How to learn to make videos

[panacheparis]

Originally Posted by panacheparis

Johanna, I like best Apple's iMovie. The best cruising videos I have seen are made by a 22 year old girl (using iMovie) who is sailing around the world. She has 60 movies now on Youtube.com. Do a search on Cruising La Vagabonde. She and her boyfriend bought a 42 Beneteau in Italy two years ago. Neither knew how to sail or make movies but they set off to circumnavigate the world.. She now has more than 200,000 followers, is making more than $5,000 per 12 minute movie, and they were just given a $1,000,000 boat by the French manufacturer to feature in their movies. She taught herself how to put an interesting movie together. They are now in Tonga.

i just watched the first half dozen of Elayna's videos, and the production values are not good...bad audio, soft focus, etc. but the appeal is obvious. So don't be discouraged as you practice. You will see, however, that she quickly becomes very talented.

[charleshagen]

I use Camtasia. EASY and very creative with some very good graphical tools.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by sailm8

As a former TV Production teacher and professional editor, I would recommend learning how to shoot good video first. How many videos do you see on line that are shot holding the camera in Portrait instead of landscape, or full of whip pans back and forth and up and down. Good video is hard to shoot and takes forethought and a good camera. Sailing videos are especially difficult do to a rocking boat and wind noise. You can't fix crappy video by editing. Look at your material with a critical eye. Don't zoom in and out. Use the zoom to compose your shot. Learn to edit in the camera. This means for example if you are shooting out of the starboard side and want to switch to the port side, stop the camera and start again when you're facing port.

Watch TV with a critical eye. Ask yourself, Why did they shoot that shot that way?

I taught my students on imovie and later Final Cut Pro.

[ErikFinn]

Originally Posted by panacheparis

Johanna, I like best Apple's iMovie. The best cruising videos I have seen are made by a 22 year old girl (using iMovie) who is sailing around the world. She has 60 movies now on Youtube.com. Do a search on Cruising La Vagabonde. She and her boyfriend bought a 42 Beneteau in Italy two years ago. Neither knew how to sail or make movies but they set off to circumnavigate the world.. She now has more than 200,000 followers, is making more than $5,000 per 12 minute movie, and they were just given a $1,000,000 boat by the French manufacturer to feature in their movies. She taught herself how to put an interesting movie together. They are now in Tonga.

She is only 22 yo? How old is he? I thought they were 30 something... How expensive is their cam and video equipment?

[panacheparis]

Originally Posted by ErikFinn

She is only 22 yo? How old is he? I thought they were 30 something... How expensive is their cam and video equipment?

He is 31. He says on one video that he worked on oil rigs in Australia for 8 years to get the money to buy the boat in Italy. He had no boating experience, met Elay in Spain and they took off on their journey. I think she found a Canon consumer video camera on the boat he had purchased and never used. She started to make simple videos for her friends and family and put them on Youtube. The quality improved quickly and as I mentioned before the French Outremer cat. co. in France is building a $1,000,000 boat for them to pick up in February. The girl's personality has a lot to do with their success.

[ErikFinn]

Originally Posted by panacheparis

He is 31. He says on one video that he worked on oil rigs in Australia for 8 years to get the money to buy the boat in Italy. He had no boating experience, met Elay in Spain and they took off on their journey. I think she found a Canon consumer video camera on the boat he had purchased and never used. She started to make simple videos for her friends and family and put them on Youtube. The quality improved quickly and as I mentioned before the French Outremer cat. co. in France is building a $1,000,000 boat for them to pick up in February. The girl's personality has a lot to do with their success.

Yes, they are the most charming couple.

[Uplander]

Power Director

[Naughty Cat]

Here is my 2 pennies' worth to assist.

1. Before you try to produce your video try to produce a video. Use what you have – Imovie for example. Work through their sample videos for example and you will see how good your camera is, how steady your hand is, how much footage you need, how footage looks when edited, how to edit background sound, how to incorporate stills, voiceover and annotations.
2. Look at it it with your, or someone else’s critical eye, sit back and think about it.
3. Who are you producing this for? If it is for you, it can be longer, less interesting, and include personal stuff. You have more patience and interest in your video than anyone else. If it is for someone else, who? Relatives who might want personal messages, the public? Each audience wants something different. Often I do a couple of cuts – one for me and one for other people.
4. You can’t take good movie without a good camera. In plenty of light most HD cameras will do, but in low or special light you will need something better. I like to use a camera with a variable focal length rather than fixed like a goPro as it gives more variety. Lots of identical footage (e.g. headcam shots) gets very boring. Software-wise, you don’t need anything more than Imovie for a long while.
5. Get good footage. You need what are known as rushes – footage that put the subject into perspective – stills and clips that explain where you are, what the weather is like, what mood you want to convey. Stills can help, especially if combined with a Ken Burns effect that changes the focal point of the still over time
6. Tell a story. Show people what they don’t know. In the last SVDeLos movie they showed scraping the bottom and raising the anchor. They had to work to get the footage but in the process showed something you don’t normally see – a scuba diver scraping the hull and the journey of the anchor as it is raised. Try getting different perspectives (i.e. getting higher or lower than eye-level to give people a fresh perspective. Use slow motion sometimes.
7. Challenge yourself to make it short. I do all of mine to a single track of music. A massive challenge but one that makes sure you are not wasting a second of the movie with something irrelevant.
8. Get plenty of RAM. Movies take up loads of space, and you will want to keep much of your raw footage in the early days for when you go back and re-edit your early videos!
9. Music is very important. It should not be your favourite music – it should be music that matches the story you want to tell.
10. Sailing videos can be hard. Often things are far away, slow, and the view is always the same – from the deck of the boat. You need to get some vertical and people into it. If your crew are not prepared to be in it or to help you commit the time it takes to make it interesting you will be restricted as to what you can produce. Be patient – the better the results and the better the reaction, the more motivated they will become to helping.

I hope this helps, good luck, enjoy and keep us posted.

[Time2Go]

Naughty Cat
Mostly good advice
I would add
"When in doubt, cut it out"
Straight cuts usually indicate continuous action
Dissolves , change in time
Try not to use fades in and out to black or white

Rushed or what are better known as dallies
are an older film term used for the overnight proccrsing of film and a projection the next day
so that the DP and Director can be sure they
captured what they wanted and to verify no issues with camera and film
Not so much used in today's digital days of electronic capture

Cheers
Neil

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by RedHerring

I wouldnt say I know how to make great videos, but reading a book about it helped. The
title was something like Making video that dont suck. Seriously.

Yep, I have that book.

There are two separate issues here. The equipment and the software are one but the other is the artistic part about what to shoot and how to put it together to make an interesting video, something that people will want to watch.

Your video will be compared to what we see on TV and in the movies. That's some tough competition. The best equipment and software can still produce a lousy video.

I recommend the book mentioned and possibly some others. The equipment and software is a matter of preference.