r/Filmmakers Jun 09 '25

New Rules Regarding AI on /r/filmmakers!

487 Upvotes

Thank you all for participating in the poll! Here are the results. To accurately gauge everyone's collective acceptance vs rejection for each, I've tallied the total votes among all choices as pro/anti for each category. So for example, a vote for 'no changes' would be a -1 to Gen AI, AI Tools, AI Comms, and AI Discussion. A vote for 'Ban GenAI + AI Tools' would be a +1 to GenAI and AI Tools, and a -1 to AI Comms and AI Discussion, etc. So here are the results for each category of AI. Keep in mind that a higher number indicates a stronger group decision to ban the content:

GenAI: +92 (+119/-27)

AI Tools: -20 (+63/-83)

AI Comms: -8 (+69/-77)

AI Discussion: -84 (+31/-115)

From the results it is clear that sub overwhelmingly approve a complete ban on all generative AI. However, people are more or less fine with allowing discussion of AI, and are fairly mixed on the topic of AI Tools and Communication. So here is the new rule for all things AI:

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Rule 6. You may not post work containing Generative AI elements (Midjourney, Neo, Dall-E, etc.). You may use and demonstrate the use of AI assisted tools (ie magic masking, upscalers, audio cleanup etc.) so long as they are used in service of human-generated artwork. AI Communication, like post bodies or comments composed using ChatGPT are allowed only in very reasonable cases, such as the need for someone to translate their thoughts into another language. Abuse of AI assisted communication will result in the removal of the offending post/comment.


r/Filmmakers Dec 03 '17

Official Sticky READ THIS BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION! Official Filmmaking FAQ and Information Post

984 Upvotes

Welcome to the /r/Filmmakers Official Filmmaking FAQ And Information Post!

Below I have collected answers and guidance for some of the sub's most common topics and questions. This is all content I have personally written either specifically for this post or in comments to other posters in the past. This is however not a me-show! If anybody thinks a section should be added, edited, or otherwise revised then message the moderators! Specifically, I could use help in writing a section for audio gear, as I am a camera/lighting nerd.



Topics Covered In This Post:

1. Should I Pursue Filmmaking / Should I Go To Film School?

2. What Camera Should I Buy?

3. What Lens Should I Buy?

4. How Do I Learn Lighting?

5. What Editing Program Should I Use?



1. Should I Pursue Filmmaking / Should I Go To Film School?

This is a very complex topic, so it will rely heavily on you as a person. Find below a guide to help you identify what you need to think about and consider when making this decision.

Do you want to do it?

Alright, real talk. If you want to make movies, you'll at least have a few ideas kicking around in your head. Successful creatives like writers and directors have an internal compunction to create something. They get ideas that stick in the head and compel them to translate them into the real world. Do you want to make films, or do you want to be seen as a filmmaker? Those are two extremely different things, and you need to be honest with yourself about which category you fall into. If you like the idea of being called a filmmaker, but you don't actually have any interest in making films, then now is the time to jump ship. I have many friends from film school who were just into it because they didn't want "real jobs", and they liked the idea of working on flashy movies. They made some cool projects, but they didn't have that internal drive to create. They saw filmmaking as a task, not an opportunity. None of them have achieved anything of note and most of them are out of the industry now with college debt but no relevant degree. If, when you walk onto a set you are overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety, then you'll be fine. If you walk onto a set and feel foreboding and anxiety, it's probably not right for you. Filmmaking should be fun. If it isn't, you'll never make it.

School

Are you planning on a film production program, or a film studies program? A studies program isn't meant to give you the tools or experience necessary to actually make films from a craft-standpoint. It is meant to give you the analytical and critical skills necessary to dissect films and understand what works and what doesn't. A would-be director or DP will benefit from a program that mixes these two, with an emphasis on production.

Does your prospective school have a film club? The school I went to had a filmmakers' club where we would all go out and make movies every semester. If your school has a similar club then I highly recommend jumping into it. I made 4 films for my classes, and shot 8 films. In the filmmaker club at my school I was able to shoot 20 films. It vastly increased my experience and I was able to get a lot of the growing pains of learning a craft out of the way while still in school.

How are your classes? Are they challenging and insightful? Are you memorizing dates, names, and ideas, or are you talking about philosophies, formative experiences, cultural influences, and milestone achievements? You're paying a huge sum of money, more than you'll make for a decade or so after graduation, so you better be getting something out of it.

Film school is always a risky prospect. You have three decisive advantages from attending school:

  1. Foundation of theory (why we do what we do, how the masters did it, and how to do it ourselves)
  2. Building your first network
  3. Making mistakes in a sandbox

Those three items are the only advantages of film school. It doesn't matter if you get to use fancy cameras in class or anything like that, because I guarantee you that for the price of your tuition you could've rented that gear and made your own stuff. The downsides, as you may have guessed, are:

  1. Cost
  2. Risk of no value
  3. Cost again

Seriously. Film school is insanely expensive, especially for an industry where you really don't make any exceptional money until you get established (and that can take a decade or more).

So there's a few things you need to sort out:

  • How much debt will you incur if you pursue a film degree?
  • How much value will you get from the degree? (any notable alumni? Do they succeed or fail?)
  • Can you enhance your value with extracurricular activity?

Career Prospects

Don't worry about lacking experience or a degree. It is easy to break into the industry if you have two qualities:

  • The ability to listen and learn quickly
  • A great attitude

In LA we often bring unpaid interns onto set to get them experience and possibly hire them in the future. Those two categories are what they are judged on. If they have to be told twice how to do something, that's a bad sign. If they approach the work with disdain, that's also a bad sign. I can name a few people who walked in out of the blue, asked for a job, and became professional filmmakers within a year. One kid was 18 years old and had just driven to LA from his home to learn filmmaking because he couldn't afford college. Last I saw he has a successful YouTube channel with nature documentaries on it and knows his way around most camera and grip equipment. He succeeded because he smiled and joked with everyone he met, and because once you taught him something he was good to go. Those are the qualities that will take you far in life (and I'm not just talking about film).

