Archive for category General DiY

YouTube Documentary “Life in a Day”: An Unfunny Version of America’s Funniest Home Videos

Jul 26

Posted by Doug in General DiY, News | 1 Comment

Many of you have likely heard of YouTube, Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald’s experimental, user-generated documentary, Life In A Day. In fact, many of you may have contributed to the project. This film, which according to YouTube is going to be the “largest crowd-sourced film ever made”, has a simple concept, capture July 24, 2010 on a camera.

According to the guidelines, the idea is to “create a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on 24 July 2010”. All the content of the film will be submitted through YouTube, and if the footage you submit is chosen for the film (by director Kevin Macdonald), “you will be credited as a ‘co-director’ in the credits that appear at the end of the film. You will also be eligible for consideration to attend the film’s premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival”.

The Great Film School Debate

May 18

Posted by Adam in General DiY | 3 Comments

For every subject, there is a debate that has been raging for decades, and for filmmaking (especially DiY Filmmaking), that debate is over whether film school is worth it.

I’ll be up front: I went to a film school. It wasn’t a standalone film school, it was just a film program at a larger University, and it was mostly theory and writing papers. I didn’t go just for the film program, I just sort of fell into it. Although I went, I don’t advocate strongly against it or for it. In this post, I’ve tried to narrow down some points about what film school has to offer and what is doesn’t.

Graduation

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Reinventing an Old Friend: An Open Challenge from DiY Filmmaking

May 12

Posted by Doug in Contests, General DiY | 4 Comments

We here at DiY Filmmaking love cheap visual effects. Simple techniques like stop-motion and masking, when used organically, can be incredibly useful to the DiY filmmaker. However, it is no secret that we here at DiY Filmmaking don’t love using visual effects just for the sake of using them. We like it when the effect [...]

Pushing the Limits of Your DiY World

Mar 29

Posted by Adam in General DiY | 1 Comment

I recently came across this story in the New York Times. Basically, it’s the story of how some filmmakers managed to make a feature film for around $15,000. It opens Friday on IFC and video on demand.

Yes, $15,000 is on the high end, of what we talk about here, but this is a feature and that includes equipment (apparently).

What caught my eye about this story were the elements that would sound familiar to someone making a short for $200:

  • Filmmakers playing lead roles
  • Filmmakers making food for cast and crew
  • Crew from Craigslist
  • Crew working for free
  • PVC track camera dolly
  • Shot on video
  • Actors/actresses doing their own makeup and hair

You’ve got that, right? Everyone can scrounge up everything on this list. So why is this film getting distribution? Well, here are some things you might not have in your pocket that they did:

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Don’t Get Caught Up in YouTube Feedback

Mar 11

Posted by Doug in General DiY, Online Tools, Tools | No Comments

About a month ago we talked about Vimeo and its benefits verses YouTube. We noted that Vimeo is much more conducive to the needs of filmmakers in that it provides a much cleaner interface to display your work, and is a great place to get advice from fellow filmmakers.

However, even if you vow to never post another one of your films to YouTube again, and have converted exclusively over to Vimeo, odds are you’ve still got a handful of videos that are already on YouTube and have been for quite some time. If this is true, then it’s just as likely that you’ve received plenty of feedback from fellow YouTubers on these videos, and that none of this feedback is particularly useful, helpful or encouraging. In fact, a lot of this feedback is probably cruel, hateful and often totally unrelated to the work itself.

Dancing

As with any other place on the internet that give anonymous users the chance to voice their opinion, YouTube attracts people with problems. Seriously.

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How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Story

Feb 23

Posted by Adam in General DiY | 2 Comments

I’ve noticed something lately. There are way too many tutorials out there on making your own steadicam, or jib, or car hood camera adapter, or helicopter, or hovercraft. Way too many.

Jib DiY

So here is the big question – what are all these crazy DiY devices for?

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The internet is chock full of how to guides for doing pretty much anything you can think of to make films on a budget. DiY Filmmaking is a blog that brings you the best and the worst of all that, plus great tips, tutorials, and guides of our own.

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