cinematography or editing?

I am a Freelance Producer who has more than 10 years of experience in TV, Film, Digital, and Agency content. I am very ambitious and has a keen passion for creating content that reaches that masses. I feel that being a creative who understands business, gives me the exceptional ability to communicate, understand, and reach a broad demographics.

Honestly, every skill is necessary for a career in the film industry. As stated previously, the best advice anyone can give you is to learn both! Based on what it is you want to do, you will decide the career path that best sparks your interest or reflects your skills. Research people who currently are in those roles and see if you can relate!

These terms are more broad, but I'm gonna keep it simple, but honestly they are two different things.

Cinematography is the photography of moving images. It is the art of determining the composition of a scene during production through lighting, color, placement of the actors in the shot, etc. and the best effect you envision for the film.

Editing is the process of selecting and mixing the film in a sequence conceptualize the film with special effects. You are able to figure out how to capture those "moments" and evoke those emotions based off how long you stay on or switch back and forth to a frame.

Both appeal to the artistic vision, but cinematography is more so the visual concept and editing is the process.

Hi there Gwenevere!

I just graduated from film school a few months ago, so I feel like I can offer some fresh insight. Though I studied screenwriting and producing, I've interacted with a lot of Cinematographers ( Or Director of Photography, aka the "DP"), and edited a lot of films myself as well as worked with editors. That was a loaded sentence, but I'll do my best to explain;

Short Answer; Learn both. It wouldn't hurt.

Long answer; I know that its a bit much to learn both and everyone is trying to "specialize" in something, but the truth is in film, for a long time, people are going to ask multiple things of you. So knowing both filming and editing is HUGE advantage over other candidates that only know how to do one. Because I guarantee you, people who don't have a film background will ask, "oh, can you edit too?" "Wait, can you also do motion graphics?" and then they just start expecting you to be this master robot of knowing everything that has to do with filmmaking. So to avoid that pickle, I highly recommend becoming well versed in both. Also, you wouldn't want too get stuck with unedited footage, you know? Like what if you shoot something and you have to wait around or even pay someone to edit that footage for you when you can do it yourself and not have to rely on someone else. (though, its nice when theres separation form the work).

As for careers, this is a bit of a struggle. With a lot of media happening at the current point in time, ad agencies, creative companies, and Hollywood are always looking for people who can Videograph and edit. So you kind of have to think about what route you want to go; commercial/ad agency, or Hollywood/indie filmmaking? Either way, being a fresh film grad, I will say this is a lot more difficult landing a job than I expected, and I networked pretty well in college. So, network your butt off, don't burn bridges, because you never know when a person will end up being an opportunity for you.

Best of luck (:
-Bianca