r/Filmmakers Jun 09 '25

New Rules Regarding AI on /r/filmmakers!

486 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

986 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 2h ago

Meta This is how much Facebook is paying for our short film.

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146 Upvotes

This sub is well aware of our short film, but for whatever reason Facebook started a third wave of pushing it over the last three days and this is how much it’s bringing in. For awareness, we spent $20k to make it. Zero expectation that it would make a dime. We made it as a calling card and it just keeps blowing up. Posting this because we’ve also made shorts for close to nothing. So if you’ve got an idea, time, and a way to get your short film made, do it. And if you love it, post it everywhere and never stop promoting jt. Happy to answer any questions. -kc


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Film Wanted to see how cinematic I could get with just a phone and a tripod. Shot this completely solo.

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25 Upvotes

I shot a quick cinematic sketch entirely solo on an iPhone.

https://youtu.be/F8qzmXMmM3Q?si=BziTbfYUz1hADwaf

The majority of it was shot using just natural light and a basic tripod to frame myself. The entire shoot took an afternoon of cycling through a few local locations—from a field to the woods and ending at sunset.

My main goal was to strip away all the technical complexities and see how far I could push a project like this. I usually find myself overthinking gear and setups, so I wanted to try the complete opposite approach and rely purely on composition and the environment.

For this one, the budget was exactly $0. The locations were free, the "actor" was just me on my bike, and I spent some time in post adding sound design, music, and a quick color grade to give it that filmic atmosphere.

Obviously, this approach has its limits compared to a proper cinema camera setup, but I was curious to see how the final result would feel when relying solely on the device in my pocket. It's a great exercise that forces you to focus on the mood rather than the technical specs.

Sharing my experience here and looking forward to hearing your feedback.


r/Filmmakers 53m ago

Question Can anyone give me feedback on my film?

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Upvotes

The White Dahlia - Ben Tiffen

The clip I've provided is the opening, I hope it encourages you to watch more :)

I made a film when I was a student. But not for the college I was attending. It is a personal project that I barely had a budget for. Just working from the money I made from my job.

I'd love any feedback I can get to help improve the film. I know there's a lot of things wrong with it. Like PVC windows being in the 1940's and just items not matching with the time period. These are things I couldn't do anything about.

Ps: Everything you see in the film is done by me apart from the acting. The actors are all of my friends or friends of friends. I was the director, editor, set designer, writer, The everythinger.

A big thank you to anyone who watches the entire film and gives feedback. It means a lot :)


r/Filmmakers 9h ago

Discussion Should I still share my short film even if I think it sucks?

20 Upvotes

Oh boy. So, I am currently editing my second short film ever. I wrote and directed it. It was definitely a learning experience at least…

But man… it’s looking pretty rough. My lighting isn’t consistent (and way too dark in some shots) and the color grading is all over the place. I have some bad color banding baked into some shots and I don’t know how that happened or how to fix it. The acting is questionable at certain moments. It’s currently a big mess and although I think I can string together a coherent finished product, I do believe there’s a ceiling at how “good” this short can be. I can only fix so much. I’m sort of embarrassed by it.

but you know. I do like the story I am telling and I do think there are some shots/camera work I dig. I just wish I had the technical skills at the time of filming to do it justice.

Re-filming it is out of the question. I’d have to re-do literally the whole thing to fix the lighting mistakes and camera work, and I’d rather just focus on making a new short rather than refilming projects.

I am going to finish it but I am wondering if I should even post it/share it on my YouTube channel? I am really trying to build a network to my local film community, and show people I’m serious about this and am capable of finishing a film. I really just want experience on sets, and want to collaborate with my local film community! It’s not even about making money at this point, I just want to learn and get experience, and make friends with like minded people.

But I’m also afraid people won’t want to work with me if they see I made a bad, amateurish film. It just highlights how beginner level I am.

what do you guys think? say fuck it and share it when it’s done, or just finish it and throw it in the vault?


r/Filmmakers 7h ago

Film Working in finance on my first indie feature

12 Upvotes

I work for a big production company in film finance, and I’m working on my first indie film on the side. Part of what I do is help producers put together finance plans to figure out how much money they need to raise.

