Important Concepts to Learn if You're Going to Work in Sound
Understanding the limits of what you can do when recording sound will help inform your decisions from the very beginning — making your job easier and your work better in the end. Lights Online Film...
View ArticleEverything You Ever Wanted to Know About Filmmaking (in 240+ Links)
Last year, NFS readers heard from Tobias Deml when he did something awesome — rigging an Android tablet not only as a Canon DSLR monitor, but also a touch-screen controller. Now, Toby has shared...
View ArticleTutorial: Nifty Expression to Get Parallax Scrolling in After Effects
When I first started dabbling in After Effects and Flash several years ago, the first videos I made were simple animations (think cave drawings.) Not really knowing anything about layers or expressions...
View ArticleLearn How to Make 16-Bit-Looking Health Bars in After Effects
This is a safe place — we can all admit that at one time or another in our childhood, we wished we lived in a video game. (If we’re really honest, we’d admit that desire hasn’t subsided in our...
View ArticleDIY Tutorial: How to Make an Inexpensive Jib with Remote Tilt Head
As no-budget/independent filmmakers, achieving the look of high production value and not spending a ton of money are always at the forefront of our mind, and finding the optimal point at which those...
View ArticleHow to Recreate the Title Sequences from 3 Hollywood Films Using (Primarily)...
Nailing the opening title of your film is important for a number of reasons. Usually it’s the first thing your audience sees on-screen that introduces them to your story, which means that it has to...
View ArticleHow to Remove an Unwanted Logo from Clothing in Adobe After Effects
You’ve probably seen it or had to do it yourself before: blur out a logo that is being used without permission. If you’ve got a little time, you can head into After Effects and get a much nicer result...
View ArticleHow to Pull off the Forced Perspective Effect Used in 'The Lord of the Rings'
Special and visual effects are great, but unless you’re a skilled SFX artist or post magician, they tend to be pretty spendy. If you’re gearing up to work on a film that calls for characters of varying...
View ArticleCreate an Element 3D Wormhole in Less Time It Takes to Watch an Episode of...
Getting anything done in After Effects, Element 3D, or pretty much any other compositing program takes time — sometimes loads of time. And chances are, if you’re a beginner working on a visually...
View ArticleLearn Some Horror Makeup Techniques from Oscar-Winning SFX Makeup Artist Rick...
Making films often rides on being well-connected — knowing someone somewhere who can perform a service that your film needs. Most of the time, finding financial backers, a DP, sound/lighting techs,...
View ArticleThis Ingeniously Simple Trick Will Keep Your GoPro Footage Nice & Steady
Whether you’re shooting on a large cinema camera, DSLR, or even your smartphone, there is no shortage of stabilization tools out there that are built to help you keep your footage steady. If you’re...
View ArticleDIY Tutorial: Find out How to Turn Your Photo Lenses into Cinema Lenses
No two lenses are the same, namely if you’re talking about stills lenses and cinema lenses. There are pretty significant benefits in the latter, features like consistent front diameters, durability,...
View ArticleWant to Shoot in 3D with Your GoPro Hero3+? Here's How!
If you’re feeling a little like the footage you’ve been taking with your action camera lacked a little bit of — action, you might want to check out the rig GoPro demonstrated at this year’s NAB, the 3D...
View ArticleFog, Smoke, & Haze: The Swiss Army Knives of Cinematography Tools
Contrary to popular belief, fog machines are not just helpful tools used to set the mood at awkward middle school dances. In fact, as many of you might know, fog (or haze, but we’ll get to that later)...
View ArticleShoot Your GoPro Timelapse with an Egg Timer, & Other Super Cheap & Easy...
Now that we have post production software like Photoshop, many effects processes that used to be done in-camera (or at least while shooting) are now being done after all of the shooting is over....
View ArticleBreathe Life into Your Ghosts... Literally: How to Capture DIY Hologram FX...
Did anyone else lose complete emotional control of themselves when they saw the Tupac “hologram” perform at Coachella? Just me? Okay. One of the coolest things about that performance was the fact that...
View ArticleJoey Shanks Shows Us Some Practical DIY Solutions for Projection Mapping on a...
We’ve seen incredible pieces of art that have used projection mapping, but when Bot & Dolly showed the world its video entitled Box, it really hit home how this technique could be used in feature...
View ArticleLearn How to Write a Logline for Your Screenplay Once & for All
In my experience, writing screenplays and loglines is a lot like algebra and geometry: people typically excel at one while struggling with the other. Penning a screenplay is hard enough, but writing...
View ArticleGet Pro Quality Camera Moves with These Household DIY Dolly Hacks
Camera movement is one of those aspects of filmmaking that, if done well, can make your film look like a million bucks. If you’re on a tight budget, however, you’re probably not going to be able to...
View ArticleBuild Your Own $30 Wooden Diffusion Panels Without Having to Make a Single Cut
As no-budget filmmakers, chances are we’re spending a lot of time trying to navigate the placement of powerfully bright lights as we shoot scenes in cramped areas, and having a way to diffuse light is...
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