Videographer is a person who works in the field of videography and or video production recording moving images and sound on video tape or any other electro mechanical device. For beginners out there, here’s a compiled list of some valuable tips and tricks that might give them the required push in the right direction to succeed in their path or at least impart them enough information as to let them take a stand and get ahead in their career.
- Volunteering or internship – to get the feel of videography, you will have it all figured out in future if you start volunteering or do an internship. This helps you get the right attitude towards videography. It helps you get the required skills from experienced professionals. You get a hands on experience and see the nuances of the trade in person. This really helps you get the right push to enter in the videography industry. You can make money along with learning. This money can help you invest in some good quality gear and nurture your interest in videography. You get the experience, the editing software and many things that can help you level up your skills.
- Say ‘yes’ to everything – this includes unpaid internship as well. Working for free early in your career can really allow you to master your art. When you are starting, it is essential to get as much experience as you can, it doesn’t matter if it is unpaid or paid. Even low paying projects can help you build up your portfolio. Because ultimately what counts is your skills. All of your experiences help you round up your skills. There’s an awesome quote by Dale Carnegie, that goes, “learning is an active process. We learn by doing…only knowledge that is used, sticks in your mind.”
- Build your portfolio – in addition to, potentially doing some free work, internships etc. It is highly recommended that you build up your portfolio online. Ask yourself about the place where you are compiling your videos. It can be a YouTube channel or a behance account or something similar. There are numerous online options for really building up your body of work.
- Study the greats in your niche – identify the best of the best in your industry or specific topic. You can follow them, learn from them, try and get in touch with them for some field work or some other kind of help. Watch tutorial videos, go to their workshops. Even if you are working somewhere, keep on learning. Make a commitment to lifelong learning and study the greats carefully and then examine what you need to do to be better at what you do.
- Marketing – after following the above steps or tips, you need to put yourself out there. Once you get going with the above steps, you are in the process of mastering your craft. You don’t want to start marketing your craft until you have acquired a certain degree of confidence in your craft. Reaching a level of mastery is critical in order to market yourself and start charging for your work. Great marketing with a bad product is never a great combination.
- Social media and YouTube – we are living in an age of that is very advantageous for videographers, photographers because what better place to grow your influence as a photographer than Instagram. What better place is there to grow your influence as a videographer than YouTube. These are free platforms where you can publish your work, build your portfolio, grow your influence leading to people discovering you to hire you. You can strategically design and place your content to attract most number of followers. For obvious reasons, the content has to be great in order to get people to like it or contact you for enquiry about the work or hire you for similar works. Make sure that people find you easily, leave an email address, have forms on your website. Mastering these social media platforms would be the top priority for anyone who wants to be found.
- Don’t be afraid to shoot on what you have, be it a smartphone, point and shoot camera. You can get intimidated by seeing pro cameras used by some videographers but don’t be. You can do awesome stuff on cheaper options as well. Smartphones now come with tripod suitability feature which helps beginners to film whenever and wherever they want.
- Perspective is everything – capturing an amazing video is all about presenting something the other person has never seen before. We have looked at every single thing from eye level, for our whole life, and having only that perspective in a photo gets boring for the viewer because it’s usual for him/her. Seeing a beautiful grass field in a photo is normal but when we look at a photo that has been taken while laying down in the grass field and getting a close up view of the fresh, green grass, the real beauty emerges and we see a wonderful, unique and interesting photo. Same goes with video as well.
- Learn storytelling – you need to present a story through a video to make it more appealing. Sequence of the shots matters a lot. You need to lead the viewer to a particular moment in order to portray a story. Such content is evergreen and doesn’t go out of style.
So, basically carrying the right attitude, having the right perspective, the right gear are only some of the tricks of the trade. There’s a whole other world of technicalities associated with making it as a good videographer. Make your videos interactive, touch the emotional chord, make your content appealing enough to encourage people to come back to your content in order to ensure longevity in this industry. In fact, don’t just stick to the set rules, instead make your own, explore the unexplored and let people see the true version of you, the raw form of your creativity. Go with your instincts and shoot the most astounding videos, get in touch with great influencers and be prepared to see the light at the end of the tunnel of your struggle.
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