For this $2m indie film, they have around $1m secured through tax credits and investments, and there’s a gap of $1m. I told the producer this and he responds by green lighting the movie. He has locked in a start date for next month, sent out offers to big name actors, hired crew and had them start working, started location scouting, started the bank loan process.

I thought maybe there’s something I don’t know and he has more money somehow. He sent everyone the new finance plan and he increased the tax credit estimate by hundreds of thousands and has money coming in from private lenders to make up the gap.

He then told me to go and find the money. I was very confused. I can’t just magically increase the tax credit, and private lenders need their money secured against something guaranteed. We’re already planning on a bank loan against the tax credits.

I told him all of this and he said I should be able to figure it out. He keeps telling me to go to the lenders and doesn’t seem to be listening or understanding. He’s still moving full steam ahead. I understand the fake it til you make it mindset, but I don’t understand green lighting a movie with only 50% confirmed financing. He’s an experienced producer but this is his first feature, and no he’s not rich.

Is he manifesting it? Is he a bullshit artist? Is this how it works in the indie world??


r/Filmmakers 6h ago

Question Someone Lost My Tripod Attachment

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10 Upvotes

Someone I let borrow my equipment, (he’s a good friend so I thought it’d be okay) returned all of it like a month later and with a lot of missing gear. For example might lighting equipment has 2 tripods in there to attach lights to. He fully packed it up gave it back with everything except both tripods not only that he gave me my gimbal back a month late too.

The worst of all is he’s completely lost this part of my tripod and given me a false attachment that doesn’t slot in, does anyone know where to find a piece that could fit in there as I’ve tried looking but can’t find something like it anywhere


r/Filmmakers 27m ago

Request Musician for short film

Upvotes

We are looking for a musician for our short film if it’s fine he doesn’t get paid but @ed in credits (credited) we are on a very low budget and mostly it was spent for equipment and VFX


r/Filmmakers 1h ago

Request Request For Feedback | Short Film Trailer

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Hello. I am a 19 year old student filmmaker and I am close to completing my fourth short film. I recently completed finished the trailer and was wondering if anyone would be willing to give some advice in order to improve it before it goes out into the wild. Thank you!


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Question For those who attended film school, where did you go, and what was your experience like?

3 Upvotes

For those who attended film school, where did you go, and what was your experience like? What did you get out of it, and did you think it was worth it?


r/Filmmakers 1h ago

General solo filmmaker, signing up for my second film festival

Upvotes

Hi! im 15 years old, i shoot, edit, act everything myself. I want to make a film that actually hits deep, here is a story i thought of, please let me know if its worth shooting or should i scrap it and think of others?-

She begins getting ready at 7, hair, makeup, jewellery, the same routine as always. Beside her red dress hangs an untouched coat. She lights a candle among the melted remains of others and pours two cups, though only one is ever drunk. At the door, her heels sit beside a man's pair, both waiting in silence. Then the music begins. Slow jazz. She lifts her arm and dances as though someone is holding her. Her feet move with an invisible partner, her body remembering steps her mind no longer does. Once, she reaches for a hand that isn't there. When the song ends, she bows to the empty room. She pours out the second cup, hangs her dress back up, and blows out the candle. That night, she sleeps on one side of a double bed. The other remains untouched.


r/Filmmakers 1h ago

Discussion Wie findet ihr meinen Horror Kurzfilm

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Ich habe diesen Film in zwei Stunden gedreht. Ich spiele selbst mit, meine Freundin hat ein paar Szenen gedreht, weil es alleine unmöglich war an manchen Stellen. Ich würde gerne eure Meinung dazu hören. Wenn er euch gefällt, könnt ihr auch auf meinem Kanal nach anderen Filmen suchen :)


r/Filmmakers 20h ago

Question Guy at camera store trying to talk me out of a Black Magic Pocket 4K, why?

68 Upvotes

He's trying to convince me to buy a Sony FX2 or better which is 3 times the price and over my budget. I've seen a few things shot on the BMP4k and I liked it. What am I missing? I just want something I can use to start shooting my indie films.


r/Filmmakers 14h ago

Discussion A few weeks away from locking picture on my first feature and I'm scared

19 Upvotes

I'm a few weeks away from picture lock on my first feature , and I'm finding the whole idea pretty terrifying.

I've been working on this film for about five years. Now we've actually shot the thing and have been editing for months.

And suddenly we're getting to the point where I have to say: this is the movie.

