Essential Video Tutorials For Shooting & Editing Video

Over the last several years I have shot about three dozen weddings using a Canon GL2 and various versions of Apple’s iMovie. When I first started out, I paid for a couple of video tutorials to help learn the craft, but nowadays you can learn all the basics by watching (and practicing!) free online video tutorials.

I’ve gone through many of the YouTube tutorials on how to make videos and picked out some of the most useful ones. Some of the best are from Videomaker magazine, a longtime resource for videographers, both professional and hobbyists.

One of the first things you need to learn about shooting video is how to hold a camcorder. After viewing these videos, you’ll see that it’s not as obvious as you may think.

1. These two videos, Basic Hand-Held Shooting Tips, and Pans and Tilts 101 cover techniques for hand-holding, zooming, panning, tilting with a hand-held camcorder.

2. The Seven Deadly Sins of Camerawork This is probably the first video you should watch because it presents common mistakes (e.g. excessive camera shaking, excessive zooming, and poor cutting) that make many videos uninteresting to watch.

3. The basics of video shooting is learning various types of shots for interesting productions. When you start learning shot types you’ll begin to recognize them in all the best Hollywood movies you see. Graspr, the Instructional Video Network, has some very good Video 101 tutorials in this area. I suggest watching Close-up and Wide Shots, Cutaway Shots and Camera Angle. In fact, the entire series should be viewed.

4. The best video productions are almost always effectively edited. Editing video is as much a skill as an art. Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere Elements are the introductory video editors for PC users. Tutorials for using these programs include Movie Maker Video Editing Tutorial and PalmBreezeCAFE’s three-part introduction to Adobe Premiere Elements.

For iMovie ‘09 users, the Apple site itself contains a very polished set of videos for organizing and editing your captured clips. Most YouTube videos on iMovie ‘09 primarily present an overview of the program, but a few skilled users have put together introductory tutorials: iMovie 09 Beyond the Basics and iMovie 09 – Advanced Features.

I personally think iMovie ‘09 is more difficult to use than the previous versions of iMovie. So if I still have iMovie ‘06’ HD installed on your Mac I would learn and continue to use it for longer video projects. A 20-part series on YouTube is a good introduction for iMovie HD.

5. If you’re thinking about going into the videography business, you’ll want to check out another Videomaker tutorial, How to Start a Wedding Video Business. This video covers a little about equipment, developing a contract, and how to cover a wedding. It really just scratches the service, but it’s a start. Wedding Videographer Style and The Best Videographer—IOV Award Winners are also a couple of five-minute introductions that will wet your appetite.

There are certainly more advanced and well done videos than the ones listed above. But I would recommend learning and practicing the basics of camcorder shooting and editing before you spend any money on expensive books and tutorials.

If you find this article useful, please let me know by leaving a few comments.