Videographer Online Portfolio Website

Videographer Online Portfolio Website

Build the perfect videography folio with Format. The website builder gives you dozens of templates presets to choose from and tons of options for customization—making building a folio website as easy as six simple steps.

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Unlike most jobs, a CV and some references won’t be enough to land you a job as a videographer. Clients want to see what you’re capable of, and they’re unlikely to book a videographer with nothing to show. This is what makes a video portfolio essential to every up-and-coming videographer. It’s an online receptacle for your past work, and a way to let clients in on who you are and what you have to offer as an artist.

Read on to find out how you can build an impressive video portfolio. And once you’re done, you can head over to our gallery of online portfolio websites for inspiration for your own videographer website!

Why Build a Videography Portfolio?

When it comes down to it, there is no better way to prove your worth as a filmmaker than with a showcase of your best work. It’s a place to show off your skill as a cinematographer, editor, or director, and a way to establish your brand.

And with a videographer website, you have a highly professional, customizable, and easily accessible folio which clients can access anytime and anywhere. This means that even when you’re busy shooting or editing, your folio can rake in clients for you.

The Benefits of Creating a Videographer Portfolio

It’s professional. While sites like YouTube or Vimeo may be convenient places to host your videos, having your own website is far more professional. It tells clients that you’re a serious artist who’s dedicated to their craft.

It’s customizable. With a website builder like Format, you can choose from dozens of templates and pick the one that suits your brand, create custom pages for different kinds of videos, and decide on the order and placement of all your content. And when you use Format’s iOS app, you also get a “portfolio on the go”, which lets you make or edit galleries and blog posts on your phone.

It’s a one-stop-shop for your clients. A video portfolio website is so much more than just a place to put your best work on display. With videographer websites, you can also discuss your past experience and artistic philosophy, talk about your creative process, display awards and accolades, discuss pricing, and share your contact information—and with Format, you also have the option to host an online store.

How a Videography Portfolio Increases Your Online Visibility

Aside from the aforementioned benefits, one of the major advantages of maintaining a videography website is increased visibility on the internet – especially if you know a thing or two about search engine optimization (SEO). And this doesn’t just apply to video content creators. Whether you’re a musician, an illustrator, a photographer, or a makeup artist, a portfolio website can increase your online visibility tenfold.

Format comes with its own built-in SEO Editor, which allows you to optimize everything from your website title and pages down to your image descriptions. Format also gives you the option to run a blog, which you can also optimize for better search engine rankings.

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How to Build a Portfolio for Videos

Ready to build a video portfolio but don’t know where to start? Here are four things you can do to get started.

Shoot Friends and Family

You can’t create a folio without putting in the work—and that means starting small.

Reach out to friends and relatives who might need video services and offer your expertise at a discounted rate. If you’re hoping to make it big as a wedding videographer, hit up friends and family who are getting married soon and offer to do their videos as a wedding gift. If you’d like to be a commercial director, seek out friends with small businesses and brainstorm for social media campaigns together.

Don’t Limit Yourself

Being a jack of all trades is incredibly handy when you work in media, since you’ll often have to adjust to market trends and clients’ needs when you’re new to the industry. Therefore, it’s important you try not to limit yourself with the type of work you choose to do when you’re building your folio. Try your hand at everything, from music videos to commercial work to even content creation for YouTube.

If you haven’t found a niche yet, this might be a great exercise at helping you figure out your specialty as a filmmaker.

Organize Your Work

Once you’ve gathered enough work to build a site, you need to make sure you organize your work. This helps you establish your brand in a particular niche, giving clients a clear understanding of what you can do for them.

If, for example, you don’t want to limit yourself to one specific niche or genre, you can organize your website into separate pages for different types of work. With Format, you can create separate galleries and custom pages and organize them by client, genre, or work done.

If you have vastly different styles in different niches (for example, you can do both delicate wedding videos and straightforward documentaries) you can choose to host videos in a separate site as well.

Build a Demo Reel

A demo reel is something akin to a portfolio video—it’s a video compilation of your best works, condensed in a one-to-three minute video. Usually, demo reels show off your best work in a specific designation, so if you’re a cinematographer and an editor, you’ll have two separate reels for those. A demo reel should also show off your new work and is updated on a yearly basis.

Why do you need a demo reel when you have a site to show off all your videos? Because some clients don’t have the time and patience to sort through each and every video on your site. By displaying a highlight reel on your homepage, you can give potential clients a taste of everything you have to offer in the span of three minutes!

How to Make a Videography Portfolio

Making a videography portfolio site on Format is as simple as six easy steps:

  1. Sign up. To use Format’s website builder, you must first sign up for a 14-day free trial. Don’t worry, no credit card required at this point.
  2. Pick a template. Format has dozens of responsive templates that allow embedding of YouTube and Vimeo videos straight to your site. Plus, you can always change your template later on!
  3. Upload your videos. This is where you curate the projects to showcase on your site. Create galleries and custom pages to keep things neat and organized, and add descriptions to let clients in on your creative process.
  4. Customize your portfolio. Format lets you customize your site navigation and add pages like an About section so you can build a site that’s easy to use and navigate.
  5. Build your brand. Change fonts, background colors, headers, logos, and more. You’ll want to build a website that feels brand new and completely you, and Format is here to help you do just that.
  6. Take it one step further. Don’t forget to make use of Format’s special add-ons. You can set up a store for merch, optimize your site for better search engine performance, and integrate your social media accounts into your website.

Videographer Portfolio FAQ

Here are four questions we often get from novice videographers:

A film portfolio is a collection of a filmmaker’s best movie and video work. Filmmakers often start out as videographers for wedding videos, commercials, fashion films, and other non-feature film work, so most portfolios of up-and-coming filmmakers contain more than just films.

Film/video portfolios should feature the filmmaker’s best films and video work, as well as a demo reel that condenses who you are and what you’ve done in a one-to-two minute movie. Your portfolio should tell visitors what kind of filmmaker you’re trying to be, so if you’ve covered a ton of weddings before but are trying to move towards documentary-style directing, it’s advisable to leave your wedding work in the past.

You also need to include information about yourself, including your background in film and the kind of work you do (or could do). It’s advisable to have any big awards and accolades listed as well—provided you have some. Lastly, you must add contact information, including an email, links to your social media accounts, and your YouTube or Vimeo channels. For better search engine optimization, you might want to add a blog too.

Videographers can start on their portfolios by simply putting in the work. Tap friends and family who need videography services, such as engaged couples who need a wedding video or a small business owner who needs help creating a video campaign for their social media. As you build your clientele, you keep making more videos and adding to your portfolio.

Once you have enough solid work, you can put a short reel together of your highlights, or get all your best projects together and create a website featuring your best projects. 

Not all film schools require portfolios, but it is recommended to have one ready. Prestigious filmmaking schools like the American Film Institute in LA require video portfolios from all their applicants. 

A portfolio is often required when applying to a film college because these schools want to see not only how much you know about films and filmmaking, but also how dedicated you are to the craft. Film schools want to admit students with a real passion for movies and movie making, and would rather accept applicants who clearly work very hard to build a good portfolio. 

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