I mentioned in one of my previous posts that a few months ago I made the decision to make video an integral part of my storytelling arsenal. It was not, I have to admit, a decision I arrived through some internal search or a result of limitations of photography - not at all. It was driven by project requirements, pure and simple. Customers these days demand, in addition to great images, short videos to supplement the story or tell different aspects of it for which photography is simply not the most sufficient medium. But I have to say this: because - and through - this process I learned a lot! Not only technically, but also with respect to photography too. Nobody was more surprised at this than me, but having to learn about video will, I am certain now, make me a better photographer.
By the way, this is not some esoteric thing - quite the contrary. I now see lighting, framing and the overall flow of storytelling in a different, so to speak, light. Planning will now be more detailed, lighting will need to be subtler, framing will become more contextual but with an increasing amount of close-ups, something I had left behind the last few years. I am incredibly excited about this new approach and I hope, through the next 3-4 posts you will follow me and learn from my mistakes (of which I’m sure will be a lot) and my successes (of which I hope to be more).
But, first things first - why?
As I said above, 2022 marks the first year I have been asked twice for video alongside images. The first time was at a moment’s notice, so I was able to skip it (nothing is worse than a half-hearted attempt at something you don’t know very well), but this time I honestly would not have had a real reason for it - it was as simple as provide what was asked or lose the project. You may be wondering why would someone - a customer or a sponsor - be so adamant about something, but honestly, it does not matter. The world is rapidly shifting to multimedia and actively fed storytelling and video is key in this. So, I fully expect that to be coming up more and more - luckily for photographers (well, some of us anyway) we already know the fundamentals:
of framing (most of us)
lighting (very, very few of us)
direction (even fewer - unfortunately)
understanding of the need for processing (even though I have to say I’m not looking forward to unleashing some of my fellow photographers to video processing)
But even with that, there is absolutely no guarantee that a good photographer will make a good filmmaker - there are simply way too many additional skills and layers to master before you can claim to be ready to not only pick up a camera and shoot video but also to put those videos together in a compelling story. What follows is my journey - please learn and make it your own.
So, how did I go about this? I split my learning journey into four distinct phases:
Phase I : Software
Phase II : Hardware
Phase III : Preparation and Practice (which also includes planning)
Phase IV : Implementation (putting all the above into practice in a real project, in the field)
I am currently completing phase IV and within 2 weeks I’ll get to see how it all comes together during Phase V. But for now, I’ll walk you through the first 4 phases.
Phase I : Software
How did I prep for this foray into video? This is me, remember? I started with research - exhaustive research. Hundreds of sources. I looked into:
Videos on:
storytelling through videography
documentary filmmaking
filming alongside photography
gear reviews and presentations (if possible, while in the field)
Finished projects by other photographers turned filmmakers:
dozens of completed films by photographers and videographers (along with the making-of and other supporting videos)
interviews by filmmakers
pages upon pages of software and gear reviews, including:
comparative analyses
cost levels
tutorials
other photographers’ experiences on:
switching to video completely
adding video to projects
Major disclaimer here: I’m pretty sure I forgot some things when putting together this list, so please dont take this as a definitive list, but think of it as a starting point - and you have any additional ideas, please drop me a message and let me know.
The process overall took me the better part of 4 months spending at least 2-3hrs a day. Why? Not because I’m a slow reader or lazy researcher - quite the contrary - it’s mainly because of the investment video needs. I’m not talking only about the cost of gear - luckily for us, these days, our DSLRs or mirrorless cameras resolve the biggest hurdle into filmmaking - I’m talking about:
learning an entirely new process, new considerations, new approaches (including, unlearning certain concepts applicable only in photography)
understanding new roles - how they can be combined or not
learning new pieces of software and hardware
new sources of material - suddenly music, sound effects and plugins or templates become critical
time to practice and fail
All this translates, any way you see it, into money and it really adds up. Embedding video is not as simple as, for example, using a new image processing software or switching from DSLR to mirrorless. A lot more moving parts and, depending on your timelines, a much steeper learning curve.