So how do you break in?

  • Cold Calling
    • Find the production listings for your area (not sure about NY but in LA we use the BTL Listings) and go down the line of upcoming productions and call/email every single one asking for an intern or PA position. Include some humor and friendly jokes to humanize yourself and you'll be good. I did this when I first moved to LA and ended up camera interning for an ASC DP on movie within a couple months. It works!
  • Rental House
    • Working at a rental house gives you free access to gear and a revolving door of clients who work in the industry for you to meet.
  • Filmmaking Groups
    • Find some filmmaking groups in your area and meet up with them. If you can't find groups, don't sweat it! You have more options.
  • Film Festivals
    • Go to film festivals, meet filmmakers there, and befriend them. Show them that you're eager to learn how they do what they do, and you'd be happy to help them on set however you can. Eventually you'll form a fledgling network that you can work to expand using the other avenues above.

What you should do right now

Alright, enough talking! You need to decide now if you're still going to be a filmmaker or if you're going to instead major in something safer (like business). It's a tough decision, we get it, but you're an adult now and this is what that means. You're in command of your destiny, and you can't trust anyone but yourself to make that decision for you.

Once you decide, own it. If you choose film, then take everything I said above into consideration. There's one essential thing you need to do though: create. Go outside right fucking now and make a movie. Use your phone. That iphone or galaxy s7 or whatever has better video quality than the crap I used in film school. Don't sweat the gear or the mistakes. Don't compare yourself to others. Just make something, and watch it. See what you like and what you don't like, and adjust on your next project! Now is the time for you to do this, to learn what it feels like to make a movie.



2. What Camera Should I Buy?

The answer depends mostly on your budget and your intended use. You'll also want to become familiar with some basic camera terms because it will allow you to efficiently evaluate the merits of one option vs another. Find below a basic list of terms you should become familiar with when making your first (or second, or third!) camera purchase:

  1. Resolution - This is how many pixels your recorded image will have. If you're into filmmaking, you probably already know this. An HD camera will have a resolution of 1920x1080. A 4K camera will be either 4096x2160 or 3840x2160. The functional difference is that the former is a theatrical aspect ratio while the latter is a standard HDTV aspect ratio (1.89:1 vs 1.78:1 respectively).
  2. Framerates - The standard and popular framerate for filmmaking is called 24p, but most digital cameras will actually be shooting at 23.976 fps. The difference is negligible and should have no bearing on your purchasing choice. The technical reasons behind this are interesting but ultimately irrelevant. Something to look for is the camera's ability to shoot in high framerate, meaning anything above the 24p standard. This is useful because you can play back high framerate footage at 24p in your editor, and it will render the recorded motion in slow motion. This is obviously useful!
  3. Data Rate - This tells you how much data is being recorded on a per second basis. Generally speaking, the higher the data rate, the better your image quality. Make sure to pay attention to resolution as well! A 1080p camera with a 100 MB/s data rate is going to be recording higher quality imagery than a 4k camera at a 200 MB/s data rate because the 4k camera has 4x as many pixels to record but only double the data bandwidth with which to do it. Things like compression come into play here, but keep this in mind as a rule of thumb.
  4. Compression - Compression is important, because very few cameras will shoot without some form of compression. This is basically an algorithm that allows you to record high quality images without making large file sizes. This is intimately linked with your data rate. Popular cinema compressions for cameras include ProRes, REDCODE, XAVC, AVCHD. Compression schemes that you want to avoid include h.264, h.265, MPEG-4, and Generic 'MOV'. This is not an exhaustive list of compression types, but a decent starter guide.
  5. ISO - This is your camera sensor's sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive to light the camera will be. Higher ISOs tend to give noisier images though, so there is a tradeoff. All cameras will have something called a native iso. This is the ISO at which the camera is deemed to perform the best in terms of trading off noise vs sensitivity. A very common native ISO in the industry is 800. Sony cameras, including the A7S boast much higher ISO performance without significant noise increases, which can be useful if you're planning on running and gunning in the dark with no crew.
  6. Manual Shutter - Your shutter speed (or shutter angle, as it is called in the film industry) controls your motion blur by changing how long the sensor is exposed to light during a single frame of recording. Having manual control over this when shooting is important. The standard shutter speed when shooting 24p is 1/48 of a second (180° in shutter angle terms), so make sure your prospective camera can get here (1/50 is close enough).
  7. Lens Mount - Some starter cameras will have built in lenses, which is fine for learning! When you move up to higher quality cameras however, the standard will be interchangeable lens cameras. This means you'll need to decide on what lens mount you would like to use. The professional standard is called the PL Mount, but lenses and cameras that use this mount are very expensive. The most common and popular mount in the low level professional world is Canon's EF mount. Because of its design, EF mount lenses can easily be adapted to other common mounts like Sony's E-Mount or the MFT mounts found on many Panasonic cameras. EF is popular because Canon's lenses are generally preferred over Sony's, and so their mount has a higher utility.
  8. Color Subsampling - This is easier to understand if you think of it as 'Color Resolution'. Our eyes are more sensitive to luminance (bright vs dark) than to color, and so some cameras increase effective image quality by dedicating processing power and data rate bandwidth to the more important luminance values of individual pixels. This means that individual pixels often do not have their own color, but instead that groups of neighboring pixels will be given a single color value. The size of the groups and the pattern of their arrangement are referred to by 3 main color subsampling standards.
    • 4:4:4 means that each pixel has its own color value. This is the highest quality.
    • 4:2:2 means that color is set for horizontal pixels in pairs. The color of each two neighboring pixels is averaged and applied to both identically. This is the second best quality.
    • 4:2:0 means that color is set for both horizontal and vertical pixel 4-packs. Each square of 4 pixels receives a single color assignment that is an averaging of their original signals. This is generally low quality. For more info on color subsampling, check out this wikipedia entry
  9. Bit-Depth - This refers to how many colors the camera is capable of recognizing. An 8-bit camera can have 16,777,216 distinct colors, while a 10-bit camera can have 1,073,741,824 distinct colors. Note that this is primarily only of use when doing color grading, as nearly all TVs and computer monitors from the past few decades are 8-bit displays that won't benefit from a 10-bit signal.
  10. Sensor Size - The three main sensor sizes you'll encounter (in ascending order) are Micro Four-Thirds (M43), APS-C, and Full Frame. A larger sensor will generally have better noise and sensitivity than a smaller sensor. It will also effect the field of view you get from a given lens. Larger sensors will have wider fields of view for the same focal length lenses. For example, a 50mm lens on a FF sensor will look roughly twice as wide-angle as a 50mm lens on a M43 sensor. To get the same field of view as a 50mm on FF, you'd need to use a 25mm lens on your M43 camera. Theatrical 35mm (the cinema standard, so to speak) has an equivalent sensor size to APS-C, which is larger than M43 and smaller than Full Frame.

