My Creative Process
Over the five years I have been creating videos, I have developed a process to quickly produce high-quality videos. In this section I will share my creative workflow and provide some basic tips that you can start to implement into your own video projects.
Step 1: Plan Ahead
When beginning on a new video project, the first thing anyone should do is to sit down and really think about what you will be creating. An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing. There are three different elements you should consider when planning your video:
Audience
- Who will be watching your video? Where will they watch it? What style of video best fits your audience? These are important questions to consider while planning your video.
Filming
- What is the subject you need to film? Where will the subject be located at? What direction, angle and focal length do you need to film the subject at? Once you understand what your audience wants to see, planning how to capture the footage will lead you to not miss an important shot.
Editing
- What do you want the audience to feel when watching the video? What is the structure of the video? What is the visual style of the video? Having an idea of what the video will look like beforehand will make editing faster and sorting through your footage less overwhelming.
Step 2: Film It
Once you have planned ahead, you are ready to film! Understanding and being comfortable with your camera is crucial to filming well. Take time to learn how the different settings affect the camera so you won't be surprised when you look at the footage later on. Here are a variety of different tips to try while filming.
- Film the subject at a variety of focal lengths
- Film the subject at a low angle
- Film the subject with a backlight if possible
- Position the subject based on symmetry, leading lines, the Rule of Thirds, or other composition techniques
- Add depth by using foregound
- Remove distracting background elements
Step 3: Edit It
After gathering all the footage, it is time to put the video together! Editing a video has many parts to it including effects, transitions, coloring, audio and more. It is important to complete certain parts of the editing process first so that you aren't wasting time doing things twice. Here is my workflow while editing:
- Organize and label footage
- Select and rough cut the clips you may use
- Place the clips to create a first draft of the video
- Add transitions, effects and text to create a final draft of the video
- Enhance the video with sound effects and fix the audio
- Enhance the video by color grading the footage