How to get started in video production
So you want to get started in video production, but how can you break in? Video production is a great job as it allows you to meet incredible people, not only crew but agencies creatives and also interesting clients. So how do you get started? We will take you through the steps on how you can get started in video production.
Step One: Learn about video production
Before investing time and money into video production make sure it’s the right career for you. Learn about the industry and how to use all the equipment. The best way to do this is, contact people within the industry as they will have a wealth of knowledge and most people will be more than happy to help you out when you’re starting off, see if you can shadow a videographer, this way you will get to take a look at their process and see what they think is best to do. You may have to do this for free at first, but this is the price of being educated. Another way to learn would be to do a few online courses, some great places to find online courses in video production would be udemy or skillshare. These courses are taught by video production industry leading professionals.
Step Two: Decide what niche to work in
When starting a video production company, it always helps to decide what niche of video production you would like to work in, some examples are music videos, corporate videos, brand story video production, etc. This allows you to focus on one type of video production and excel in that. However this isn’t necessary, if you want to work on more than one type of video production genre then that’s perfectly fine, you’ve got to do what you feel is best for you. Are you more technical or creative? Are you best suited to logistics and therefore following a path towards being a video producer. If so you will start off as a production assistant, advance to production manager and then become a video producer.
Step Three: Source Some Equipment
The basic video productions equipment that you will need to be a video producer is a camera and a tripod. Should you want it some other additional equipment that you could get is a stabiliser, audio recording equipment and some lighting equipment.
If you’re able to afford good equipment straight away then great. Take a look online at reviews of the equipment you would like and see what people are saying, whether they have good reviews or not, but don’t just take one review as a matter of fact, take a look at three or four and see what the average rating is and see if there are any conclusive opinions. If you can’t afford video productions equipment straight away a good thing to do is to rent video equipment when you need to film. If you’re at school, college or university they should have the ability to loan out equipment for a brief period of time, typically two to three days. This will allow you to get started and its is the experience of actually doing something that brings the greatest knowledge and reward. If this is out of reach for you then you can use your phone for your first video productions. Mobile phones have become more advanced and so has the quality of the phone cameras. If an apple iPhone is good enough for apple to create their next worldwide video marketing campaign, it will probably work well for you too. On our Work page you can see several videos shot on camera phones. These include a video for Apple iPhone XR where we shot the documentary about fashion photographer Daniel Benson. And here’s one we shot for Ikea and a story about discarded mattresses.
Step Four: Get Clients and Create a portfolio
We’re not going to sugarcoat it, getting clients isn’t easy . It can be hard to secure clients when starting off if you don’t have a portfolio, this will be one of the first things potential clientele will want to see. To build up your portfolio and get your first few clients on the board, we recommend offering up your services for free. Doing this will help you work with people and build up relationships with them. This may then lead to further paid work and referrals. Once you’ve produced a few small productions for free and build up your portfolio you can then start to charge for your work, the prices are down to you at the end of the day but starting rates can be around the £500 -£1000 mark. But do take into account your equipment costs and travel costs before working out your rates.
Another way to get some clients is to work with small local charities. This not only allows you to boost your portfolio, you get to do a really rewarding job helping charities with their video presence.
Our top tip: Always create storyboards for your video production. You wouldn’t think about building a house or even an extension without first creating a drawing right? Films are visual. You have to visualise the film you want to make so that it is clear for everyone involved what you plan to do.
Step Five: Network
Once you’ve got yourself up and running it’s good to go to local networking events, these events are there to help business owners meet like minded entrepreneurs to either collaborate or just to learn from. A great example of a networking circuit is the 4 networking circuit, they hold events all over the country. They’re providing a great environment to get tips and tricks from other freelancers and business owners. Networking doesn’t guarantee work but it does provide a great opportunity to learn from local business people.
Step Six: Make mistakes
When you are beginning your video production career, you’re going to make mistakes but this is fine, this quote from Bryant McGill really sums it up perfectly.
“A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress.”
Mistakes or failing forward will help you learn from your experiences. You need to ask yourselves a few questions to determine whether you can learn from that specific mistake.
- What went wrong?
- What could I do better next time?
- What did I learn from this?
Once you come to a conclusion from this write down your answers, you can see it more clearly. It may also help to create a list of why you don’t want to make that mistake again. But don’t let the thought of the mistake take over your brain as this can lead to overthinking about a simple mistake and a bit of imposter syndrome, which is where you don’t believe in your own abilities and are scared of getting outed as a fraud. Mistakes happen to everyone so you shouldn’t worry if you make some while your starting your video production journey.
If you follow these steps, there is no doubt that you can make a career out of video production. Our final tip? Make sure you enjoy yourself while working on your video productions. People can see if you love what you do in your work, so make sure you put all your effort in and people will begin to notice your work.