So Now What Camera Should I Buy?

This list will be changing as new models emerge, but for now here is a short list of the cameras to look at when getting started:

  1. Panasonic G7 (~$600) - This is hands down the best starter camera for someone looking to move up from shooting on their phones or consumer camcorders.
  2. Panasonic GH4 (~$1,500) - An older and cheaper version of the GH5, this camera is still a popular choice.
  3. Panasonic GH5 (~$2,000) - This is perhaps the most popular prosumer DSLR filmmaking camera.
  4. Sony A7S (~$2,700) - This is a very popular camera for shooting in low light settings. It also boasts a Full-Frame sensor (compared to the GH5's M4/3 sensor), allowing you to get shallower depth of field compared to other cameras using the same field of view and aperture.
  5. Canon C100 mkII (~$3,500) - This is one of the cheapest true digital cinema cameras. It offers several benefits over the above DSLR cameras, such as professional level XLR audio inputs, internal ND filters, and a better picture profile system.


3. What Lens Should I Buy?

Much like with deciding on a camera, lens choice is all about your budget and your needs. Below are the relevant specs to use as points of comparison for lenses.

  1. Focal Length - This number indicates the field of view your lens will supply. A higher focal length results in a narrow (or more 'telescopic') field of view. Here is a great visual depiction of focal length vs field of view.
  2. Speed - A 'fast lens' is one with a very wide maximum aperture. This means the lens can let more light through it than a comparatively slower lens. We read the aperture setting via something called F-Stops. They are a standard scale that goes in alternating doublings of previous values. The scale is: 1.0, 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64. Each increase is a doubling of the incoming light. A lens whose aperture is a 1.4 will allow in twice as much light than it would have at 2.0. Cheaper lenses tend to only open up to a 4.0, or even a 5.6. More expensive lenses can open as far 1.3, giving you 16x as much light. Wider apertures also cause your depth of field to contract, resulting in the 'cinematic' shallow focus you're likely familiar with. Here is a great visual depiction of f-stop vs depth of field
  3. Chromatic Aberration - Some lower quality glass will have this defect, in which imperfect lens elements cause a prism-style effect that separates colors on the edges of image details. Post software can sometimes help correct this, as in this example
  4. Sharpness - I'm sure you all know what sharpness is. Cheaper lenses will yield a softer in-focus image than more expensive lenses. However, some lenses are popularly considered to be 'over-sharp', such as the Zeiss CP2 series. The minutia of the sharpness debate is mostly irrelevant at starter levels though.
  5. Bokeh - This refers to the shape of an out of focus point of light as rendered by the lens. The bokeh of your image will always be in the shape of your aperture. For that reason, a perfectly round aperture will yield nice clean circle bokeh, while a rougher edged aperture will produce similarly rougher bokeh. Here's an example
  6. Lens Mount - Make sure the lens you're buying will either fit your camera's lens mount or allow for adapting to is using a popular adapter like the Metabones. The professional standard lens mount is the PL Mount, but lenses and cameras that use this mount are very expensive. The most common and popular mount in the low level professional world is Canon's EF mount. Because of its design, EF mount lenses can easily be adapter to other common mounts like Sony's E-Mount or the MFT mounts found on many Panasonic cameras. EF is popular because Canon's lenses are generally preferred over Sony's, and so their mount has a higher market share.

Zoom vs Prime

This is all about speed vs quality vs budget. A zoom lens is a lens whose *focal length can be changed by turning a ring on the lens barrel. A prime lens has a fixed focal length. Primes tend to be cheaper, faster, and sharper. However, buying a full set of primes can be more expensive than buying a zoom lens that would cover the same focal length range. Using primes on set in fast-paced environments can slow you down prohibitively. You'll often see news, documentary, and event cameras using zooms instead of primes. Some zoom lenses are as high-quality as prime lenses, and some people refer to them as 'variable prime' lenses. This is mostly a marketing tool and has no hard basis in science though. As you might expect, these high quality zooms tend to be very expensive.

So What Lenses Should I Look At?

