WILL YOU REALLY ENJOY VIDEO EDITING?
Affordable home video editing is now a reality.
Almost every camera you buy today is digital. This means that the holiday videos you shoot can be transferred to your computer's hard disk without any loss in quality.
Add titles, your favourite music, fancy transitions - all within your computer. Transfer you final video to DVD, VideoCD, VHS tapes for others to enjoy. It's possible and millions of users around they world are already doing it.
How does one get started in video editing on the computer?
From personal experience and observation, people who go farthest in this are found to have the following qualities. Are you one of them?
- Passion. You must have a deep interest to go far. Something that compels you to search the internet for information, buy relatively expensive books on the subject, hang out at forums and newsgroups. If you find yourself doing this, then you are on the way to become really good at it.
- Technical acumen. It's not necessary, but it will go a long way to help you trouble shoot problems. Many things can go wrong when you're editing (perhaps there's where the challenge is), and you have to have a knack of figuring out what might be the problem. Experience helps, but if you're already technically adept in operating systems e.g. Windows, MacOS, it helps.
- Dissatisfaction with mediocrity. Not a perfectionist, but someone who has a bit of pride in what he does. To be able to say that you produced the video without apologizing for quality or making excuses as to why something did not turn out the way it should.
- An all-rounder. Producing your own video forces you to be an all rounder.
- Creative enough to conjure project ideas
- Script and copy writing skills
- A lighting expert
- Videography skills
- Video editing skills
- Audio engineering skills to avoid overloading or distorting the sound
- People skills when you have to play the role of director
HAVE FUN!
Though it might seem that the task of video editing is daunting, it is actually an extremely rewarding and enjoyable hobby... and should you take it a little further, a business. It won't make you really rich, but the warm satisfaction of a job well done more than pays off for all the trouble.
Go ahead... give it a try. Even if you dropped it after a few months, you'd be way ahead of someone who has never done it before. To them, you'll be the guru!
