Best Filmmaking Tips – Things I wish I knew Earlier

Filming making is a challenging task. There is a huge learning curve and many beginners make the same mistakes before they reach a level that allows them to create interesting films people are willing to watch. In this video I describe the things that I’ve learned on my video and film making journey that I wish I learned earlier in my career. It is important to make mistakes and to learn from them, and I am confident that following these simple tips will greatly improve the videos you create.

Focus On The Story: Having an interesting story is the most important thing for a successful film or video. With the amount of video/image content that we consume daily, it it important to set your work apart from the masses. An interesting or meaningful story will attract and hold viewers attention, and will ultimately be more exciting for you as well.

Plan Your Shoot: Don’t just go in blind. It’s easy to think that you can just show up to a shoot, get a bunch of footage and then edit it down later; but a little bit of planning will go a long way in making your film/video better. Thinking about how the story will unfold and what kind of shots you need to tell your story will not only make it more impact, but will also save you time because you won’t be wasting shots.

Keep Your Clips Short: This tip is two-fold. It refers both to the length of your clips while recording video and also the length clips should be in the edited video. When shooting, especially for an event or highlight video, it is extremely beneficial to keep your recording time short. Not only will this save you hard drive space but it will also save you countless hours of time scrolling through unnecessary footage. Record what matters and then move on to the next clip. While it may seem easier at the time to just keep rolling constantly, the editing will be made so much more time consuming and tedious. Once you get to editing, only pull the best moments from each clip. Our brains can process images at an extremely fast rate, so we only need a few seconds to understand what we are seeing. Keep this in mind while editing and keep your clips short. This will also help with the pacing and excitement of your video.

Less is More: Attention spans are very short in the digital age, and with so much digital content consumed daily, it’s important to make your mark. Keeping your video lengths short increase the chance of viewers watching for the full time, and ultimately result in more traction and activity for your brand or client. More often than not, you can get the same point across in half the amount of time. Look at any social media site today and you will see how short and direct video marketing needs to be to hold your attention for any amount of time.

Find Your Style: There are so many people making content and producing good quality work. To make yourself stand out from the rest you need to find a style create an identity as an artist. It is great to learn from others, but there is a big difference between learning and copying. It is important not to imitate others, but to find what your like about their work and apply it to your own. Build a style, build a brand, and you will become much more valuable to clients and companies.

These tips are things that I have learned along the way of running a professional videography business. They are not hard rules and there are always exceptions, but they are good guidelines to consider and to look at in your own work. I’m not trying to say that you should pick a style and only ever create projects in that style; but it is important to look at your tastes and find where your skills and expertise lie, then use those to your advantage as a creator.