Steep learning curve = video. Any recommendations for building skills and knowledge

[Leebristol33]

Hi folks, I'm a photographer and have dabbled with Video, but must admit I find it hard.

Less so around framing and putting together footage. More about technical eg settings, editing etc.

I use Lumix cameras and have been editing lightly in Premiere Elements.

I'd like to invest some time in to learning more about the terminology, do's and don'ts etc and am looking at learning DaVinci - seems to have been recommended by many people. Maybe you have a different view

What resources, websites, YouTube, courses, books etc etc would you recommend for me?

TIA

 

[Off The Mark]

What resources, websites, YouTube, courses, books etc etc would you recommend for me?

I would like to help you save time and money and frustration.

The most important point is thtat practice will make you better. Go out and shoot some vidoe, then post it to youtube, and then link to it from a post in these forums and ask for advice. That is the best thing you can do.

Doesn't have to be anything spectacular: just one of your family members doing a hobby. Or any local event. Or a nice park or tourist attraction.

But you got to shoot SOMETHING.

The first Resource to recommend is the book:

How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck

https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Video-That-Doesnt-Suck/dp/0761163239#:~:text=Written%20by%20Steve%20Stockman%2C%20the,story%20and%20entertain%20your%20audience.

It is less about the technical aspect, and more about the content and basic capturing techniques for video and sound (and editing).

The second recomendation is that pretty much every YouTuber is trying to sell you something. Even if it is just getting you to click on their affiliate links.

The third recomendation is for you to realize that starting a new hobby / adventure in life is one of the times we are most open to being influenced, meaning, now you are the most prone to buying stuff you might not need.

Fourth recomendation is to first LEARN about audio and what type of microphone is important, since many, MANY new videographers make the mistake of rushing out and buying an on-camera shotgun mic, only to realize too late that it is an inapproropriate mic for their needs (or that they will need to invest in additional equipment to get that mic to sound significantly better).

Also, you need to learn about stabilization, but the right stabilization depends on what you will be shooting video of. For long takes, maybe a good tripod is best. Will you be moving around a lot, following the action? Maybe a gimball is best? Or a shoulder rig (which is what a lot of news crews use). Or a CineSaddle? It depends on what you will be shooting.

And related to the above point, the APPROPRIATE mic depends on the situation.

Again, trying to save you money in advance because you WILL need to eventually spend a LOT of money on storage (memory cards, SSDs, Hard Drives), possibly a new graphics card or even a new computer. But that is for down the line.

If premiere elements works for you, then use it. While I use DaVinci Resolve Studio (that''s the paid version, the free version is just calle DaVinci Resolve with the word "studio"), there is no shame in editing your first video adventures in iMovie or Windows movie (or whatever it is called) or Premiere elements, or free programs like KDENLive, Open Shot, or Shot Well, or some of the other free editors. I would personally avoid things like capcut where the usage license allows them to make AI versions of people in your videos.

OK, a few technical aspects.

Generally, if you live in an area with 60hz AC power, you would shoot at 30fs. If you live in an area with 50hz AC power, then you would shoot at 25fps.

Some people INSIST that you should shoot at 24fps. I have no comment about that.

If you want something to be in slow motion, then shoot at double the frame rate you normally would (i.e., shoot at 60fps or 120fps if you live in a 60hz area, or 50fps or 100fps in a 50hz area).

Generally it is recommended that you use a shutter speed that is twice the frame rate. So if you are shooting at 30fps, then you would use a 1/60th of a send shutter speed. If you shoot at 25fps, then you would use a 1/50th of a second fps. You would then control your exposure by changing your aperture, your iso, or adding (or removing) Neutral Density (ND) filters.

Some people think that it is sacriligious to use a shutter speed that isn't exactly doulbe the frames per second. I don't.

Anyway, sorry this is a long post. Hope it is helpful. The important thing is, DON'T BUY ANYTHING until you have a better idea of what type of video you want to shoot and what you can (and can't) achieve with the equipment you already have.

Oh, except the book. Definitely buy the book I recommended (and no, that is not an affiliate link).