Below are the most popular lenses for 'cinematic' filming at low budgets:

  1. Rokinon Cine 4 Lens Kit in EF Mount (~$1,700)
  2. Canon L Series 24-70mm Zoom in EF Mount (~1,700)
  3. Sigma Art 18-35mm Zoom in EF Mount (~$800)
  4. Sigma Art 50-100 Zoom in EF Mount (~$1,100)

Lenses below these average prices are mostly a crapshoot in terms of quality vs $, and you'll likely be best off using your camera's kit lens until you can afford to move up to one of the lenses or lens series listed above.



4. How Do I Learn Lighting?

Alright, so you're biting off a big chunk here if you've never done lighting before. But it is doable and (most importantly) fun!

First off, fuck three-point lighting. So many people misunderstand what that system is supposed to teach you, so let's just skip it entirely. Light has three properties. They are:

  • Color: Color of the light. This is both color temperature (on the Orange - Blue scale) and what you'd probably think of as regular color (is it RED!? GREEN!? AQUA!?) etc. Color. You know what color is.
  • Quantity: How bright the light is. You know, the quantity of photons smacking into your subject and, eventually, your retinas.
  • Quality: This is the good shit. The quality of a light source can vary quite a bit. Basically, this is how hard or soft the light is. Alright, you've got a guy standing near a wall. You shine a light on him. What's on the wall? His shadow, that's what. You know what shadows look like. A hard light makes his shadow super distinct with 'hard' edges to it. A soft light makes his shadow less distinct, with a 'soft' edge. When the sun is out, you get hard light. Distinct shadows. When it's cloudy, you get soft light. No shadows at all! So what makes a light hard or soft? Easy! The size of the source, relative to the subject. Think of it this way. You're the subject! Now look at your light source. How much of your field of vision is taken up by the light source? Is it a pinpoint? Or more like a giant box? The smaller the size of the source, the harder the light will be. You can take a hard light (i.e. a light bulb) and make it softer by putting diffusion in front of it. Here is a picture of that happening. You can also bounce the light off of something big and bouncy, like a bounce board or a wall. That's what sconces do. I fucking love sconces.

Alright, so there are your three properties of light. Now, how do you light a thing? Easy! Put light where you want it, and take it away from where you don't want it! Shut up! I know you just said "I don't know where I want it", so I'm going to stop you right there. Yes you do. I know you do because you can look at a picture and know if the lighting is good or not. You can recognize good lighting. Everybody can. The difference between knowing good lighting and making good lighting is simply in the execution.

Do an experiment. Get a lightbulb. Tungsten if you're oldschool, LED if you're new school, or CFL if you like mercury gas. plug it into something portable and movable, and have a friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, neighbor, creepy-but-realistic doll, etc. sit down in a chair. Turn off all the lights in the room and move that bare bulb around your victim subject's head. Note how the light falling on them changes as the light bulb moves around them. This is lighting, done live! Get yourself some diffusion. Either buy some overpriced or make some of your own (wax paper, regular paper, translucent shower curtains, white undershirts, etc.). Try softening the light, and see how that affects the subject's head. If you practice around with this enough you'll get an idea for how light looks when it comes from various directions. Three point lighting (well, all lighting) works on this fundamental basis, but so many 'how to light' tutorials skip over it. Start at the bottom and work your way up!

Ok, so cool. Now you know how light works, and sort of where to put it to make a person look a certain way. Now you can get creative by combining multiple lights. A very common look is to use soft light to primarily illuminate a person (the 'key) while using a harder (but sometimes still somewhat soft) light to do an edge or rim light. Here's a shot from a sweet movie that uses a soft key light, a good amount of ambient ('errywhere) light, and a hard backlight. Here they are lit ambiently, but still have an edge light coming from behind them and to the right. You can tell by the quality of the light that this edge was probably very soft. We can go on for hours, but if you just watch movies and look at shadows, bright spots, etc. you'll be able to pick out lighting locations and qualities fairly easily since you've been practicing with your light bulb!

How Do I Light A Greenscreen?

Honestly, your greenscreen will depend more on your technical abilities in After Effects (or whichever program) than it will on your lighting. I'm a DP and I'm admitting that. A good key-guy (Keyist? Keyer?) can pull something clean out of a mediocre-ly lit greenscreen (like the ones in your example) but a bad key-guy will still struggle with a perfectly lit one. I can't help you much here, as I am only a mediocre key-guy, but I can at least give you advice on how to light for it!

Here's what you're looking for when lighting a greenscreen:

  • Two Separate Lighting Setups: You should have a lighting setup for the green screen and a lighting setup for your actor. Of course, this isn't always possible. But we like to aspire to big things! The reason this is helpful is that it makes it easier for you to adjust the greenscreen light without affecting the actor's lighting, and vice versa.
  • Separate the subject from the greenscreen as much as possible! - Pretty much that. The closer your subject is to the screen, the harder it is to keep lights from interfering with things they're not meant for, and the greater the chance the actor has of getting his filthy shadow all over the screen. I normally try to keep my subjects at least 8' away from the screen at a minimum for anything wider than an MCU.
  • Light the Green Screen EVENLY: The green on the screen needs to be as close to the same intensity in all parts as possible, or you just multiply your work in post. For every different shade of green on that screen you'll need make a separate key effect to make clean edges, and then you'll need to matte and combine them all together. Huge headache that can be a tad overwhelming if you're not used it. For this reason, Get your shit even! "But how do I do that?" you ask! Well, first off, I actually prefer to use hard light. You see, hard light has the nice innate property of being able to throw itself a long distance without losing all its intensity. The farther away the light source is from the subject, the less its intensity will change from inch to inch. That's called the inverse square law, and it is cool as fuck. If you change the distance between the light and the subject, the intensity of the light will shift as an inverse to the square of the distance. Science! So if you double the distance between the light and the subject, the intensity is quartered (1 over 2 squared. 1/4). So, naturally, the farther away you are the more distance is required to reduce the intensity further. If you have the space, use it to your advantage and back your lights up! Now back to reality. You probably don't have a lot of space. You're probably in a garage. OK, fuck it, emergency mode! Now we use soft lights. Soft lights change their intensity quite inconveniently if they're at an oblique angle to the screen, but they kick ass if you can get them to shine more or less perpendicular on the screen. The problem there of course is that they'd then be sitting where your actor probably is. Sooo we move them off to the side, maybe put one on the ceiling, one on the ground too, and try to smudge everything together on the screen. Experiment with this for a while and you'll get the hang of it in no-time!
  • Have your background in mind BEFORE shooting: Even if your key is flawless, it will look like shit if the actor isn't lit in a convincing manner compared to the background. If, for example, this for some reason is your background, you'll know that your actor needs a hard backlight from above and to camera right since we see a light source there. Also, we can infer from the lighting on the barrels that his main source of illumination should be from above him and pointing down, slightly from the right. You can move the source around and accent it as needed to make the actor not-ugly, but your background has provided you with some significant constraints right off the bat. For that reason, pick your background before you shoot, if possible. If it is not possible to do so, well, good luck! Guess as best as you can and try to find a good background.

