When was the last time you asked a video editor what he thought of your shooting style?

As a videographer of conscience you try to be the best you can be, to steal a phrase from the U.S. Army. You've learned to work with all formats of video — both old and new. You've studied lighting and occasionally throw the word chiaroscuro into conversations with your clients. You can zoom and pan and tilt with the best of them, and working a crane, HotHead, or Steadicam is like a walk in the park.

That roll of gaffer's tape hanging from your belt and the C-47s attached to the brim of your baseball cap are worn like badges of honor. The awards on your wall are a tribute to your success.

But when was the last time you asked a video editor what he thought of your work? Unless you're shooting live television, your images will pass through an editor at some point, and that's the person who has to put all the pieces together. Most of the time, the videographer never gets any feedback from the editor.

For whatever reasons, the images the videographer produces are taken from him at the end of the shoot. If he's lucky, or diligent enough, he might see the finished product sometime down the road.

Rarely will the person behind the camera hear any feedback, unless there are problems — usually technical in nature. Therefore, it's really up to the camera person to seek feedback. If you promise not to be a pest, a know-it-all, or a backseat driver, most editors won't mind you sitting in on an editing session.

You will have to do it on your own dime since the producer won't spring for your day rate to have your input at the session. Why should he (he says sarcastically), since you made the pictures to begin with? But if you can be a fly on the wall during the edit, you'll be surprised at how much you can learn.

Editors love videographers who shoot with the edit in mind. By going to an edit session you will have the opportunity to discuss what you did right, or where you can improve your shooting, offer alternative angles, change perspective, or just give an extra 10 or 15 seconds to a wide shot.

Something I learned while attending a recent session is that I have the bad habit of giving a running commentary when shooting B-roll, making it more difficult for the editor to include natural sound. I was totally unaware I was doing it, and would still be doing it today if I had not poked my head into the edit room.

Another way to improve your shooting for the edit is to become an editor yourself. That doesn't mean you have to run out and buy an Avid and announce to the world that you are in the editing business. The cost of desktop editors such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or iMovie has made it possible for all of us to have a user-friendly editing system on our home computers. I recently bought an analog-to-digital converter for $100 that came with editing software. It was pretty basic, but it did work.

Now we can all take the footage we shoot and see firsthand how it cuts together, if only for our own gratification. Pretty pictures are very nice if you're going to hang them on a wall, but for a video program to work, it must tell a story. How well that story is told depends heavily on how well you have done your job as a videographer. And the best way to find out how well you are doing your job is to work with an editor. The best videographers I know shoot with the edit in mind. You should, too.