Video basics
Interactive lessons on making video: the camera, framing, light, sound, editing and story. In each one you guess first, then you get to play with it, then a short quiz checks that it stuck.
Twenty minutes is on purpose. It’s the first step of how I think about learning anything: spend 20 minutes on a topic. If it grabs you, give it 20 hours. If you still love it, 200. Very few things earn 2,000. This course is a stack of 20-minute starts, so you can find out which one is yours.
I’m building it one lesson at a time. Lessons that aren’t built yet say so.
Three-point lighting
Drag a key, fill and back light around a 3D head and watch the face change. Then try Rembrandt, split and butterfly lighting.
Start the lessonThe camera
Exposure, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, lenses and focus.
- Lessons coming
Framing
Shot sizes, headroom, angles, camera movement and vertical video.
- Lessons coming
Light
Hard and soft light, three-point lighting, ratios and window light.
- Three-point lighting20 min
- More coming
Sound
Microphones, distance, levels, sync and the mix. The unit most students find hardest.
- Lessons coming
Editing
Continuity, coverage, J and L cuts, pacing and colour correction.
- Lessons coming
Story
Treatments, shot lists, interviews and building a mini-documentary.
- Lessons coming
Need the software side?
This course owes its shape to Ron Whittaker’s Television Production course on CyberCollege, which I used with students for years. It’s offline now, but the Internet Archive still has it. Every word and picture here is new.