What Lights Should I Buy?

OK! So now you know sort of how to light a green screen and how to light a person. So now, what lights do you need? Well, really, you just need any lights. If you're on a budget, don't be afraid to get some work lights from home depot or picking up some off brand stuff on craigslist. By far the most important influence on the quality of your images will be where and how you use the lights rather than what types or brands of lights you are using. I cannot stress this enough. How you use it will blow what you use out of the water. Get as many different types of lights as you can for the money you have. That way you can do lots of sources, which can make for more intricate or nuanced lighting setups. I know you still want some hard recommendations, so I'll tell you this: Get china balls (china lanterns. Paper lanterns whatever the fuck we're supposed to call these now). They are wonderful soft lights, and if you need a hard light you can just take the lantern off and shine with the bare bulb! For bulbs, grab some 200W and 500W globes. You can check B&H, Barbizon, Amazon, and probably lots of other places for these. Make sure you grab some high quality socket-and-wire sets too. You can find them at the same places. For brighter lights, like I said home depot construction lights are nice. You can also by PAR lamps relatively cheap. Try grabbing a few Par Cans. They're super useful and stupidly cheap. Don't forget to budget for some light stands as well, and maybe C-clamps and the like for rigging to things. I don't know what on earth you're shooting so it is hard to give you a grip list, but I'm sure you can figure that kind of stuff out without too much of a hassle.



5. What Editing Program Should I Use?

Great question! There are several popular editing programs available for use.

Free Editing Programs

Your choices are essentially limited to Davinci Resolve (Non-Studio) and Hitfilm Express. My personal recommendation is Davinci Resolve. This is the industry standard color-grading software (and its editing features have been developed so well that its actually becoming the industry standard editing program as well), and you will have free access to many of its powerful tools. The Studio version costs a few hundred dollars and unlocks multiple features (like noise reduction) without forcing you to learn a new program.

Paid Editing Programs

  1. Avid Media Composer ($50/mo or $1,300 for life) - This is the high-level industry standard, but is not terribly popular unless you're working at a professional post-house for big budget movies.
  2. Adobe Premiere Pro ($20/mo) - This used to be the most popular industry standard editor for low to medium budget productions. It is still used quite often, so knowing Premiere is a handy skill to maintain.
  3. Davinci Resolve Studio ($300) - This is a solid editing program built into the long time industry-standard color grading suite. Since Resolve added editing, its feature set and reputation has been on the rise. It's eclipsing Premiere now and set to be the undisputed industry standard for video editing and color grading for all but the absolute highest level productions. This is the best overall choice if you're looking to find your first editing program.
  4. Final Cut Pro X ($300) - This is the old standard for low-high budget editing, replaced by Adobe Premiere and now again by Resolve. It is available on Mac platforms only, and is still a powerful editor.

r/Filmmakers 23m ago

General My real-time audioreactive pointcloud system just got a big update!

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Upvotes

Hey, guys. Pretty excited to share this with you.

The system takes a Kinect-derived human pointcloud and lets incoming sound interact in various ways with the particles in real time, turning the performer into a responsive cloud of matter, noise, and motion. Some of you might remember the system from v1.5's demo which got pretty viral in some places.

v1.7 includes 12 presets, and adds the following:

- a procedural camera that automatically cuts to new angles around the performer, and can follow the body or a raised hand
- a new look, Afterimage Cathedral: delayed versions of the performer stacked in depth, holding the last few seconds of movement
- a rebuilt network that runs leaner, reads clearer, and is ready to work with [new interfaces, parameters, optimizations]

This is a raw excerpt of me playing through the system, with the visual structure reacting live to the audio signal coming from my Ableton session in real-time.

Project files accessible through the Store, or my Patreon profile. More experiments, through my Instagram.


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Looking for Work Been doing color grading for a year, sharing some stills from recent project

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9 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I've been working as a colorist for a year, mostly on short films. Wanted to share a recent grade I did.
tools used DaVinci Resolve
Always looking to take on new projects and collaborate with Directors, filmmakers/editors, so if you're working on something and need a colorist, feel free to email me, DM or drop a comment. Also happy to hear critique, always trying to get better.
email: [jaydipmakwana4053@gmail.com](mailto:jaydipmakwana4053@gmail.com)

portfolio: https://visual-grading.lovable.app/

thanks!


r/Filmmakers 7h ago

Question I just got accepted into my dream university, and I'm gonna be a filmstudent! To any ex-film students: Tips? Tricks? Things you wish you knew?

