[The video’s linked below if that’s what you came for]
When I started taking photos I never really expected to take it this far. At first, I started taking photos for my photo class. My Instagram wasn’t for photography when I started either. It was a personal Instagram where I posted everything. I posted mostly phone phone photos, memes, and occasionally something taken with a nicer camera. When I started to use my camera more it was for longboarding photos and some landscapes. Then transitioned to landscapes. Then long after moved to taking photos of people. At first I didn’t really want to either. I was shy, and didn’t really think I would be that good at directing and talking to people.
And now I want to start taking videos too. I wanted to start with a small video before jumping into something larger. I still don’t really know how to edit them and put them together either. This first one was to get the basics down.
There’s a whole lot that I learned from this video. For starters, learned about the importance of B-roll. We went to Big Sur expecting to take the entire video there. After looking through all the footage, I realized that I did not take a lot of B-roll. Gianna was the main focus of the video so anything without her was the B-roll for it. I didn’t have enough video for the video so we actually went out for a second day to get more video.
Everything was shot handheld. I slowed everything down in order to reduce the amount of shake in the footage. Just like photos, the wider lens helped to reduce the amount of shake in the video. I also did like the look of the wider lens too. For the wider shots I used a Tokina 11-20mm.
I did also suck at the editing part. I had to youtube almost everything. I didn’t know how to import the footage, cut the clips, scale them correctly, create a sequence, or color grade anything. I managed to learn all of that with this one video. I still don’t know how to make transitions though. And color grading is still not easy for me. I don’t really understand how the controls work exactly.
I’m still really proud of the video I made. When I started portraits, the second shoot I had was with Gianna at the same spot that we shot in the second time for this video. I remember not knowing what I was doing at all back then. I didn’t have any experience posing models, getting the right lighting, or editing and retouching. And now two years later, I am much better at all of that.
It’s the same with video. This first one was a great step in the right direction. Only making more videos will help to develop my stills and even more my style. I think that finding my style and having a vision for a video while shooting will help with the process. With this first video, I didn’t really have a vision for what the final video would be which made it hard to put together in the end. The long term goal is to make more videos and possibly vlogs (if I can get over my own voice).
