Down the Rabbit Hole

When I first started looking into film-making, I was immediately sucked into the endless abyss of shopping for equipment—and for good reason. Look at any major film-making YouTube creator and they will tell you that equipment is extremely important.

“So you want to make videos? Well you’ll need a DSLR camera, a tripod, various lenses, tons of batteries, multiple LED lights, gels for those lights, some lavalier mics, some shotgun mics, a boom pole, a camera rail slider, a jib attachment for your tripod, a Steadicam, high-quality headphones, a digital recorder, etc.—all for the small investment of $10,000.” - Pro YouTuber

While equipment is very important, it deters a lot of potential film-makers from pursuing the profession due to the sheer amount of gear to purchase.

Too many beginner film-makers, myself included, get caught up in researching new gear that there is little time for anything else. If all your time goes into researching your next big purchase, your videos aren’t going to be very good, if made at all.

What’s more important is building up your understanding of how films are shot rather than what their shot with.

Other than grabbing a book on cinematography, there’s no better resource than watching movies—lots of movies. Critically acclaimed or 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, leave no stone unturned. Learn what you like, what you don’t like, what could be done differently, and use that knowledge to help you create your own films.

What better homework assignment than binge-watching Netflix?