 

[Sean Nelson]

Off The Mark is right on the mark when he says that practice makes perfect (and I heartily second his book recommendation, too). I'd advise you to come up with a small project for yourself to try - something big enough to expose you to the whole cycle of shooting and editing, but not too big to bite off. Maybe a tour of a local park, or an introduction to your neighborhood. First think a bit about what you'd like to highlight, then think about what kinds of shots you'll need to convey that, then go out and shoot them. Once you've got all your shots, sit down with your video editor and put them together.

If you're anything like me, as soon as you start editing you'll discover almost immediately that you should have taken more shots in order to show a bit of variety and make things less boring, and that you should have started each shot earlier and let it run longer so as to give you some extra footage at the start and end of each clip. This lets you vary the length of your shots to make things more interesting, and it's especially important if you want to have a music track and time your cuts to the beats in the music. And you need this extra header and trailer time in your clips if you want to use transitions like fades or page flips that require showing a bit of both the previous and next clip during the transition time.

If you're shooting an event, you'll find that lots of "B" roll footage is really helpful - that's footage that you take of incidental things going on that you can cut in as needed. For example, if you're zoomed in on someone singing and you want to zoom out to capture, say, the whole band then you're likely to find that the zoom doesn't work very well. No problem, just cut away from the singer before the zoom starts, cut in some footage of the audience, then cut back to the wide shot of the band after the zoom ends. You can use this for anything that screws up your footage, such as someone bumping the camera. The nice thing about audience and other B roll shots is that you can cut them in anywhere, they don't have to be in sync with the music.

Another useful tip is to shoot slightly wider than you really need. This gives you some flexibility while editing to do things like stabilize the footage without loosing what you really wanted to keep in frame.

I truly believe that you do most of your leaning in the editing suite, because that's where you discover what footage works, what footage doesn't, what footage you should have remembered to shoot when you had the chance, and how you might have changed what you did shoot so that it works better.

 

[Tavarino]

I’ll toss out one addition thing that has helped me: as an in all artistic endeavors - study the masters. The shows or series or movies you watch have the some of the world’s most talented people behind the camera and in the editing suites.

Granted we don’t have their budget and crews and equipment, but there is still so much to learn by shifting your view point away from being a passive audience member and more towards curiosity of the techniques in play :

Where is that light coming from? How hard or soft is it?

Why is the camera moving in that certain direction and speed?

How did the colorist give that scene that particular mood?

For me and the kind of indoor work I do, I’ve chosen the Apple TV series, The Morning Show, to be a masterclass for me. Forget about the story line and acting prowess of the stars. Every single frame, light, move, etc. is exquisitely made in the service of the story. You can be sure every decision was deliberate. I can’t help pausing/rewinding playback to dissect the motivation behind things I notice. This drives my family crazy, so I refrain from this unless I’m alone.

 

[BobKo]

You've gotten lots of good advice already, so I hesitate to add anything. But there are a couple points that I want to re-iterate.

First, continue to use Premiere Elements. It has everything you need to go from beginner to intermediate, and the big benefit is that you are already a little familiar with it. And, of course, you have it.

Second is that you can't have a good video without good audio. In the vast majority of cases, good audio comes from having a microphone as close as possible to the audio source. Think about ways to get the mic close. In fact, think about how you are going to capture audio first, then think about how you're going to capture the video. It is usually harder to get good audio than it is to get good video.

Finally, most videos (certainly in my case) are about telling some kind of story. It might be a tutorial about how to install a faucet, it might be travel-related about a place you visited, or it might be a musical performance. What is the story, and how can you best tell it? I don't always get it right, but I think about it all the time.

 

[HappyMartin]

All good advice above I believe. Particularly the book suggestion. I found that extremely useful. Walter Murch’s In the blink of an eye is also a great read from a top editor if you want to get more philosophical about it.
As some have said sound is critical. Not just the collecting of it but the editing of it. Compression, EQ, and all the rest. Just sticking a mic on the camera no matter how good that mic is will simply not cut it in the long run.
But just start. Make a video. No matter how short or bad. Just make a video. Stick it on YouTube. Then make another one. Try to make it better. Just do it.