11 Upvotes

It's worth noting that this uni is very hands-on and practical, with some theory but it's msotly focused on learning how to do the thing and how to get work and such. I'm really excited, but also really nervous, so I figured I'd ask if you cool people had any advice :D


r/Filmmakers 12h ago

Discussion 95% of Our Crew Is Unavailable, and Our Creator Wants to Push Through, We Film in 2 Days, What To Do?

19 Upvotes

I’m the 1st AD on a indie sitcom with a two-camera setup. For Episode 2, we’re currently missing 95% of our crew, Cam Op, two 1st ACs, a 2nd AC, Script Supervisor, PAs, and now a replacement AD because I’m sick and can no longer work the shoot. Everyone can only make it some days while some (like myself) cant make it at all. It’s a four day shoot as well.

Our first shoot went really well. Everyone clicked, we had an established workflow, and things ran smoothly. This time, scheduling conflicts have completely gutted the crew. I suggested moving the shoot to weekends and actually confirmed that most of our original crew could work those dates.

However, after meeting with the producers, the creator decided to keep the current dates because of actor and location availability. I wish I was in that meeting to voice my concerns..

The locations they’re using were all locations we filmed at during the last episode, so personally, I don’t see the locations as being a major obstacle to moving the shoot. Now we’re two days out, and I’ve been extremely sick while still trying to find replacements, cold-emailing people, reaching out through directories, and asking around with very little luck. We still don’t have replacements for everyone. I’m exhausted and realizing I’ve been doing way more than my job for an unpaid production.

My biggest concern is bringing in an almost entirely new crew for Episode 2 with barely any time to prepare. They’d have to debrief new people, adjust to different experience levels, filming styles, personalities, and workflows. On top of that, I won’t be there as the AD, I have no clue whose going to do my job, call sheets, managing the shoot and schedule, managing extras, etc, so they either need to find a replacement or go without one. Those responsibilities will fall on someone though. I’ve done what I can at this point. I’m sick, exhausted, and need to step back and recover.

For producers/ADs/crew: would you continue with the shoot under these circumstances, or postpone/move the dates? How would you handle an almost complete crew turnover this close to filming?


r/Filmmakers 19h ago

General Best shots of a music video I made months ago

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65 Upvotes

Was shot with an FX3 and ZEISS CP3, VFX where made in Blender,and After Efects I’m really in love with the first shot, the day was perfect and we could see the volcanos in the back! In Mexican story the right volcano is a Man (Popocatépetl) and the left one is a girl and his lover (iztacihuatl) so it made perfect sense for this story haha the other shots where lit whit natural light and some with an aputure 300!


r/Filmmakers 1d ago

Discussion Do you care when festivals use AI-generated images or posters to promote their event?

131 Upvotes

Basically title. A fairly well respected festival recently posted an image/poster celebrating 15 years of being around, but the image is blatant AI — some real facebook level stuff. It made me cringe a little, especially for how expensive the application is and how many bigger films get shown there.

Am I wrong for hating it and losing respect for them?


r/Filmmakers 17h ago

Question What are the top 3 reasons that ruined the short films you watched recently?

23 Upvotes

I'm curious about the top factors that ruin short movies these days. Is it the sound? The score? Production design? Too much light? Editing: cuts too long or not enough emotional tension?

Or is it the story? If it's the story, was it because of the beginning / hook? Because you didn't agree with the ending? Unlikable characters? Or because the movies are too abstract?

What things can filmmakers improve to make you watch more short movies?


r/Filmmakers 26m ago

Film I finally did it. I made my first short film!

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Upvotes

I just released my first short film on youtube yesterday! This is a 10 minute english horror short film with a budget of 30k rupees. I wanted to share with all of you!


r/Filmmakers 21h ago

Film Teaser for my film concept called “WTF”

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35 Upvotes

The film is called wtf because I had no direction at all when I went into this shoot. Thought it would be fun to just do a production without any planning prior to it, definitely a challenge. Free will is a crazy concept

Full film on YouTube and Instagram

Yt- @directedbyfaris

Ig - @faris.frr


r/Filmmakers 5h ago

Question How do you keep track of a specific shot once a project has hundreds of hours of footage?

2 Upvotes

I've been reading about documentary workflows and would like to understand how this works in practice.

If you've been filming something for months and end up with a huge amount of footage, what do you do when you remember one really specific thing you filmed but have no idea where it is?

Like:

“There was a moment where he was standing outside smoking and talking about his son.”

You know it exists. You don't remember the day or clip.

Is this basically solved by being disciplined about logging everything as you shoot/watch it?

Or does finding stuff like this still turn into a hunt sometimes?

Would be interested to hear how people who've worked on bigger documentary / unscripted projects handle it.


r/Filmmakers 2h ago

Film A DID system is just learning how to communicate via video diaries. How will they handle a stalker when they can barely handle each other?

1 Upvotes

My film Unity was written, directed, and acted by me. It is about a non-binary person named Unity discovering they have DID. They struggle with conflict between alters and how this new discovery is affecting their daily life.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s become apparent that someone is stalking them and it’s escalating fast…

It’s been received with overwhelming positivity since I posted it to YouTube last weekend. Now I’d love to share it with you!

Unity | A Feature Length Thriller
https://youtu.be/Hklm35EU9Vs


r/Filmmakers 2h ago

Question Extreme low levels while Recording Audio

0 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m dealing with a frustrating issue with my audio setup and could really use some help figuring out what’s broken before I start sending gear in for warranty/repair.

My setup is a Tascam DR-40X and a Rode NTG3. The problem is that the microphone signal is incredibly weak—almost non-existent. To hear absolutely anything, I have to crank the Tascam's input gain nearly to the max.

When I do that, the audio becomes completely unusable; it introduces massive noise floor hiss and clips/distorts like crazy the second I open my mouth.

