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Avoiding Cliches

Apr 23

Posted by Adam in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

One of the books I turn to in my library often is Chris Holland’s “Film Festival Secrets“. It’s a great resource for filmmakers looking to do the festival thing – for a few reasons. There is the hardcore film festival advice, and then there is some great general “reality check” advice for filmmakers sprinkled throughout.

My favorite is a listing of things that that film festival programmers complain about seeing over and over again. You can go grab the free PDF version of the book and check it out (page 5), but I’ll list some of my favorites here:

  • Someone takes a shower or brushes his teeth
  • We realize it was all a dream
  • A scene in a convenience store switches to security cam footage

(from Film Festival Secrets)

What’s wrong with these? There is nothing inherently wrong with them, but you can recognize the pattern. They are all the cliches of independent films, whether imagined or not (and I suspect, since these came from film festival programmers, they aren’t imagined).

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5 Great Free Online Tools For Your Film’s Website

Mar 16

Posted by Adam in Tutorials, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The thing that makes the web awesome is the diversity. Every website you visit is different. Think of how boring things would be if every site was one template with different content. Hint: it would suck.

But there’s also a concept that programmers use that is applicable here. It’s called DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself. It basically means don’t re-invent the wheel. Creating a new and cool design for your site isn’t re-inventing the wheel, it’s inventing something that is unique and valuable.

So what is reinventing the wheel? That would be trying to recreate things that are done better elsewhere. For example, why create your own image gallery when you can use a free service like Flickr? Why host your own video when you can use one of the multitudes of hosting services out there? There are hundreds of coders out there working on making things you can use awesome, and in some cases you just can’t compete with that.

The idea is simple: make unique what should be made unique, and plug in other services to save time, effort, and money.

Let’s take a look at 10 things you free services we recommend for your film site.

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The Web for Filmmakers Part 2: Tools To Create Your Site

Mar 10

Posted by Adam in Tutorials, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This article picks up where Part 1 left off.

You’ve got your domain and your hosting: now what?

Well, you need to build a site.

For me, there are really only two ways to do this: the down and dirty in the code way, and the design and export way. Which way you choose really depends on what your level of skill is with PHP and MySQL. If you have no clue what either of those mean, then you should start at the no coding skills required section.

Alright, let’s get started!

Rapidweaver

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A Safer Way to Shoot Someone

Feb 19

Posted by Doug in Tutorials, Uncategorized | No Comments

Now that we’ve shown you the fun way to shoot someone, here is the much safer, much more time consuming way to shoot your best friend, neighbor or pet. All it takes is a computer, Adobe After Effects, some stock footage, and footage of someone acting like they’re being hit with bullets. This method takes [...]

3 Ways to Optimize Your Post Production Time

Feb 18

Posted by Adam in Tools, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

If you’ve ever visited the office of a fully funded and large-scale production, you know that there is more than enough work to go around a sizable staff. While you may be using a spreadsheet in Google Docs to keep track of the financials, a larger production may have a dedicated accountant or even an entire accounting department. While people are shooting, more people are bringing in and organizing footage, editing, and doing all the little things that you need to keep a production moving along.

While you may be able to staff your production days with some people, it’s much more likely that once you sit down in the editing room chair or start to go through a bag of receipts, you’ll be flying solo. Because of this, it may be a little tougher to drill down and get things done.

But never fear! There are some great simple tools and techniques out there to help you stop wasting time during post production and plow through what you need to get done.

The Pomodoro Technique

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Welcome to DiY Filmmaking – a do it yourself filmmaker resource

Feb 10

Posted by DiY Filmmaking in Uncategorized | No Comments

You’re reading the inaugural post for DiY filmmaking – a blog that is dedicated to the ins and outs of people who are making films, videos, and anything else that ends up on the other side of a lens. Check out our RSS feed and stay tuned for articles on equipment, techniques, and other useful [...]

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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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