 

[Off The Mark]

All good advice above I believe. Particularly the book suggestion. I found that extremely useful. Walter Murch’s In the blink of an eye is also a great read from a top editor if you want to get more philosophical about it.
As some have said sound is critical. Not just the collecting of it but the editing of it. Compression, EQ, and all the rest. Just sticking a mic on the camera no matter how good that mic is will simply not cut it in the long run.
But just start. Make a video. No matter how short or bad. Just make a video. Stick it on YouTube. Then make another one. Try to make it better. Just do it.

Just to build on your excellent advice, HappyMartin, I would add this advice to the original poster:

Even if it means shooting video with an iPhone / smartphone (so as to avoid many potential technical hurdules), go out and shoot some video. Then shoot some more, and then more.

 

[Philip Flower]

I am not going to argue or disagree about any of the advice already given.

But as an experienced photographer I found looking at video really confusing, bit rates, codecs, and all other kinds of things alien to a stills photographer.

Whilst shooting and experimenting is definitely important, I found myself not actually understanding what technically I should be doing.

So I reached out for advice basically about how to come to grips with editing software. In my case I already had Final Cut Pro X but didn't really understand what I was doing with it. So I signed up for a course with Ripple Training who offer courses in most of the popular editing programs - FCP, Davinci, Premiere etc.

Whilst orientated towards teaching the editing software, the courses are really good and offer a pretty good understanding of how to set up your camera, what the different codecs offer, what bit rates, frame rates, shutter speeds to use etc. etc.

So having said that I wasn't going to disagree with the advice already given, I am going to suggest you start at the editing end of things. After all you can spend hours shooting video but what are you going to do with it? And do you really understand how to set up the camera to get the best results from it - I certainly didn't. The editing apps are what you are going to have to use is put it all together and for that you need to learn an editing app.

Ripple offer free "tasters" of their courses, are not expensive and I leant a huge amount about how to shoot video technically from them as well as how to post process.

So my advice is start with some basic tutorials (and there are plenty on YouTube for free) and work out what you are doing with the camera in order to then get into the editing phase.

 

[Sean Nelson]

ISo having said that I wasn't going to disagree with the advice already given, I am going to suggest you start at the editing end of things.

You need some video to edit, so shooting's gotta come first ;-) . But I totally agree with you in that the biggest difference between stills and video shooting is the fact that you need to sit down and assemble your video production, and that's a brand new skill on top of all the things you do to adjust the look of your still images (which apply equally to video). So it really makes sense to spend some time understanding how that works, especially as it informs what you need to shoot in the first place.

You're also spot on about the value of training. When I got into DaVinci Resolve I sat down and went through the free course material they have on their training website. I learned the value of this back when I was struggling with Premier Pro, having to constantly divert attention away from my project to go and look for examples on YouTube. Time invested in training pays huge dividends down the road - it makes the editing process fun instead of frustrating and it opens up a lot of creative possibilities when you better understand what your tools are capable of.

 

[bing041]

ISo having said that I wasn't going to disagree with the advice already given, I am going to suggest you start at the editing end of things.

You need some video to edit, so shooting's gotta come first ;-) . But I totally agree with you in that the biggest difference between stills and video shooting is the fact that you need to sit down and assemble your video production, and that's a brand new skill on top of all the things you do to adjust the look of your still images (which apply equally to video). So it really makes sense to spend some time understanding how that works, especially as it informs what you need to shoot in the first place.

Another "biggest" difference is audio...

 

[Sean Nelson]

going to suggest you start at the editing end of things.

You need some video to edit, so shooting's gotta come first ;-) . But I totally agree with you in that the biggest difference between stills and video shooting is the fact that you need to sit down and assemble your video production, and that's a brand new skill on top of all the things you do to adjust the look of your still images (which apply equally to video). So it really makes sense to spend some time understanding how that works, especially as it informs what you need to shoot in the first place.

Another "biggest" difference is audio...

True dat!

 

[HappyMartin]

Yes audio. I was very concerned about this aspect and did my best to ignore it. Eventually I had to lean in and learn the basics. I would encourage the OP to ag least make a start on it.
j used GPT as a tutor. Pretty good in sound it turns out. It gave rh basic breakdown and I would dig in. Cardioid vs omnis vs shotguns. Dynamics and condensers. Different set ups such as NOS, XY, spaces pairs, mid side and ORTF. It’s actually fascinating. Ended up spending way more than I expected unfortunately but it’s a lovely side of video. Even the editing. Dynamics and EQ. It’s very rewarding.

