Are you looking to become a video editor, but don't know how to begin? Is college the way to go for you or not?
I've always loved film production. Growing up I loved using the family camcorder to film all kinds of things and make up short skits with my friends. In high school, I got to take a production class and realized my true passion was in molding the story in post production. So that's what I decided I wanted to do with my life. I started off at a community college before moving on to get my bachelors degree at Full Sail University Tip: If you choose Full Sail, save some money and skip community college. The school is fairly priced and community college will require a lot of extra courses you probably won't need.
Full Sail's online Bachelor's Degree for Digital Cinematography is great in teaching a little bit of everything for film production. I did it all online, which is convenient, but in reality I would have gotten a way better experience if I had actually gone to the school because the subject is so hands on. Most of the teachers were great at working around the whole virtual issue. I certainly had a few favorites.
Some highlights (pros) from going through the program:
- They send you everything you need to work from home: a really nice camera (although kinda bulky for filming anything handheld), a lighting kit, a tripod, and a laptop. You can watch my unboxing video part 1, part 2, and the laptop.
- You get to learn how to critique films.
- You have the opportunity to do a small internship getting 24hrs of experience with local professionals (you have to find them).
- You go through the whole process of film production several times to create different films that you can use as portfolio work. Each time is a little bit more of a challenge.
- You even go though a class to design your own website.
- It's a real confidence builder to go though the program.
- Learning the whole process of film production makes it easier to understand and communicate issues and solutions when you get everything in post.
Some weaknesses (cons) with the program:
- The classes are set up monthly which is awesome, but some months you actually have two classes especially near the end and it can take a lot more time they didn't warn you about.
- You will start projects and finish them in different classes sometimes with different teachers and it can get kinda confusing. My least favorite thing is the prior teachers will say you need such and such for you submit your film two classes from then and then the teacher doesn't require those things. For example, for one film I was told I had to do all this paperwork for the film (which is important to learn), but then the teacher never had us submit it. It's frustrating to work so hard on something (and it was my least favorite part) and not even count toward my final grade at all.
- To some degree everything is kind of an overview, so at least personally as a video editor I felt they helped me learn the basics of color correction and audio mixing but there is a ton that I've had to learn on my own.
Doing research before I went to Full Sail at jobs in my field, it looked like I had to get a Bachelor's Degree. I'm sure it helps with a higher ranking job looking for an expert in the field down the line, but I still need at bare minimum one year of professional experience to even apply to some of those more competitive jobs. I'm out of college and still at the bottom with others who don't have a degree.
I got an internship right out of college which I liked, but after six months I needed more. I've had quite a few freelance gigs that have proven to me that the one thing that college can't really teach you, and is very important as a video editor, is people skills. You can learn communication to some degree in college and you can certainly learn technical skills, but you can't learn how to work with the wide variety of people you will encounter freelancing. They all have different visions and you kinda have to be a mind reader to get them what they are looking for. I will go into greater depth on the ups and downs of freelancing in a later article.
Yes you have to start somewhere, but I was planning on working from home as a video editor. Working on shorter form videos for companies like social media, website videos, weddings, etc. I discovered too late that college is better for those looking to hopefully work on TV shows and films that pay a lot more. The degree is nice, but most of the people I talk to don't seem that interested that I have it, more the experience I have making what they are looking for.
Conclusion
Full Sail, in my opinion, is a great school and if you are looking to go to college I highly recommend it. You do learn a lot, it has an easy structure to follow at one class a month (most of the time), and the teachers are pretty great. However, do I think you need to go to college to be a video editor? My answer is no you don't have to go to college to get into video production unless you really want to work in big production. If you can learn all you can online and by mimicking what you see others do you have a good foundation to get started as a beginner freelancer. Build up some good portfolio pieces on your own like some YouTube videos or a short film and use that to land beginner gigs on sites like Upwork and Fiverr. You won't be working for much, but even I started out that way and I WENT to college. The more experience you get, the better jobs you can land. The best part is you don't have college loans to worry about on top of that.
If you are interested to see some of the assignments that I had to do through Full Sail check out my playlist. This features a majority of the video assignments and the progress to completing them.
Some other articles for opinions on this subject:
Please like and subscribe to my blog to see an upcoming post where I will talk more about freelancing as a video editor and how to get started with or without a degree.
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