Hey guys,
Today’s post is more of a question than anything else. I would like to get into video editing as a hobby. With the popularity of services like YouTube digital video editing and producing is becoming more and more widespread.
So my question to you is how did you get started? What kind of content did you start shooting? What were your first effects/transitions/tricks that you tinkered with? Did you bring in actors (professional or friends)?
What advice would you give someone like myself who is just starting out?
Hi,
Well since you asked..
I was browsing online looking for some perspective on which language to learn…(PHP vs Perl vs Ruby…etc!) Thanks!
and that is how I found your site.
I will say that it has been awhile since I have actually done the heavy video editing…but I thought I might offer some of my own perspective in return
What kind of video hobby editing are you looking to do? Story? Scenery? etc?
Some years back in the industry of Hollywood – I was lucky when I came across footage already shot, since at the time I had no camera, and I wanted really lush stuff to be able to edit from, I wasn’t so into the production side. I interned on a movie…in a rather upscale production house…it was shot on video and I had fun doing my own editing for my own purposes on some of the footage…the cool parts of having the footage already done by “the professionals” was I had multiple angles to be able to use, for that scene, with the matching dialogue, including expressions, close-ups, wide-shots….that was very satisfying!
I started editing in school….with school projects on AfterEffects. Involving props, drawings, my feet…my colleagues used friends mostly, as actors. I had ideas involving actors on my own projects, but I think I did editing mostly on other people’s footage at the time, it kept me busy…I also edited music footage of bands…they make great actors
I used fades, for a dream sequence I might have used a little bit of rippling…in AfterEffects I used a lot of motion to manipulate the drawings. I was more into the editing (“cutting”), more than “effects.”
Now that I think about it, I didn’t do as much editing as I would have liked, and I will probably be jumping back into it
By: LAURA on September 2, 2008
at 8:58 am
Oh…not sure about advice…Are you out for quality, message, character? Short format or long format? (so much is short format these days). commercial? informative? scripted? unscripted? outside? indoors? impromptu? a video diary?
Are you going to be shooting your own stuff, with friends, etc? Do you have certain themes? Also you will of course need to gauge the technicalities of how much storage you need …and how that translates into speed of playback, transfer, etc….also the question of mobility if you will be shooting the stuff yourself. Or don’t worry so much about getting all of the perfect….getting started is what matters a lot, too!
Where is this going to be seen, ultimately? Just throwing those questions out there.
By: LAURA on September 2, 2008
at 9:07 am
Thanks for the posts Laura. I enjoyed learning on how you started out.
Since I’m mainly looking at it as a hobby I think my main focus will be on shorts – probably scripted because I enjoy writing.
As for the technical side, I have a Linux (Ubuntu) PC with plenty of storage space. Would you recommend any Video Editing software for Linux or is Mac the preferred computer for editing?
By: adamws on September 2, 2008
at 3:30 pm