 

[Leebristol33]

What resources, websites, YouTube, courses, books etc etc would you recommend for me?

I would like to help you save time and money and frustration.

The most important point is thtat practice will make you better. Go out and shoot some vidoe, then post it to youtube, and then link to it from a post in these forums and ask for advice. That is the best thing you can do.

Doesn't have to be anything spectacular: just one of your family members doing a hobby. Or any local event. Or a nice park or tourist attraction.

But you got to shoot SOMETHING.

The first Resource to recommend is the book:

How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck

https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Video-...ockman, the,story and entertain your audience.

It is less about the technical aspect, and more about the content and basic capturing techniques for video and sound (and editing).

The second recomendation is that pretty much every YouTuber is trying to sell you something. Even if it is just getting you to click on their affiliate links.

The third recomendation is for you to realize that starting a new hobby / adventure in life is one of the times we are most open to being influenced, meaning, now you are the most prone to buying stuff you might not need.

Fourth recomendation is to first LEARN about audio and what type of microphone is important, since many, MANY new videographers make the mistake of rushing out and buying an on-camera shotgun mic, only to realize too late that it is an inapproropriate mic for their needs (or that they will need to invest in additional equipment to get that mic to sound significantly better).

Also, you need to learn about stabilization, but the right stabilization depends on what you will be shooting video of. For long takes, maybe a good tripod is best. Will you be moving around a lot, following the action? Maybe a gimball is best? Or a shoulder rig (which is what a lot of news crews use). Or a CineSaddle? It depends on what you will be shooting.

And related to the above point, the APPROPRIATE mic depends on the situation.

Again, trying to save you money in advance because you WILL need to eventually spend a LOT of money on storage (memory cards, SSDs, Hard Drives), possibly a new graphics card or even a new computer. But that is for down the line.

If premiere elements works for you, then use it. While I use DaVinci Resolve Studio (that''s the paid version, the free version is just calle DaVinci Resolve with the word "studio"), there is no shame in editing your first video adventures in iMovie or Windows movie (or whatever it is called) or Premiere elements, or free programs like KDENLive, Open Shot, or Shot Well, or some of the other free editors. I would personally avoid things like capcut where the usage license allows them to make AI versions of people in your videos.

OK, a few technical aspects.

Generally, if you live in an area with 60hz AC power, you would shoot at 30fs. If you live in an area with 50hz AC power, then you would shoot at 25fps.

Some people INSIST that you should shoot at 24fps. I have no comment about that.

If you want something to be in slow motion, then shoot at double the frame rate you normally would (i.e., shoot at 60fps or 120fps if you live in a 60hz area, or 50fps or 100fps in a 50hz area).

Generally it is recommended that you use a shutter speed that is twice the frame rate. So if you are shooting at 30fps, then you would use a 1/60th of a send shutter speed. If you shoot at 25fps, then you would use a 1/50th of a second fps. You would then control your exposure by changing your aperture, your iso, or adding (or removing) Neutral Density (ND) filters.

Some people think that it is sacriligious to use a shutter speed that isn't exactly doulbe the frames per second. I don't.

Anyway, sorry this is a long post. Hope it is helpful. The important thing is, DON'T BUY ANYTHING until you have a better idea of what type of video you want to shoot and what you can (and can't) achieve with the equipment you already have.

Oh, except the book. Definitely buy the book I recommended (and no, that is not an affiliate link).

Wow, thanks so much for the advice and I will definitely pick up the book too.

I have the Rode Go 2 which I can use but wouldn't say I am hugely confident. I'm tending to shoot still subjects at the moment but I do have a Weebill S - which I've found to be a super steep learning curve by itself!

Thanks for the software advice, Premier Elements is probably sufficient right now and I definitely do need a more powerful laptop!

 

[Leebristol33]

Off The Mark is right on the mark when he says that practice makes perfect (and I heartily second his book recommendation, too). I'd advise you to come up with a small project for yourself to try - something big enough to expose you to the whole cycle of shooting and editing, but not too big to bite off. Maybe a tour of a local park, or an introduction to your neighborhood. First think a bit about what you'd like to highlight, then think about what kinds of shots you'll need to convey that, then go out and shoot them. Once you've got all your shots, sit down with your video editor and put them together.