To save everyone some time, I’ve already done a lot of the basic troubleshooting:

Phantom Power switch: It is physically switched to the MIC+PHANTOM position on the side of the unit.

Menu Settings: Checked the internal menu under system settings, and the phantom voltage is definitely set to 48V (not 24V).

Power issue: I know the DR-40X is notorious for eating AA batteries when pushing phantom power, so I bypassed batteries entirely. I plugged the recorder directly into wall power via USB (Bus Power) to eliminate any battery voltage drop issues. The problem persists.

Inputs: Tested switching from Input 1 to Input 2 on the bottom of the recorder. Same exact behavior on both channels.

What I HAVEN'T been able to test yet (due to lack of extra gear right now):

I haven't swapped out the XLR cable (using a standard XLR-to-XLR cable, no 1/4" adapters).

I haven't been able to test the NTG3 on another interface/mixer, nor have I tested a different condenser mic on my Tascam to isolate the culprit.

Does this sound like the internal 48V voltage inverter circuit in the Tascam just died and isn't outputting juice? Or is it possible for a faulty XLR cable to have an internal break that passes a weak analog signal but completely blocks the phantom power current?

If anyone has experienced this specific issue with the DR-40X or NTG3, please let me know. Thanks in advance!


r/Filmmakers 1d ago

Offer Hi guys, I created a website about 7 years ago in which I host all my field recordings and foley sounds which are all free to download and use CC0. There is currently 150+ packs with 1000's of sounds and hours of recordings, loops and foley, perfect for Sound Editing/SFX . (August/September update).

96 Upvotes

You can get them all from this page here with no sign up, no ads or newsletter nonsense. Just scroll down a little bit until you see all the packs.

24 packs added for August/September including Loops, Foley, Sound effects, a lot of live recordings from around the world and some other experimental packs I had fun playing about with. Packs including recordings from Kosovo, Cairo, Dublin, Madrid and the Sahara desert in which I got to record a live Moroccan band playing into the night. I also got to record some Traditional Irish music sessions while in Dublin and have posted some of the recordings! Theres also lots of leftover foley and SFX from some past games that were not used including Character voices in the style of Sims and Animal Crossing, Monster Growls and Grunts which is my personal fav and Polar Wind ambiences along side lots of other SFX and foley. For experimental percussion sounds I made one shots from the sound of pistachio shells and another pack from the sound of pebbles falling onto tin cans which could be useful for anyone who enjoys organic or experimental percussion in the productions. There also some other loop packs that I messed around with such as 8bit Bongo percussions and an old pack of Synthetic guitar loops that i recently came across again. Hope these can be useful to someone out there.

With Squarespace it does ask for a lot of personal information so you can use this site to make up fake address and just use a fake name and email if you're not comfortable with providing this info. I don't use it for anything but for your own piece of mind this is probably beneficial.

Feel free to use anything you like, everything is CC0, so no need to credit me or the site. Just grab what you need and make cool stuff. I'd love to see what you create if you feel like sharing!

If you'd like to see what other people have said about the samples you can see here in a recent post I made in a different subreddit.

Join me at r/musicsamplespacks if you would like as that is where I will be posting all future packs and little behind the scenes videos. If you guys know of any other subreddits that might benefit from these sounds feel free to repost it there.

Phil


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Request Heyy guys I am 17 year old and I make my third solo short film with 0 budget please give me review.

1 Upvotes

https://youtu.be/oQZky39ggPA?si=mah6FgyvVO4C7LRV

I am in class 12 and I love filmmaking and storytelling ever since I was a child. I write stories, jokes and make my short films on YouTube.

Please leave a comment on my film


r/Filmmakers 4h ago

Request Director Looking for London Based Collaborators/Community! (Actors, Producers, DPs etc!)

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0 Upvotes

Hey y'all! My name is Matthew Gilpin and I'm a London based short film director. I used to be based in Bristol where I had a few frequent collaborators, some connections with local film schools, and it felt very easy to make stuff. There were always people around who wanted to help out!

Then a couple of years ago I moved to London to get an MA in directing. Made some great friends on the course, all of whom left London after it was over (some up north, some to other countries). I've managed to scratch the creativity itch with some of the showreel scenes that I have to do for my job (I work with art, film, and acting students doing diplomas and short courses in central London) but I really want to start doing some of my own work again.

Any DoPs, Producers, actors, or even fellow directors, feel free to reach out and say hi! Looking to build relationships with people rather than work on any specific projects at the moment, so if you vibe with any of this post, lets go grab a coffee!

The above is a little short I made in 2020 called For Milo, which you can also watch on youtube with some of my other work here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgk9bAqToqq_c7Lwo3nWjGTvcg2tkLfX7

My email is [mattgilp@gmail.com](mailto:mattgilp@gmail.com), or you can DM me here, or on my insta (mattgilp). Most likely to reply to emails, though, as I don't spend THAT much time on Insta or Reddit anymore.

Bonus points if you're based in SE London (Peckham, New Cross) and are vaguely neurodivergent/queer!


r/Filmmakers 5h ago

Question Debating what camera body to buy for €2000

1 Upvotes

As I stated in the title Im debating what camera to buy for a budget of around €2000, with another €1200 for lenses, rigging, etc. I was looking at the lumix s5ii (used) or the blackmagic pyxis 6k, what would be the best bang for my buck for narrative films and docs? Let me know!


r/Filmmakers 16h ago

Request I'm looking for a composer with a "Danny Elfman-style" sound for my short film!

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7 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I made a small short film again! I want a composer that can give me some "Elfman-eske" vibes! Something like his work with Tim Burton!

Someting that sound magical and dark at the same time.

