Have you become a Jedi in your Star Wars delusional mind? If so, break out of the the asylum with a Jedi lightsaber. Oh, but you don't have a lightsaber yet, okay. Well, this video tutorial will show you how to make a very inexpensive LED light saber with the most basic parts you could find. Novastar will shares his Jedi wisdom on LED light sabers, so pay attention, or you could never get out of that loony bin.
FreshDV had the opportunity recently to speak with Jerome Courshon on the marketing and distribution of movies and films. Jerome offers a full course in the “Secrets of Distribution” . If you are a filmmaker of any kind you owe it to your crew, your cast and yourself to watch this segment. From contracts, residuals, and pitfalls to avoid Jerome covers the 101 basics of film distribution and helps prepare you for what you need to know once the ink dries on the DVDs. In Jerome’s words:
So you want to make a film, and in that film you want to have a sword, but you can't buy one, not to mention real ones are pretty dangerous. Your insurance costs will go through the roof! Well, here's you solution. Check out this helpful two-part video tutorial on how to make your own prop swords, which means less dangerous swords. Actually, they're made out of metal, so you still might just somebody with them yet.
Three point lighting is the standard used to illuminate a subject for amateur film, video, and even theater application.
In this tutorial, we learn how to knife someone in the face with film effects & tricks. This effect is mostly done in the camera and not in computer software. First, get two identical knives and a hat you don't mind ruining. Then, remove the blade from one of the knives and fix it to the hat. Once you have the knife set up, put your actors in place. When you do this part, use caution to make sure you don't throw the knife at anyone. Throw this into the air, then take the shot to the person wi...
In this video, we learn how to make day into night & create giants with film tricks. When doing this, make sure you don't show the sky because it will be a dead give away. First, set the correct exposure and make it indoors so it's blue. Then, the shutter should be set around four and there should be clouds in the sun. Add some blue and saturate as much as you can. When you shoot, you will get the darkness that you need. If you want to show that it's still daytime and almost night, then make ...
In this tutorial, we learn how to simulate teleportation w/ film effects & camera tricks. First, take a shot of your actors moving and doing something active. Then, take a shot of the frame without the actors. After this, go frame by frame masking the actors out of each of the frames. Use radio blur to make them leave the shot, then add in evaporation. From here, you can play the clips of the background on the scene so it looks like the have been sent somewhere else. Smooth out the background...
In this tutorial, we learn how to cut your friends in half with film effects. To do this, you will need an actor, a still frame of blood, and some gory looking meat. Have your wounded actor lay on the floor with another actor laying next to him. Then, have them all leave the frame. Next, bring all the footage in After Effects and bring in the meat picture as well. Add blood and the meat in the pictures and remove the lower half of the body. Play with the colors to make it look more realistic,...
According to our "plain Jane" protagonist Bella from the Twilight Saga, Rosalie Hale is the most beautiful woman in the world. That's quite a lot of praise to stack on one woman, but as we've seen with the films, Rosalie does in fact look quite ravishing.
Ever wonder how people make those wonderful and awe-inspiring time-lapse films? Well, this video shows you the bare basics of creating a time-lapsed movie. First, you'll need to set your digital camera on a tripod and set it to take stills at your desired intervals. Then, you'll need to import all of these photographs into Aperture or iPhoto on your Mac computer. Then it comes times to turning those pics into a time-lapse film. Watch and see how!
In order to make and use a stencil, you will need the following: pencil, blue painter's tape, Dura Lar film, Self-healing mat, spray adhesive, old canvas board, airbrush, compressed air, airbrush paint, utility knife, paper, eraser, and an idea for a stencil.
Want to make your digital footage look a little less ... well, digital? Color grade it for a classic film look. Whether you're new to Apple's Final Cut Pro non-linear video editor or just want to better acquaint yourself with the Final Cut Pro 6 workflow, you're sure to benefit from this free video tutorial. For specifics, including a step-by-step overview of the grading process, watch this Final Cut Pro lesson.