But, back to my journey and see if we can make sense of it all. I won’t go into the research part simply because this is a very personal thing - each person does things differently and that’s perfectly okay. You should do what works for you, what allows you to consume and absorb information. All that matters is you do it and do it as well as possible. For me, well, I needed to be as realistic as possible. Time as well as funds were extremely limited and I needed to make this work - if I were to make it work - quickly and without extravagant costs that the possible returns would not support them. So, while researching, I realised that, for me, the choice of software would inform a lot of the other choices further down the line - choose a complex solution would mean more effort and expense down the line. Choose something too simple or not comprehensive enough, I would meet those limitations further down the road with unforeseen risks and costs.
Naturally, I started with the wrong choice. Of course I did. After reading and watching dozens - if not hundreds - of sources, I chose DaVinci Resolve. Here was, I thought, a piece of software used in Hollywood, with amazing reviews and recommendations, tons of extensions and plugins, great learning academy and, amazingly enough, it was free. I downloaded it, spent around 15 hours watching their, admittedly, very comprehensive learning videos, and then imported all the footage I had taken during my first trip to Ecuador and tried to create a project and edit everything together.
I failed. Resolve is, I’m sure, very powerful but it is also quite complex and, tutorials notwithstanding, has a really steep learning curve - I would say that a beginner needs anything between 30 and 100hours of practice to be able to create a solid end result without too much backtracking. And even then, you hit the limits of the software quite quickly - there are reasons why there is free and a paid option. Loads and loads of things are simply not available in the free version. I’m sure that for your usual YouTube or influencer video, Resolve can be perfectly fine, but for a proper film, it was simply too much and too little at the same time. After more than two weeks of trial, frustration and error, I decided that Resolve was not for me. Back to the drawing board? Luckily no.
While I was searching for solutions to the many problems I was facing, I would pretty much constantly come across the same answers: this is done THIS way in Resolve (think 20 different steps) but is really simple in FinalCut Pro. Sign from a higher power? Nah - just incomplete or failed research on my part. Thinking about it, I should have gone for FCP right from the beginning, especially considering I know iMovie very well and had used FCP back in 2003-4. The “glamour” of Resolve (and the “free” sticker) simply blinded me. So, I repeated the process with FCP and, very naturally, I was able to do what I had failed to do with Resolve within 5 days. The decision was made, even if it ended up costing me £220. Sometimes you simply need to pay and not look for shortcuts.
So, base software selection done, I needed to figure out what was missing. You laugh, probably, but as you start learning more about your chosen video editor, you realise there are some things which you had in your head - ideas, concepts, dreams really - which either need dozens of hours to be done manually or can be easily - and professionally - accomplished with a simple template or a plugin. All these things do come at a cost - mostly small ones - but if a plugin saves you 5hrs each time you use it, they make their money back really quickly. So, I subscribed for another $99 to a repository of FCP add-ons (and it’s not an easy job choosing one, let me tell you that!) which I expect will serve me well in the immediate future. I have already tested quite a few of them and the results they produce are, frankly, astounding.
Through my trials, I also realised the immense value of the raw material - no matter how good your software is, shaky footage takes an enormous amount of time to fix (and anyone who tells your that a software’s capabilities to address this solve your problem, they really don’t know what they’re talking about). You also need to think about shooting height - assuming that holding the camera at your usual eye-level does not for a compelling video make. You also realise that the audio capture from your SLR is, at best, laughable and cannot really and effectively be used. Oh, sure you can put it through dozens of filters etc, but most of the time it comes out sounding like someone speaking through a sock filled with cotton wool, so…no. And finally, you realise that lighting is important - following the “I only shoot natural light” (read: I have absolutely no idea how to use artificial light” approach of most photographers results in vast fluctuations in lighting conditions, temperatures, tins and much more, making cuts you would normally think natural either impossible to achieve or incredibly time-consuming to fix. That enough for you? Because there’s more, but we’ll get to them later - let’s talk about the big ones first.
Total cost of software? £340 all in - including the purchase of FCP, the annual licence for Motion Array (which was on offer) and a one-off purchase of two additional templates from another source. Not bad (but again, not amazingly good - I really wish Resolve had worked out for me, maybe it works for you and you get to save on the biggest item here).