If you're anything like me, as soon as you start editing you'll discover almost immediately that you should have taken more shots in order to show a bit of variety and make things less boring, and that you should have started each shot earlier and let it run longer so as to give you some extra footage at the start and end of each clip. This lets you vary the length of your shots to make things more interesting, and it's especially important if you want to have a music track and time your cuts to the beats in the music. And you need this extra header and trailer time in your clips if you want to use transitions like fades or page flips that require showing a bit of both the previous and next clip during the transition time.

If you're shooting an event, you'll find that lots of "B" roll footage is really helpful - that's footage that you take of incidental things going on that you can cut in as needed. For example, if you're zoomed in on someone singing and you want to zoom out to capture, say, the whole band then you're likely to find that the zoom doesn't work very well. No problem, just cut away from the singer before the zoom starts, cut in some footage of the audience, then cut back to the wide shot of the band after the zoom ends. You can use this for anything that screws up your footage, such as someone bumping the camera. The nice thing about audience and other B roll shots is that you can cut them in anywhere, they don't have to be in sync with the music.

Another useful tip is to shoot slightly wider than you really need. This gives you some flexibility while editing to do things like stabilize the footage without loosing what you really wanted to keep in frame.

I truly believe that you do most of your leaning in the editing suite, because that's where you discover what footage works, what footage doesn't, what footage you should have remembered to shoot when you had the chance, and how you might have changed what you did shoot so that it works better.

Excellent feedback, thanks so much Sean. I'll definitely take your advice. I feel the neighbourhood video would be a good project

 

[Leebristol33]

I’ll toss out one addition thing that has helped me: as an in all artistic endeavors - study the masters. The shows or series or movies you watch have the some of the world’s most talented people behind the camera and in the editing suites.

Granted we don’t have their budget and crews and equipment, but there is still so much to learn by shifting your view point away from being a passive audience member and more towards curiosity of the techniques in play :

Where is that light coming from? How hard or soft is it?

Why is the camera moving in that certain direction and speed?

How did the colorist give that scene that particular mood?

For me and the kind of indoor work I do, I’ve chosen the Apple TV series, The Morning Show, to be a masterclass for me. Forget about the story line and acting prowess of the stars. Every single frame, light, move, etc. is exquisitely made in the service of the story. You can be sure every decision was deliberate. I can’t help pausing/rewinding playback to dissect the motivation behind things I notice. This drives my family crazy, so I refrain from this unless I’m alone.

Good call, I'll watch that show. Thank you

 

[Leebristol33]

I am not going to argue or disagree about any of the advice already given.

But as an experienced photographer I found looking at video really confusing, bit rates, codecs, and all other kinds of things alien to a stills photographer.

Whilst shooting and experimenting is definitely important, I found myself not actually understanding what technically I should be doing.

So I reached out for advice basically about how to come to grips with editing software. In my case I already had Final Cut Pro X but didn't really understand what I was doing with it. So I signed up for a course with Ripple Training who offer courses in most of the popular editing programs - FCP, Davinci, Premiere etc.

Whilst orientated towards teaching the editing software, the courses are really good and offer a pretty good understanding of how to set up your camera, what the different codecs offer, what bit rates, frame rates, shutter speeds to use etc. etc.

So having said that I wasn't going to disagree with the advice already given, I am going to suggest you start at the editing end of things. After all you can spend hours shooting video but what are you going to do with it? And do you really understand how to set up the camera to get the best results from it - I certainly didn't. The editing apps are what you are going to have to use is put it all together and for that you need to learn an editing app.

Ripple offer free "tasters" of their courses, are not expensive and I leant a huge amount about how to shoot video technically from them as well as how to post process.

So my advice is start with some basic tutorials (and there are plenty on YouTube for free) and work out what you are doing with the camera in order to then get into the editing phase.

Great call, thanks very much I'll have a look at Ripple

 

[Leebristol33]

Thanks all for your replies and taking he time to do so and in detail. I really appreciate it

 

[Off The Mark]

Wow, thanks so much for the advice and I will definitely pick up the book too.

