When I turned 40 years old, I started to create memories. With my gimbal, mobile phone, and tablet, I flew to the Philippines and started shooting and editing my first video. Looking back to this video, it wasn’t good. Not at all. The scenery is excellent, the footage poor, and the edit rather boring.
Since then, I have published almost 90 videos, and I got the impression that my videos are getting better every single time. At the end of 2021, I saw a video by vlogger legend Casey Neistat. He started his Filmmaking & Storytelling class. It took not long, and I decided to join this class on Monthly.com. I wanted to learn how I could improve my videos further.
The first-class project
The first project was to go out, walk around the block you live, find something interesting, and shoot a spontaneous film. Well, here we go: I had the idea to show the people abroad the variety of high-rising buildings & nature in Hong Kong. And I wanted to prove that Hong Kong is more than just a loud and crowded city – the way most tourists may know it only.
The final video
I started my walk near my home at HKU and wandered over to Central. In between, I did shoot all the footage for the first part of my video. The second part I finished the next day. Together with friends, I went to the Tiger Roar Rock River and the South Heaven Gate on Lantau Island.
More about the class
In the same class, I also made a second video with my son. We went together to Mount High West, nearby of our home. You can find the video here.
I often get one question back: would I recommend the Filmmaking & Storytelling class?
The answer is not that easy. Yes, Casey Neistat shows you how to find an idea, to shoot the footage and as well how to edit the movie. Once you understand his approaches, you will learn a lot about storytelling and what it needs to improve your videos. The pre-recorded videos by Casey are great.
But there is also a negative side of the class: If you expect feedback on your movies, you will be disappointed. The peer group of Monthly is sometimes good, but most times bad. It depends on the people you get assigned. Most participants I talked to never got proper feedback on their videos. And this is not satisfactory. Overall, for me, the class was worth the time and money. I edited two videos; I learned a lot.
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