“I think everything that you do, you're learning. I mean, every movie that you make is like a film school; that's one of the things that I enjoy about filmmaking.”
-Peter Jackson
Whether you dream of becoming a Hollywood filmmaker or a local video producer, the task of creating professional, effective, and compelling videos involves the same basic skills. The best way to learn these skills is to get out there, get your hands dirty, and start making videos.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he claims that you need roughly 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become world-class at any skill. Let’s do some math. If you dedicated 5 hours of work each day towards learning video production that would be 1,825 hours per year you are practicing your skill. According to Gladwell, that means you would be a world-class video producer in about 5 and a half years.
Most great producers or directors don’t make their break through until after they turn 30 years old OR (and even more often) much later in their life. If you started this regimen of 5 focused hours per day as a teenager or even if you only ended up doing half that much work, you should still be way ahead of the curve.
If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hi, please feel free to e-mail me at Matt@LancitDigitalMedia.com. Now get out there and start shooting!