I have the Rode Go 2 which I can use but wouldn't say I am hugely confident. I'm tending to shoot still subjects at the moment but I do have a Weebill S - which I've found to be a super steep learning curve by itself!

Thanks for the software advice, Premier Elements is probably sufficient right now and I definitely do need a more powerful laptop!

A few more TECHNICAL thoughts to hopefully simplify things. These are more suggestions and less "rules."

- Frame Rate (FPS): Shoot at a division of the local AC power frequency (i.e., 30fps in countries with 60Hz AC power, 25fps in countries with 50Hz AC power).

(NOTE: You will probably cause a major headache for yourself if you want to shoot at different frame rates for the same single video. Meaning, best to avoid shooting some at 24fps, some at 25fps, and some at 30fps and then combining all the video clips in to a single edited video).

- If you want to have slow motion footage, shoot at twice those above rates.

- Some people will tell you that you MUST shoot at 24fps because that is traditionally "what movies use." Alll I will say is test it out for yourself.

- Shutter Speed: Traditionally, people shoot at the inverse of twice the frame rate (so if you shoot at 30fps, then you would use a 1/60th second shutter). This is based on tradition. However, you should be willing to try faster or slower shutter speeds. Test it out and see.

- For practicing, try shooting in 1080p resolution in an 8-bit codec using something like your camera's Natural picture profile. Edit the footage. Upload it to youtube, and then ask questions here about it.

- For video that you want to keep, shoot in (at least) 4K for posterity's sake. Shooting in 10-bit (instead of 8-bit) in a LOG profile will give you mor dynamic range and more lattitude in editing colors later.

You mentioned shooting on Panasonic cameras, and so it is possible that your camera has V-LOG Lite, you can try shooting in that and - if premiere elements allows - use a conversion LUT to make it look "normal" . A conversion LUT would be a V-LOG to Rec 709 LUT.

- The keys to good audio are:

1) Getting the microphones close (but not too close) to the sound source
2) Minimizing wind noise (rumble)
3) Eliminating other noises (traffic, construction, air conditioning, refrigerators, barking dogs, etc.,) as much as possible.

Since the mics you bought are designed primarily as on-person voice mics, it should be fairly easy to get them close to the source of the sound. I believe they might come with wind muffs as well. If not, you should invest in some.

One other rule: Avoid the amateur's philosophy of "I will fix it in the edit." Try to get things right BEFORE you press the record button. Your life will be easier.

--
My Digital Signature (unrelated tot he above post):
WARNING: Rant About The State of Public Education in America!!!

 

[Gato Amarillo]

Lot of good advice here already.

Just to emphasize a couple of things: Practice as much as you can, as regularly as you can. I don't do video very often, so I usually waste time re-learning what I've forgotten.

Good sound is important. You'll probably want to invest in a mic. Or two or more. Also, there are a number of websites offering free music and sound effects. You'll want to look into that. Sorry, I don't know enough to recommend specifics.

I'm a fan of DaVinci Resolve, though it can be daunting at first. If you check their website there are a ton of tutorials, from beginner to fairly advanced. The ones I have used have been very helpful, and they seem to be a well thought out sequence.

DaVinci Resolve – Training | Blackmagic Design

Professional video editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post production all in a single application. Free and paid versions for Mac, Windows and Linux.

www.blackmagicdesign.com

Gato

 

[LongLiveLumia]

I’ll toss out one addition thing that has helped me: as an in all artistic endeavors - study the masters. The shows or series or movies you watch have the some of the world’s most talented people behind the camera and in the editing suites.

Granted we don’t have their budget and crews and equipment, but there is still so much to learn by shifting your view point away from being a passive audience member and more towards curiosity of the techniques in play :

Where is that light coming from? How hard or soft is it?

Why is the camera moving in that certain direction and speed?

How did the colorist give that scene that particular mood?

That's about where I'm at now and it took some time to realize, obviously, as a beginner. I'm always checking for depth of field and camera placement (blocking?) and movement, it's quite fun, no matter what's on.

Re. color lots of things carry over from stills shooting, mostly re. WB and the chosen style or look whether in-camera or edit, so that learning curve should be gentler for anyone who's already done RAW or even JPG editing.