Breaking into the Videography Business

Working as a Videographer

The videography business involves converting a much beloved hobby like making videos into a successful, self-sustaining business venture. And, it’s not easy to convert the passion into a good business. Videographers are responsible for capturing an event like a wedding, sporting events and parties, and they use their own equipment to do it.

Equipment and Clients

So, now you may be wondering what’s involved with starting up a videography business? Well, perhaps the most important aspect of this career path is the equipment. You need really good equipment to become successful, and this equipment includes high definition cameras, mics and tripods.

Once you have your equipment, the next most important part of business is obtaining clients. You can start by taking videos for friends and families to build up your resume. Plus, these opportunities provide you with the methods for perfecting your skills, and getting your name out there.

Taking Video

The whole goal of a video is to capture the important details of the event. This includes the bride throwing the bouquet or the child blowing out his candles. Most freelance videographers take video for individuals or families because there are very few staff jobs for videographers.

If you do, however, land a job as a staff videographer for a news station, then you are responsible for capturing different types of events like crashes, explosions or even the latest traffic or weather. You will travel around the state or area to which you are assigned, and try to capture as much of the action as possible.

If you want to break into this field, you should intern under an established videographer, or just take some footage on your own. You can then offer this footage to the news station as freelance videographer. Many news outlets only use freelance videographers since they cannot afford to hire too many videographers on staff.

Editing Videos

Besides capturing the video, the videographer is also responsible for cleaning up that video for their clients. For example, if you are working as a wedding videographer, then you took a lot of footage throughout the two to three hour wedding and reception. Most clients want up a cleaned up version of the wedding; they don’t need to see every minute of it. This means that you need to wade through the wedding and pick out the best footage.

Then, you need to use a video editing program to splice the individual clips together, and you also need to add transitions and titles. You also need to edit the soundtrack, including adding music or removing unwanted background noises.

Promotion

The videography business also involves a lot of self-promotion. There are plenty of people in this business, and videographers always need to distinguish themselves from everyone else. Videographers use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to drum up business, and they also have websites and business cards, which you can distribute to people that you meet. New videographers must prepare to do a lot of networking to create a successful business.