and the same voice in a phone call is covered by the TCPA rules in lesson 7.

Jeff's AV craft chapters on when to cut, text people can read and getting it out the door explain the editing choices behind a clean cut and a readable title.

Editing for a campaign is mostly removal. Cut the warm-up, the "um, so," the second explanation of the same point, and anything that needs a long setup to make sense. End on the call to action: the website, the date, the sign-up link. Put the "paid for by" line where lesson 6 says it belongs for the platform and the race, and keep the campaign's name readable for long enough to read it.

Music: why the song you love gets the video blocked

Popular recorded music is owned twice: the song (the composition) by its writers and publisher, and the recording by the label or artist. Using it in a video needs permission from both, and a campaign video is not the kind of use a radio station's license or a streaming subscription covers. Platforms enforce this automatically.

On YouTube, Content ID scans every upload against reference files from copyright owners. A match creates a claim, and depending on the owner's settings, the video can be blocked from viewing, monetized with ads that pay the owner, or tracked, and the result can differ by country. Meta runs Rights Manager, a matching tool that copyright owners apply to use for content on Facebook. For paid ads, Google's Copyrights policy says it does not allow ads that use copyrighted content in a way that infringes copyright, and that an ad may be disapproved if Google receives a complaint about the ad or its landing page. A campaign that builds its closing week ad around a hit song is betting its timing on a stranger not filing a complaint.

Political use adds a second problem. Artists object loudly and publicly when candidates they do not support use their music, and the story becomes the campaign's music choice instead of its message. That risk exists on every side.

Music you may use:

• The YouTube Audio Library, which YouTube calls "copyright-safe" production music and sound effects; downloaded tracks will not be claimed through Content ID. Some tracks are Creative Commons and must be credited in the video description. The help page frames the library around use in YouTube videos and does not say whether the tracks may be used elsewhere, so read each track's license before putting it in a Facebook ad.
• Paid stock music libraries whose licenses name advertising and online use. Read the license for "political" or "advertising" exclusions.
• Original music written and recorded for the campaign by a local musician, with a short written agreement saying the campaign may use it. Note it on the Sunshine report if the work was donated: professional services given free can be an in-kind contribution (lesson 10).
• Music created with an AI tool such as Jeff's MusicStudio. Check the tool's terms for commercial use, and note that YouTube's synthetic content rules list AI-generated music that is the main focus of a video among the content creators must disclose.
• No music. A clear voice over quiet room tone is more persuasive than most soundtracks.

Filming in public places and government buildings

Filming in public places where you are lawfully present, such as a sidewalk, a park or the public area of a government building, is generally protected expression under the First Amendment. Government may still set content-neutral rules on time, place and manner: no tripods blocking a hallway, no amplified sound in a lobby, no filming inside areas the public cannot enter. The practical test for a campaign is simple. Be where the public may be, do not block anything, and do not imply that a public office endorses you.

The Idaho State Capitol

Use of the Capitol is governed by IDAPA 38.04.08, Rules Governing Use of Idaho State Capitol, administered by the Department of Administration. The current text, with sections dated April 6, 2023, says nothing specific about photography or filming. It does govern events, and a campaign video shoot with supporters is usually an event:

• Permits are issued for public use involving two or more persons, and only for the Jefferson Street steps and the second-floor rotunda public space. A permit is a reservation that gives the group priority; section 400.01 lets people without one use those areas on a first-come, first-used basis, subject to the other rules. A public space permit lasts no more than eight consecutive hours; steps permits are capped at four hours between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Applications must be complete at least two state business days ahead and are not accepted more than six months ahead.
• Signs and displays must be free-standing or held by people and may not be fixed to any Capitol surface. Literature must be free.
• Sound amplification devices may not be used inside, except as the Department provides under a permit or for law enforcement, security and state officials.
• The exterior and public space may not be used for any activity conducted for profit.

The Capitol Commission's usage manual adds that space controlled by the Legislature, including committee rooms, follows the Legislature's own guidelines, and that public access to legislative space is limited to the galleries outside the rooms open for limited public use. Ask the committee secretary before filming a hearing, and ask whether the meeting is streamed; a public stream is often a better reference than footage shot from the back of a crowded room.

County and city buildings

County courthouses, city halls and school district offices each set their own building rules, and some areas inside them, such as clerks' counters and secure offices, are not open for filming at all. Public meetings are a different matter: Idaho's open meeting law makes meetings of governing bodies open to the public, and the open meetings module covers minutes and recordings. Call the clerk before filming in a building, and ask about tripods, lights and where you may stand. Write down who told you what.

Recording sound: Idaho's one-party rule

Picture and sound are treated differently. Idaho's wiretap law, Idaho Code 18-6702, makes it a felony, punishable by up to five years and a $5,000 fine, to willfully intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication. Subsection (2)(d) allows it "when one (1) of the parties to the communication has given prior consent." 18-6701 defines an oral communication as one where the speaker expects it is not subject to interception, and the expectation is justified. So a candidate may record a conversation she is in. A volunteer may not leave a phone recording in a room to capture what others say privately when he is not there. A speech at a public rally carries no reasonable expectation of privacy; a whispered conversation in a closed office does.

People on camera

A campaign that films supporters, volunteers or residents is using their face and voice to persuade other people. Ask first, every time, and get it in writing for anyone who is featured: a testimonial, a speaking part, a close-up. A short release names the campaign, says the person agrees to appear in campaign videos and ads, and has a signature and date. For a minor, get a parent's signature, and think hard about whether a child belongs in a political ad at all. People who agree in September sometimes change their minds in October; take them out promptly.

Crowd shots at a public event are a lighter case, but a person who is clearly identifiable and shown as a supporter in a paid ad has a reasonable complaint if they never agreed. Platform rules add limits: TikTok's guidelines bar synthetic media showing the likeness of real private figures, and every major platform will take down content that a person reports as harassment or impersonation. Never film opponents' volunteers at their homes, and never post a resident's address in a video; the location data a phone stores in the file can do the same thing by accident, which is why stripping metadata in AVPrep before sharing raw files is a good habit.

A shot list and a budget

A shot list is a page that says what you need before you go. It keeps a one-hour shoot from becoming a four-hour shoot and makes sure you come home with B-roll.

Shot	Shape	Length to capture	Use
Candidate to camera, main message, two full takes	Vertical and horizontal	2 to 3 minutes total	The core of three or four short videos
Candidate walking into frame at the issue location	Vertical	15 seconds, three times	Opening shot
Close-up of the issue: the pothole, the empty shelf, the overflowing classroom (with permission)	Both	10 seconds each, five or six	B-roll over the voice
Hands at work: signs, door hangers, a phone bank	Both	10 seconds each	B-roll, volunteer recruitment
Short supporter testimonial, signed release	Vertical	30 seconds each, two or three people	Testimonial clips
Room tone	Audio only	10 seconds per location	Patching edits
Wide shot of the place with no one talking	Horizontal	20 seconds	Title and "paid for by" background