I’ve been playing with video since the first version of iMovie was released. I’ve shot stills to accompany commercial and editorial video projects, and shot stills for independent short films, and provided technical direction for film and video people experimenting with HDSLRs. A number of my friends work in motion, and through those relationships and opportunities I’d picked up a basic working knowledge of motion production.

Hearing time and again that more clients are looking for photographers to create—or at least manage—combined still/motion shoots, I wanted to get a more solid handle on the best ways to handle production. Basic doesn’t cut it forever. SB3 delivered with “Essential Pre-Production for Video” led by Richard Harrington. Both a prolific author and trainer and owner of a successful video firm in D.C., RHED Pixel, there was no going wrong.

Richard crams an incredible amount of information about video production into an hour. Whatever you want to know, it’s almost certainly covered in his session. I feel considerably more comfortable estimating motion shoots now without the nagging feeling that I might be leaving something out. Sitting down with my video jock friends afterward, we’ve run through hypothetical estimates and ended up at the same conclusions (and in some cases I’ve even covered things they haven’t thought of).

Gail Mooney’s been lecturing that video is a team sport for a couple years now—Richard’s session will leave you equipped to build the right team for any project.