How to become better at editing when you don’t have a lot to edit or film?

[Mike Cohen]

Get some friends and shoot anything you can. Improvised scenes with an iphone is a good way to start. Current technology allows anyone to shoot and edit video without investing large sums of money.

Setup a Meetup or FB group for local filmmaking as a hobby. I have worked on a couple of 48 hour film projects which are great fun.

If you can’t do any of the above, find at least one other person and make something – anything – to get your feet wet.

See a tv commercial you like? Try to re-create that yourself. Use action figures if you don’t know any people.

Sam Raimi likes to say “make a hundred bad movies and you’ll eventually make a good one.”

Good luck.

Mike Cohen

[Grinner Hester]

Visualize, shoot, edit, improve then repeat.

[Mark Suszko]

You have family and friends and neighbors – sit one of them down and interview them about some aspect of their lives and history. You can use anything from a phone camera to a pawn shop camcorder – doesn’t have to be expensive. I’d say the bare minimum is to use some kind of tripod and try to get a clip-on mic – Amazon sells a workable lav that can plug into phones and camcorders in the 20 dollar range. tripods you can get at thrift stores and pawn shops for a few bucks. This will get you a LOT of material to cut together in different ways, especially if you interview several people, all on the same general subject. Shoot outdoors on a park bench with a foam core bounce card until you can afford some lighting. Vary and ask the same questions a few times, in different ways, changing the camera shot on each iteration. Then look for old photo albums or other b-roll opportunities and start cutting.

Some possible topics to interview about:

Your first date.
The time you were bullied.
First house.
First car.
First job.
The nature of family and parenthood.
Changes they have seen in the neighborhood over the years.
You get the idea.