Many of us would secretly love to be the next Stephen Spielberg when it comes to home or ministry video production but, unfortunately, for most of us the video we make and post on YouTube likely gets as many yawns as cheers and has very little chance of ever going “viral”.
Those of us seeking to lift up Jesus Christ through visual media have some amazing subject material to work with but could use a few pointers to help us to produce videos that reveal Him in all His glory. These five tutorials enable visual media novices to go from zero to full-on high-quality video production in a very short period of time. Check the tutorials out, find one that is the best fit and most helpful for you, and take the time to start learning the art and science of videography.
1) How2Video
(35 min. of video instruction in 7 video lessons)
Developed by GEMStone Media, a Christian media outreach, to enable Christians to tell the greatest story and their story better via visual media. Three wonderful aspects of this project are A) it is targeted for missionaries with little pre-existing training, not much time and accounts for the low level of resources missionaries will have available; B) it provides an online community/forum where you can interact with others to share difficulties, ideas and breakthroughs; C) a show and tell area where you can upload your projects and view others’
how2video.org – Introduction from how2video.org on Vimeo.
2) Vimeo Video School’s Video 101
(23 min of instructions in 4 video lessons)
Vimeo is a video sharing website similar to YouTube and one of the services they offer is a Video School intended to help their users develop their video skills. The complete beginner course they offer is “Video 101” which covers 1) Choosing a Camera, 2) Shooting Basics, 3) Editing Basics, 4) A more detailed look at editing with either Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. Once you’ve finished Video 101 you can move on to the dozens of extra tutorial videos found at the Vimeo Video School
Video 101: Shooting Basics from Vimeo Video School on Vimeo.
3) WITNESS Video Advocacy Training Guide’s Tips for Filming
(60 minutes of instruction in 17 video lessons)
This WITNESS Video Advocacy Training Guide incorporates some of the best practices and lessons learned by WITNESS and its allies over the past 18 years. It was created to help human rights defenders and activists evaluate and plan how best to integrate video into their advocacy work… video advocacy is about using visual media as a targeted tool that will engage people to create change.
4) Metacafe Production School
(? min. instruction in 57 lessons)
57 video blurbs broken up into Directing & Shooting (15), Sound & Lighting (10), Basic Editing (19), and Advanced Editing (13). This doesn’t run you through video production in progressive order but does have a number of helpful “blurbs” focused on areas of video production you should learn more about after going through introductory videography training.
5) BBC- Good Shooting Guide
Not entirely video based but includes tons of video to help journalists learn, in-depth, the skills they need to produce videos. Broken into four main areas: 1) Before You Shoot, 2) Film the Perfect Picture, 3) Record the sound you want, 4) Prepare for the edit. This is an excellent resource if you’ve either got a little more time or have particular areas of videography that you’d like to learn more about.