You will see a great way to light and set up a blue/green screen for your next video. There are a lot of tips that will come in handy if you want to film on a blue/green screen and don't want to pay outrageous fees to do so. The key in setting up is to block out all outside sources of light so you have just the desired amount of lighting coming just from your own sources and also setting up the screen and stretching it out as tight as possible so you won't see any creases or snags in the mate...
In this how to video, you will learn how to create a film look to your videos in Final Cut Pro. This effect will create a light and warm tone to the clip. First, take the original clip and copy and paste it. Grab it and place it on top of the original clip. Next, make sure that the top clip is selected and click modify, composite mode, and add. This will bring up the highlights in the video. Go to effects, video filters, and Gaussian blur. Go to the settings increase the radius of the blur. Y...
SpongeBob Squarepants has been a popular cartoon character for some time, but how do you draw him? This speeded up film accompanied by rock music shows, you will know exactly how to draw the character from start to finish. There is no narrative as the film is really self-explanatory. All you need is a pencil, an eraser, and a piece of paper and probably lots of practice. It looks as though the presenter has drawn this many times. If you follow what he does to the letter you should be able to ...
Backyard FX show host Eric has an awesome new tutorial for all you aspiring film makers. He is going to teach you how to make your own fake glass bottles out of household products such as sugar, corn syrup and cream of tartar. This is generally for scenes where a glass bottle needs to be broken over an actor's head. This method is incredibly safe and won't cost very much to make either. Be sure to follow his tutorial closely because you may be forced to have to start over again if you skip a ...
One thing you need to know in particular about Sony Vegas is rendering. If you don't know how to render, you're not going to make a good film or video. So watch this and see how to render video in Sony Vegas.
It's time to smash that iPhone, but wait… you don't really want to break your iPhone, do you? That's were a fake iPhone prop comes in, perfect for any homemade movie. Just make this, and switch it out with the real one during the anger attack. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to build a breakable iPhone movie prop. Also works with a fake smashable iPod.
Yes, a smashable board of wood. Just what the propmaster called for. A long 2x4 piece of wood prop is perfect for smashing overtop somebody's head during an action scene. The smashable board is easy to make, too. But not as easy as breaking it. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a breakable 2x4 wood plank prop.
A grenade is the best way to make your indie action war flick more realistic, but anyway you try it, it's not going to be completely "realistic". You need a prop grenade, and you can eerily make it yourself out of cheap household materials. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a movie prop grenade.
Dynamite your way to movie success with an explosive bomb. A fake explosive bomb, of course. TNT on a timer is a great movie effect for you action flick. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a prop movie bomb.
You can't have a werewolf movie without a werewolf, but how do you make one. Well, you should start of small. Try your hands at the wolf claws. To create these furry werewolf claws, you'll need a glove and some other materials. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a breakable prop computer. For written instructions on the actual claws, check out the WikiHow article, "How to Make Origami Paper Claws".
Creating a curved video look, also known as the fisheye look, is one of the easiest camera tricks possible, and can also be done with your editing software. It's commonly used in skateboarding videos, but be done for any low budget indie film. See how to create a fisheye look in Sony Vegas Pro 9.
Are you a film buff whose looking to become the next Quentin Tarantino? Well, other than having a big dream, a big vision, and a camera, you need an EXCELLENT film editing program. It really make the difference between creating a crappy, home video-esque shot and creating a "Lord of the Rings" bonanza.
Adam from Chemical Reaction wants to show you a little movie magic. This video tutorial will show you how to fake shooting a person with a gun for your homemade film. If you really want to make it look real, get the most real prop gun you can get, but don't use a real handgun. Fake blood is a good thing to get from a Halloween store. Acting skill is the most needed part here... because you can't look like you're being shot unless you can act properly.
See how to snap a person's neck for a film effect, complete with sound. This requires just two easy steps. First, get some peanuts. Second, synchronize the head movement to you crushing the peanuts into the microphone. Snapping a neck on camera is nothing as long as you have those peanuts and are careful... very, very careful not to snap the neck for real. This neck snapping is a great cinematic trick for the seasoned amateur filmmaker.