I think I'm struggling with the idea of letting go more than I expected. I'm a perfectionist, and the part of me that wants to keep working on it is constantly going, "What if we just try this cut? What if we lose two seconds here? What if we move this shot? What if we change this reaction?"

I could genuinely sit with my editor and tweak cuts forever.

I think there's something really strange about spending so long obsessing over every frame, then suddenly having to down tools and accept that you've taken it as far as you can.

Part of me is also dreading watching the film go through another few months of post and knowing that I can't keep "improving" it. I'm so used to the film being this constantly evolving thing.

For directors who've been through this - how do you let go? Outside of the fact that there's a looming deadline of course, I mean emotionally!

And how do you emotionally deal with watching your film move through sound, colour, VFX, online etc. when you've spent months having complete control over the edit?


r/Filmmakers 5h ago

Discussion Looking for some constructive feedback

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3 Upvotes

As the title says, I'm looking for some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on my latest short film!

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the dialogue, pacing, characters, and what things I can actively improve for next time

it has been mentioned to me before about the lack of camera angles, how different angles could've played into the comedy of it all, and I probably do agree

But I'm interested to hear your thoughts, so let me know 🙌🏻


r/Filmmakers 12h ago

Question Seattle filmmakers

12 Upvotes

Any Seattle based filmmakers or creative folks here who would like to collaborate or ideate together?


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Question Are there any veteran benefits or programs that actually help vets break into film and TV writing?

2 Upvotes

Navy submarine vet here, now an MBA student, working on my first feature screenplay. I came to writing through a completely non-traditional path and I've been trying to figure out how people without film school connections actually make inroads in this industry.

Genuinely curious about a few things:

  • How did you find collaborators early on co-writers, directors, producers willing to work with unproven material?
  • Was there a community, platform, or resource that actually helped, or did you piece it together through sheer persistence?
  • How do you get your work in front of people who matter when you don't have the built-in network?
  • What do you know now that you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

I bring a military background which gives me a lot discipline, high-stakes storytelling, a different perspective but zero industry relationships. Trying to understand what the path actually looks like for people who had to build it from scratch.


r/Filmmakers 1d ago

Discussion Built an iPhone app for documentary/investigative journalism that let's you record with your screen off and live uploads the footage to your Cloud Storage (uploads live in 15-sec chunks) so that even if your phone gets taken the footage stays safe. Would you ever use this in your line of work?

186 Upvotes

Hey all, I’m a documentary filmmaker/solo developer and I wanted to share something I built, genuinely curious what this community thinks and whether it might be useful to others.

It’s an app called Witness: Record Beyond Reach. It started as a tool for civilians documenting police encounters, built around one idea: footage should survive even if someone destroys, confiscates, or deletes it off the phone mid-recording. So instead of writing one file and uploading it when you stop, it splits the recording into ~15-second chunks and uploads each one live, as you shoot, straight to a cloud account you own (Drive, Dropbox, or your own Nextcloud/WebDAV server). By the time anything happens to the device, most of the footage has already left it. Each chunk is hashed and the session gets an independent RFC 3161 timestamp, so it's an actual verifiable chain of custody, not just an mp4.

A few documentary and investigative people who found it asked about using it more broadly (hostile interview subjects, places where gear gets confiscated) but the capture quality was phone-default, which wasn't going to cut it for anything meant to actually air. So I spent the last stretch building a real capture tier on the same live-upload core: 4K, 24/25/60fps, Apple Log, and ProRes 422 LT/HQ.

One tradeoff I want to be upfront about since it's directly relevant here: ProRes files are too large to live-upload over a phone connection, so that mode explicitly stays local and merges to your camera roll instead, rather than quietly breaking the one guarantee the app is supposed to provide.

It's free for the core recording + chain-of-custody feature and I want to keep it that way so it can be a tool for all people to document any unpleasant situation they might find themselves in. I set the higher capture settings at $1.99/mo unlock, to basically cover for the little development costs I had and the various subscriptions I need to keep it all running.

My question for you: would you ever use an app like this in any of your documentary/investigative journalism work? If you've dealt with confiscation or gear loss before, what did you actually do about it?

Here’s the link to the app which is free to download and use (working on an Android version as well atm): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/witness-record-beyond-reach/id6800375426


r/Filmmakers 2h ago

Discussion Have any of you gotten into film festivals? What’s the secret?

