People make their own videos for a lot of reasons. If you have your own website, making a movie can be a great way to share content with your visitors. Many people prefer to watch a video to get information instead of reading. You can also establish yourself as an expert in your niche if you produce a series of informative videos about a subject. Videos can also be a fun way to share events with friends and family, either on a website or via social media. If you decide to try video production, you’ll need to learn all about the different software available for both production and editing. You will also need to delve into audio, writing, and even copyright issues. Tutorials can help you become a video production pro in no time, enabling you to invite friends and family over to take a seat in your home theater for an opening night showing.
When you decide to produce a video, the first step is creating a plan for the movie. Many video producers tackle this step by making a storyboard. Creating a storyboard involves planning your shots and putting them in sequential order. The storyboard doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should at least sketch out your shots in order so you know what you need to film. A shooting script includes the text for your video. The subjects you will be filming will need to see the storyboard and shooting script so they know what they are supposed to do and what you expect.
The actual filming involves a number of critical elements. Set your camera to 24 frames per second to create a cinematic video, and set your shutter speed to double your frame rate, 1/48th of a second (if your camera doesn’t have 1/48th, use 1/50th). You’ll need to frame your shots with a shallow depth of field so that your subjects are in focus, using effective framing to place the emphasis on your subjects.
Lighting is crucial to ensure the proper exposure, tone, and mood for your settings. As far as camera movement, you might just use a tripod and choose not to move your camera, or you could use a combination of tripod and hand-held camera work.
After you shoot the footage for your movie, the fun part begins. Editing what you recorded is probably the most important part of video production. If you work on an Apple computer, you can use iMovie, which comes free with this platform. With iMovie, you can upload raw footage, cut it as you desire, and export it to another platform for sharing it. This software is fairly easy to navigate for beginners, but it does have limitations when it comes to some features.
Video editing on a Windows computer is free, too, when you use Windows Movie Maker, but this software has limited features as well. If you’re ready for fully equipped software, many professionals choose Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro CC. These programs give you ample options for things such as sound effects, transitions, reorganization of footage, adding titles, and more. The learning curve can be a little daunting, but once you master these programs, you’ll be editing with ease.