Please contact me here! It's just 1 minute of music!!


r/Filmmakers 6h ago

Question Filming my first football match

1 Upvotes

Tomorrrow I’m filming my first ever derby (it’s gonna end up being a YouTube video) and I’m looking for advice.
I have Sony a7iv, 4K, slog3, shinobi monitor and then I have a 24-70mm and a 70-200mm. Rocking side handle and top handle. But especially the lens is hard for me to choose. The 70-200 is of course harder to stabilize.

I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to choose where I can film from or I get a certain spot (I have accredited media)
I don’t have a tripod or monopod with me.

Looking for advices to get the best possible footage. Best place to be?
What lens?
AF + tracking or MF?
Sitting down, laying down?
Good tips to be in a stadium where there is a chance that the fans are absolutely crazy (safety wise)


r/Filmmakers 13h ago

Request Free-for-All

3 Upvotes

Hi all! Happy friday! I just wrapped filming on my short film Free-for-All! We’re in the editing process right now and running a Kickstarter for our post-production! It’s in the pre-launch right now & we plan to launch in October!

I’d like to ask you to please follow the link and hit notify me on launch. If you have a Kickstarter, I’d be happy to do the same for you!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fallonwrites/free-for-all-the-post-production


r/Filmmakers 21h ago

Contest Scandal Surrounding the XPRIZE Future Vision Sci-Fi Trailer Contest

14 Upvotes

A big scandal has recently broken out around the XPRIZE Future Vision sci-fi trailer contest. I am a member of the contestants’ Slack group, where both official and unofficial communication has been going on for months.

Long story short, there were around 2,500 submissions, and the organizers stated on their official website that every submission would receive “genuine human attention”. Then, shortly after the Top 50 were announced, the truth came out. The community had become suspicious because many of the selected entries appeared to violate even basic compliance requirements or mission-alignment criteria. One of the organizers eventually admitted that the submitted trailers had only been watched for 25-30 seconds and that no one had read the accompanying loglines, synopses, or treatments.

"We could not re-review films individually or watch every one in full on the first pass. On a field this size nobody can. That is what a first pass is, and we should have said so at the start." - Juan Cruz Martin (Moonshots)

"Before that date YouTube did not register a view until roughly 30 seconds of playback. That is 30 seconds of watching, not a 30-second video. A three-minute film watched for 25 seconds logged nothing, and scrubbing logs nothing at all. All screening happened before August 24." - Juan Cruz Martin (Moonshots)

That was basically the moment when everyone realized we had been scammed. Many people put a huge amount of effort into their submissions - I personally spent around 80-120 hours on mine. We trusted the organizers - XPRIZE, Moonshots, and Range Media Partners - as well as their partners, such as Google. What was presented on paper as a contest searching for real, producible movie ideas and talented writers turned out to be little more than a trailer beauty contest. In the end, it seems to be mainly about putting on a flashy show at their LA event for the tech elite, where tickets cost around $1,500, $2,500, or even $5,000, with big-name judges such as Neil deGrasse Tyson.

It is so sad to see that even major organizations can be this unreliable - intentionally lying to people’s faces and simply exploiting the time, effort, and money of creators who trusted them.

So at this point, their moderators seem to have completely muted themselves on Slack. There is only minimal communication, and none of the questions, complaints, or concerns about the flaws in their selection and review process are being addressed.

I don’t know if there is anything we can do besides raising awareness online to put enough pressure on them to properly address their mistakes and lies. So far, they haven’t even issued an official apology. I am 100% sure that if this situation received more public attention, respected scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson would never agree to associate their names with it.


r/Filmmakers 37m ago

General Flying to LA to shoot 30 minute Road Trip Movie call me Crazy!

Upvotes

Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. Heading to LA next week to shoot/direct a 20+ minute short film. Mostly in car. But I am gonna be a one man crew, dop, sound, directing. I think I am crazy, but hope I can pull it off. We will be shooting around LA/Hollywood/Santa Monica, then a good chunk in Lancaster (where I grew up).

Any advice for this crazy run and gun. I am hoping this will be enough (still deciding on camera):

  • BMCC 6k
  • Sony Fx3
  • Thypoc Simera-c
  • DJI Focus Pro
  • DJI RS 4 Pro Gimbal
  • Mixpre 10 ii
  • 4x Senken COS-11D
  • Sennheiser 416 (or the p58)
  • Proaim Gripper g-10 car mount
  • Another 6" Suction cup mount that can be used inside
  • 2x Aperture small little pocket lights
  • Deity IFB System

I am mad cause my Pyxis 12k is in for repair (early production unit). I want to shoot BM Raw, and open gate then later stabilize and crop to 2.4:1. The pyxis 12k has faster read out, so any out of the window shots would have been better. I have an URSA cine 12k LF--but I am flying international. I also have Red v-Raptor-x and Komodo-X, but think the fx3 or BMCC6k will be the smallest form factor.

For sound I will just lav the visors, put boom somewhere in middle, crank up the low pass a bit and make sure level good, but with 32bit float wired connections, think sould will be ok.

My biggest worry is contrast in car while it is driving. I know people will complain about safety, but this is a bit guerilla so we can't afford trailer or poorman's.

Any advice or gotcha's I should watch out for? Any tricks that might be worth considering?


r/Filmmakers 2d ago

Question How can I get my film to look like this?

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893 Upvotes

I want my actors to look like an outline just like this? Does anyone have any tips on how to brighten and darken specific things like backgrounds and people?


r/Filmmakers 1d ago

Discussion The woefully incompetent Neil Breen probably has a better career than 99% of us. Just a crazy thought I had today.

137 Upvotes

If you’re not familiar, look up some of his work. It’s just insanely bad. He’s made like 6 films and they are all sort of exactly the same thing.

People are interested in his stuff. They buy his DVDs. They go to his screenings. I can barely get my best pals to come see my stuff at a festival!