Note: Picture by Robert Hendricks

I’m back from Chicago where I taught beginner video shooting and editing at a Visual Editors video workshop.

Robb Montgomery of Visual Editors organized the workshop, which was held at the offices of the Chicago Sun Times. We had about 10 students in the beginner class — The perfect number because everyone got extensive one-on-one time.

The first day we covered the basics of shooting video. Here is my presentation:

Around lunch time the lecture part of the lesson was over. I handed out a broll assignment and sent the students out to shoot. They had two hours to complete the assignment (and try to fit in lunch to boot). During this stage of the process, interviews were prohibited. I wanted everyone to really focus on the shooting techniques, and not get too caught up in the narrative story.

When they returned, we formed a huddle and I reviewed each person’s footage and made comments. “I see you shot a good sequence here.” “Great closeup!” “There’s a good cutaway!”

Then we spent a little more time talking about interviewing for video. The presentation for this section is within the video shooting presentation. Then they had to go out and interview one subject related to the topic of their story.

This proved to be difficult for those students who had found stories on the streets — The street performer, the people feeding baby geese on their lunch breaks, etc. Next time I may need to provide more advanced warning that I’ll be sending students out a second time for the interview.

On Tuesday we spent all day learning about editing and then actually editing the footage they shot. Here is my editing presentation:

We had three people using Windows Movie Maker, three on iMovie and four on Final Cut Express. Some already knew how to use their programs. For the others we showed them one-on-one.

Every single person left at the end of the day with a final product. Some said they would spend more time polishing them up and getting them perfect later. But everyone had at least a rough cut that was exported and ready to go up on YouTube.

And guess what? They used sequences. They had good closeups. They included natural sound to enhance their stories. They all told visual stories.

I had a proverbial tear in my eye and a literal huge grin on my face when we screened all of the videos. I’m proud of them.

I’ll be posting all of them here once we get them all on the web. In the meantime, Robb made a video during the workshop:

Today and Friday is the advanced video workshop taught by David Dunkley Gyimah. I got the chance to meet and talk with him, and I’m really bummed I was unable to stay for his sessions. I could use that training myself!