Everything that goes into making video.
A first-principles guide to the craft of video production — the whole road from the first idea to the final frame, written in plain prose. Not tips. The actual reasoning.
15 chapters · ~12,000 words · reads online or as a PDF
We wrote down everything you'd hire us to do.
From the outside, a finished video looks like a single thing. What that smoothness hides is that it isn't one decision but a few thousand — each one defensible, each one made at the right moment by someone who understood why it mattered. There's no secret in there. Just understanding, compounded.
So we wrote the understanding down. Making Video walks the entire pipeline in the order you actually meet it: what video physically is, how to plan it, how to capture an image and a sound worth keeping, and how to assemble all of it into something a person will watch to the end. Where there's a rule, we explain the reason behind it — because a reason travels to situations a rule never anticipated.
Read it and you can make video yourself, with a phone and daylight or a full crew. Or read it and understand exactly what you're paying for when you hire someone who does this every day. Either way, you'll never look at a video as a single mysterious thing again. We think that's worth more than keeping it to ourselves.
Fifteen chapters, in the order the work happens.
No padding and no listicles — just clear prose that builds one idea on the last.
- 01The Illusion of Motion
- 02The Production Pipeline
- 03The Idea and the Brief
- 04Writing and Structure
- 05Planning the Shoot
- 06Exposure
- 07Lenses and Composition
- 08Resolution, Color, and the File
- 09Lighting
- 10Sound
- 11Directing and Running the Day
- 12Editing
- 13Color
- 14Sound Post and Music
- 15Delivery
Written for the curious, not the credentialed.
People who want to make it themselves
You have a camera — maybe just a phone — and the will to make something good. This is the map of the whole territory, with the reasoning you need to make real decisions.
People who hire it out
You commission video and want to stop feeling like you're guessing. Understand the craft well enough to write a sharp brief, ask the right questions, and know good work when you see it.
People learning the trade
You're early in production and tired of tutorials that show the button without the reason. This connects the dots into one coherent way of thinking about the whole pipeline.
Get Making Video
The complete guide — all fifteen chapters. Read it online or download it as a PDF and keep it forever.
Ask us anything.
Not sure the guide's right for you, or need a hand after buying? Send a note and we'll get back to you.