Yeah, I'm a video editor in SoCal. I'll tell you what I did.
I took some video production classes in JUNIOR college. I enjoyed it and hung around alot learning after hours. One of the studio staff had a night job at a local post production house, and she took me up there and I got to be an "intern" (intern in quotes means no school had anything to do with it, I just worked for free.) After a few months, they started paying me minimum wage to run dubs and stuff at night. During the time alone, I played with everything I could (by the way, this was back in the linear editing days, and it took a LOT longer to figure out how stuff worked).
After several months of getting paid to learn (thats how I liked to think of it!
) I had edited together a video montage for a class that was pretty fancy. Now, it took me probably 20 times longer to do it than it would have taken the real editors, but the end result was pretty nice.
So one day I was showing it to somebody, and the boss walked in, watched it, and asked who made it. When he found out that I did, he said "Why aren't we paying you to edit?" I told him because it took me FOREVER to make it, and he said he would start giving me little projects I could work on on my own to develop my skills.
Eventually I was fast enough to work with clients, and I did.
I've been an editor ever since.
So knowing the girl in college got my foot in the door. But these days, you are probably interested in having your own system anyway. So just get something and start playin with it. If you can find a post house, ask them if you can "intern" for them.
Oh, college wouldn't hurt, but I never went, but you can probably tell that from my spelling! lol. I still have to have people check my spelling when I add text to videos.
-Beefshank
