How I Started Filming Event Videos

The story behind the beginning of my Nightlife Video Career!

It all started with fun private videos, immortalizing memories and those crazy parties we organized with friends. Here is the first one that I ever published to the internet (made with a handheld GoPro)



Quickly I found myself putting a lot of time and money into my newly found hobby and after hundreds of hours of online courses, a Canon 70D, 5 months in California filming all the adventures on my semester abroad and many fun projects under my belt I was looking to use this newly acquired skill in the real world.

After searching for a while I luckily stumbled upon some corporate work for dentist companies. This was a great start but not very frequent and personally fulfilling. I knew that if I wanted to do this for real I had to find a segment that made sense to me personally. After a bit of thinking I realized that parties and nightlife are something I love anyway, so finding work in that field would simply make sense.

Now I just had to find a way to break into an industry without any connections or prior experiences in the field. So my quest for my first nightlife job began.

Over 100 unanswered e-mails and ignored Facebook messages later I found myself already massively frustrated and clueless what to do next.

After 3 days one person answered to my offer of doing a party aftermovie for them and told me that I could come through and shoot and edit one for free (Julian Burger <3). Quite honestly, this was far from my expectations with all my previous video experience and all the expensive gear I bought over the years but hey, beggars can’t be choosers!

I showed up, recorded whatever looked interesting had some fun while doing it and went back home.

The title picture of this post shows me on that job with my beautiful 55 mm lens trying to snipe a shot of some dancing girls from afar.

Now I got home, uploaded the footage and quickly found out that it was mostly trash. Auto settings don’t do you any good inside of a club when the strobes comes on and standing 5 meters away from somebody and shooting them over the shoulder while they dance does not really work (Dentist conventions didn’t get me used to walking up to random people and holding a camera in their face)

Luckily I had my editing skills to save the day and simply made the video a little shorter (under a minute) and utilized impeccable cut timing, some effects and sprinkled some color correction magic all over it, which made a solid aftermovie.

VOILÁ! My first Nightlife video was born!

I delivered and quickly had to find out that the track I used was copyrighted and unusable on Facebook or Instagram. They quickly replaced the track with another one and uploaded it anyway which absolutely ruined all the timings and effects I created but hey! I had my first clubbing video to send to potential clients (the one with the copyrighted music)

Round 2 of job hunting could begin.

I looked up another batch of event organizers and clubs all around Vienna and now proudly contacted them with my first Aftermovie.

And guess what, a few replied this time!

“How much do you charge”

Clueless as I was I gave them a price based of my dentist jobs and was met with the following message:

In English:

“Better rethink that!

We don’t even know you or have never heard of you, why should we pay such a price!”

Even after lowering the price to finally get my foot in the door they were not interested anymore and after 1 week I was back at Square 1. No jobs, no more replies. Just me and that aftermovie on facebook where every single cut happened off beat.

Out of nowhere I received a message on Facebook. It was the owners of the club I shot at (Hardi, Hunnar <3 <3 <3, two massively creative entrepreneurs that gave me a chance to prove myself). They saw the video (original music) and really liked it! Their club was closing and they wanted an aftermovie by me! I instantly confirmed, and I prepared like crazy to eliminate all the mistakes from my first attempt. I worked as hard as I could sweating like a gypsy with a mortgage.

Two full days of editing later it was done and I had my first proper nightlife video! And let me tell you, it felt great. Work that did not feel like work because I was doing what I would be doing on a friday night anyway. And the editing was a fantastic creative outlet.

So here it is, my very first official clubbing video:

I was proud, they were happy, and this job actually led to a reference that launched my career. Only 8 months later I can proudly say that I make event videos for a living and I am confident in predicting that this is just the beginning of a extremely exciting journey that lies ahead of me.

Keep knocking and the door will be opened.

PS: I will be using this blog to give a behind the scenes look at my most interesting event jobs, mostly short form content with the final video attached.