The importance of experimenting with your camcorder

One of the most valuable activities you can engage in as a filmmaker is experimentation with a camcorder. It’s completely free (once you have the camcorder) and can lead to extremely interesting and useful discoveries that you can subsequently put to good use in your projects. Think of it as Research & Development for filmmakers.

You can make fascinating discoveries about color temperature, color in general, lighting, depth of field, focal length and camera movement just by playing around with your camcorder. I am not just talking about learning the basics of camerawork and focal length — I am referring to the myriad of advanced techniques that can make a big contribution to the value you bring to a project as a filmmaker. This is the sort of stuff that they simply cannot teach you in film school (the instructors are probably not even aware of these tricks).

If you don’t own or have access to a camcorder, you should endeavor to get hold of one as soon as possible, because as a filmmaker you spend far more time in between projects than actually shooting one, and what you do in that "downtime" makes all the difference to how skilled you will be when you’re actually shooting. This is particularly true in the first few years of your career.

You don’t need the most expensive camcorder on the market. If it has a decent zoom range you will be able to experiment with focal length. The other vital requirement is a decent flip-out LCD screen, which will allow you to develop a strong visual sense. This will be a far cheaper and smarter investment than paying someone to teach you things in a classroom — filmmaking is an art and a trade, not a subject, and honing your skills is a worthwhile long-term investment.