The camera shake method of filming is used in many popular TV shows including 'The Office,' 'Glee,' and 'Modern Family.' Typically the camera shake - or a wobbly, unstable frame - contributes a sense of urgency, unease, and interest to a shot, making it more dynamic and unpredictable. Quite like the plot of the shows mentioned above.
A cyclorama shot is a 360 degree panoramic, photographic view of a scene. It's set on a cylindrical platform and is designed to make the viewer feel like he is standing in the middle of it all. A cyclorama shot is a really cool thing to embark on in photography or film.
Filmmaker Director David Lynch explains and discusses transcendental meditation (TM). Learn about knowingness and intuition. The inside story on transcending the brain, with this Award-winning film director of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mullholland Drive, ... all » Inland Empire (filming); John Hagelin, Ph.D., Quantum physicist featured in "What the bleep do we know?;" and Fred Travis, Ph.D., Director, Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition Maharishi University of Management.
Next year, fans of Mario Kart will be able to experience the game in real life with the assistance of augmented reality.
Long before the HoloLens or the Magic Leap One, a California-based team of independent filmmakers envisioned what the future of augmented reality might look like.
Last month, Leap Motion's vice president of design and global creative director, Keiichi Matsuda (a member of the NR30), suddenly left the company. Just days later, a story leaked that revealed that Leap Motion had twice failed to lock in a potential deal with Apple.
Social engineering makes headlines because human behavior is often the weakest link of even well-defended targets. Automated social engineering tools can help reclusive hackers touch these techniques, but the study of how to hack human interactions in person is often ignored. Today, we will examine how to use subtle, hard to detect persuasion techniques to compromise a human target.
While you can't turn art into a formula, the film industry has managed to come stupidly close. While many storytelling principles still stand across mediums, successfully crafting a compelling, immersive narrative in virtual reality requires a brand new rulebook. Through trial, error, and success, writer/director/editor Adam Cosco figured out the right rules to follow (and break) in "KNIVES"—his latest 360-degree short film. The film tells an old-fashioned tale of a woman, Kelsey Frye, strugg...
It's impossible to predict the future, but it's fun to try. Adapted from Daniel H. Wilson's short story of the same name, filmmaker Giacomo Cimini's short film "The Nostalgist" shows a futuristic world where mixed reality serves as an escape from a less-desirable physical world.
When I watched the first Cincinnati Bengals edition of the HBO series Hard Knocks back in 2009, among wide receiver Chad Johnson's bravado and attention-grabbing antics was a segment on backup quarterback Jordan Palmer and his newly-developed app, which was still in its infancy. Six years later, I've revisited his creation and have to admit—it's pretty damn useful.
Wet-plate collodion photography is a process that lets you develop a photo onto a piece of glass. It has some neat applications, but it's not a simple process, and most people use a special camera to do it because the silver nitrate used to process usually ends up leaking, which would ruin a regular camera.
Steampunk is a tremendously interesting phenomenon because of its reliance on science fiction, and fiction in general. Steampunk can arguably be broken down into two categories: the fiction, and the aesthetic. Sometimes these categories cross over, but they're often more distinct than most people suspect; that said, the aesthetic is firmly based in works of fiction.
Shorts, learning from your audience and the fundamental plausibility of being hustled in the desert Mike Clattenburg, creator of Trailer Park Boys and Afghan Luke, was kind enough to talk to us from Nova Scotia, where he was hard at work in preproduction, about Crackin’ Down Hard, his short that screens Monday and Tuesday as part of TIFF’s Short Cuts Canada Programme. We picked his brain about realism versus surrealism in comedy, the virtue of shorts, and the virtue of turning negative skinny...
You will need to create some time lapse footage first. Then, you can use the Magic Bullet software to edit in a fake tilt shift look for your time lapse film. This technique will work on most other video editing programs as well.
