The Art of Video Making

A while ago I was reading and interview of Peter Hurley, an amazing headshot photographer from New York. Beside taking client pictures, making DVD courses and doing on-site shootings, Peter mentioned that he forces himself to work on about 50 self assignments a year that allow him to get better and better at what he does. A sort of “practice experience”!

In the video World, motivated people do the same thing by making short films. Despite the great difficulties in finding time I sometimes try to do the same. So few weeks ago I just went ahead and decided to help out a good friend of mine and create a short film.

Barcelona is an absolutely great place for making short films and, sure enough, together with few guys I met at the Barcelona Internation Filmmaker Meetup, we got together one Saturday morning and shot an action-based 7min short film.

Without much planning (from my side) and with actually no permissions, we choose few suitable locations in Barcelona and we shot one episode (actually the second episode) of a simple detective-based web series written by my good friend Ruben.

For many videomakers like me to adventure in creating short fictional films is an absolutely invaluable option to perfect the crafting of video making. It is a fun experience where a lot will go wrong and where being able to deal with problems is probably the most valuable lesson that you can get from this kind of experience.

Shooting video is a totally fun experience, but it gets even better when the tools that you use in your shooting are great tools. So, a little while ago, I decided to buy an amazing Blackmagic Production 4K Cinema Camera from Blackmagic Design.

You can find information about how amazing this cinema camera is by browsing the many internet reviews, so I wont really start my rant about its features. I will however say that the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a basic and solid tool that will really work under any circumstances. Its incredible image quality and its reliability are, in my opinion, the most valuable aspects of this camera. This is probably why despite its relatively low tag price, this camera is sometimes used in some (scenes of some) Hollywood movie productions like Mad Max: Fury Road.

Content is King

Despite the super duper gear you might have access to or despite the professional people you might have helping you out, the final outcome of your audiovisual product is very likely to be heavily influenced by the story. People are moved by emotions, curiosity, fears and not by a technically amazing camera move.
The art of telling the story is a craft hard to master and some people are better than others. Here you can find and certainly enjoy a great short put together by TheBuffNerds, one of the few Youtubers I follow.

focusaway.com is a media content creation business based in Barcelona, Spain. If you want to contact us please do not hesitate to drop us an email. You can also have a look at our Instagram page.