Reddit reviews Understanding Movies (12th Edition)

I used to work at a community TV station and part of the gig was training volunteers to do this kind of stuff. I always started them out editing with Adobe Premiere Elements. The main reason was that it was cheap. The second reason was that of all of the really cheap editing software, Premiere Elements made you edit in a way that can very easily be transfered to higher end systems. You mentioned your a college student. I don't know what the academic discount for Premiere is, but even purchasing Premiere may be an option.

Camera wise, I used to recommend a Canon HV 20, 30, or 40. They were al the rage a couple of years ago because they were cheap, produced great quality pictures, gave you a lot more manual control than other consumer camcorders, and had an external mic input. You can find used ones on eBay for just a couple hundred dollars. They are great starter cameras. Nowadays, DSLRs shoot video. You could pick up something like a used Canon Rebel T2i and not only have a video camera that produces killer visuals, but a photo cameras too. The biggest con with DSLRs vs. Canon HV-series is that you won't be able to monitor the audio through headphones. This means you either have to pray that your external mic is working properly, or record sound on a separate device and sync it afterwards.

I see After Effects mentioned here as well. I just wanted to clear something up: After Effects is not a non-linear editing program. It's for visual effects. If you want to replace a sky or create an explosion, you go to AE. You don't edit in AE. You edit your video, then send the bits that need AE treatment to AE.

Finally, watch movies! A lot of them! And pay attention to things like composition, color, depth of field, camera stabilization (i.e. steadicam moves, dolly moves, handheld, static). After a scene, think about how many angles and takes they would have done (e.g. there was one master shot, one close up of Character A, one close up of Character B, ultra wide establishing shot, etc). When I took my first film course this was the text It went a long way in helping me understand the grammar of film and recommend it highly. Don't buy it new though. It's a text book. Find a used older version for cheap.

My favorite has always been Grammar of The Film Langauge. But you might also want The Filmmakers Handbook and Understanding Movies. All 3 are great books.