Earlier this year, I decided to take up filmmaking.
I did it as part of writing my book on amateurism (and boy, am I an amateur), thinking that as a photographer, this would be an easy process. After all, I know about light! I know about framing!
Turns out, I don’t know jack.
After a few tries on my own (a few of which you may have seen here on The Make Light Journal), I decided to take an online filmmaking class. Coincidentally, just when I made the decision to do so, I learned that my friend Hailey Bartholomew was teaching one. Hailey is one of my favourite creatives on the internet, whose videos are always full of light (see here and here). I knew her class would be perfect.
On the first day of the course, Hailey challenged us to use the class to create a video capturing what we’re grateful for. The class is ongoing, but the video above is my first attempt since learning about things like manual focus (hard), and choosing music (also hard) and video editing software (holy moly, this is hard). But, as I mentioned to a friend of mine, I’m loving being new at something again.
Because of this class, I recently sprung for a new camera — one that takes great still images, but should be a quantum leap in video quality, as compared to my ten-year-old Nikon that captured the footage, above. I’m hoping that it will also be a quantum leap in the quality of video stories that I’m able to put together. Stay tuned to find out!
In the meantime, here’s wishing you a great week, friends, full of things to be grateful for. Also, and very importantly: if you’re a registered voter in the United States, please vote tomorrow. Remember, voting is joyful activism, and joy is what we fight for.
music: epidemic sound
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