Building a Video Production Studio?

How to set up a personal or business production suite

What you'll need:

• A Camera
• A Computer
• Editing Program
• Connections/Friends

Optionals:

A Greenscreen. Lighting Equipment. Sound Equipment. Internet Connection. Lots of Space (virtual and real).

Choosing the Right Camera

Unless your planning on doing only post-production (video/sound editing) you'll need a camera.

For shooting home videos any camera will do, but almost everything both online and offline is in HD now, so go for a camera with a video quality of at least 720p (HD). Many small sized cameras that can take both pictures and videos come in HD quality.

I've personally tested and recommend the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V , a small sized affordable camera with amazing quality and some cool features.
For bigger projects where super high quality and having many features is important you can check out the popular  Panasonic Pro AG/DVCPRO camera. It uses P2 Cards for storing full HD quality images. Smaller cameras use compressions to 'imitate' HD so they're not usually viable for film or broadcasting. It's pretty expensive and is a highly sought-after camera by film makers. Many people rent out this camera or get hired for bringing it on the set, so owning one puts you right in the game!

Choosing the Right Computer and Editing Program

The higher quality your raw footage is, the more powerful computer you'll need.
All editing programs have a pretty high learning curve for creating awesome looking effects, and most of them are available for both Windows and Mac computers.

Here are some of my system recommendations for editing footage.
From your smaller cameras
(the ones under 1000 bucks):
It should have at least 1gb of ram and a dual core processor. >2GB of ram is recommended, and an Intel Core i5 or i7 (dual core) processor would be great. As you'll see, nearly all of These Newer Laptops have what it takes to edit your footage. And I recommend Intel Processors for video editing.

For the bigger cameras
(RED, P2 cards (panasonic) etc. - over a thousand bucks.):
You might consider getting a stationary computer instead of a laptop. And a quad core (4 processors) or more, instead of a dual core.
The Mac Pro is a good choice. I recommend using Macintosh computers for video editing because you'll be able to install Final Cut Pro for video editing, and for some other workflow and stability related reasons. FCP is a somewhat simple to learn program and extremely powerful.
I also recommend 4GB of Ram or more and lots of storage space (1 terabyte or more) because these raw files will be very big.

Final Cut Pro X.
Final Cut Pro X is somewhat easy to learn since you can find tutorials for everything you're trying to create, on the web. And for a $50 add on you can get Motion 5 to do some special effects editing.

If you're getting a Windows computer you can get the cheaper alternative Windows Movie Maker. I haven't tried it in a while but supposedly it's getting somewhat advanced (can edit HD files, add some cool effects etc.)

Adobe Premiere  Adobe Premiere is a popular video editing program that is included in the Adobe Production Premium package, available for both Mac and Windows. If you buy the whole package you'll get pretty much all the powerful tools you need for video and graphics editing: Adobe After Effects, one of the most powerful animation programs; Photoshop, the best image editing program, and Adobe Premiere, the editing program. And some other goodies.

Connections and Friends
Producing videos can hardly be done by yourself. To make high quality videos you'll probably need actors, a sound editor to do the sound., and maybe outsourcing your video editing and animation if you're in charge of the filming/producing only and spend most of your time doing that.

Work on your social media networks to build an audience and gain some followers. Read my guide on Social Media for Independend Artists, here on Tubeblogger.

To find people who can help do some work you can go on freelancing sites such as Elance.com, where you'll find Editors, Actors, Camera Technicians, etc. available for hire.

Leave a comment or contact me with any question about building a production studio or producing videos. I'll help out the best I can =)

Nickolai Gibson

This article was written by Nickolai Gibson. A Tubeblogger and video editor who loves video gaming, technology, and YouTube videos.