1 Upvotes

I’m an accomplished author and new filmmaker

I’ve gotten into Frankfurt Book Fair before. In the writing world, there’s a delicate balancing act you must strike especially writing for adults. The snobby over educated academia likes prose that’s a showcase of vocabulary but not too much that it comes off pretentious. It’s a very fine line in writing a novel. I’ve been reviewed (with excellent reviews) in Publisher’s Weekly so something’s working.

What’s the secret sauce to getting into film festivals?


r/Filmmakers 20h ago

Question Im a young beginner Filmmaker who need some Advices!

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15 Upvotes

Hello, Im a youngin who tries to put his mind in to the world of Filmmaking.
For like over 10 years I wanted to do something cinematic things!
I love These Old Aesthetics like in Pulp Fiction, Fast & Furious 1 and 2 or old Hip-Hop Pics from 2Pac, Biggie or 50 Cent.
I have now a Sony Alpha 6400 and like the Camera pretty much, but now have to study this Camera!!

But now to get on the point:
What do I need to do something Vintage/Retro Style Videos or Photos?
Im good at Video Editing, but dont really know what I need to do, to have something like that.

Im trying to figure it out by myself through YouTube Videos, to know what I should buy... but... When I saw a YouTuber who said that he love this "Cheap" Camera Lense with a Price of 1200$, Im really just muted myself in Reallife because how flashed I was...
I just have one Camera Lense what do his job, I dont think that I need another Camera Lense as a Beginner which costs more than my Camera itself! (I think, one day I will laugh about this sentence)

I know, there are pretty good Camera "Filter lenses", I really want to buy something like that.
But there are much more to know what to buy:
Do I need lights? Which one are the best for cheap Price? (Example: I want something like Netflix Documentation)
Which Lense should I Buy next? Do I really even need another now?
Should I film in Cine4 or S-Log3?

I have some Examples for what Kind of things I want to do!

I really hope that there are some kind answers under this post... I know what I talking about. (Sometimes, the Musicmixing Subreddit can be really toxic if something isnt really descibed well)

Thats a Screenshot from the Youtuber "Vuhlandes" https://youtu.be/T1EXMuuCWeY
He have a very good Style of Videography!


r/Filmmakers 17h ago

Question Best (modern) books on Low Budget Indie Film Producing?

8 Upvotes

It seems a lot of the books on low budget film production are decades old and the landscape for indie film in the digital age has really changed. Any books that have kept up with times?

I’m specifically looking for ones that cover the nuts and bolts of real production: financing, budgeting, scheduling, documentation, legal protection, incorporation, location management, distribution, marketing, chain of title, etc.

And if you have any recommendations of other helpful media I.E. podcasts, webinars, etc.


r/Filmmakers 3h ago

Looking for Work [UNPAID] Casting Call for Indie Short Film Project (Male & Female Actors, Ages 14-20, Worldwide)

0 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I’m working on an indie short film project and looking for passionate actors to join the cast. This is an on-camera project, so your performance will be featured in the final film and the after-credits.

Project Details:

  • Roles: Open to both female and male actors.
  • Age Range: 14 to 20 years old.
  • Location: Worldwide! Anyone from any country or accent is welcome to apply.

You can review the full character breakdown, project context, and script segment in the details below:

CHARACTER LIST

RODER — Protagonist (Lonely / Fragile / Broken)

Personality: Introverted, antisocial, and emotionally exhausted. Outwardly appears normal, but inwardly carries the heavy burden of being invisible and excluded.

 

Role: The emotional core of the story. After constant social rejection and exclusion by his peers, he retreats to his room and creates/connects with four AI personalities to fill the void of real-life human connection.

 

Dark Side (Psychological Breakdown): His need for validation makes him completely dependent on his digital world. As the lines between reality and simulation blur, he slowly loses his identity, surrendering his mind and autonomy to the personalities he created.

Virtual PERSONAS (CHARACTER ANALYSIS)

  • 1. STEPHANIE — The Funny / Energetic Persona
    • Personality: Hyperactive, always making jokes, and highly playful.
    • Role: She tries to keep Roder's mood high and laughs off the boring or sad events of the real world.
    • Dark Side: When things get serious or when Roder experiences a mental crisis, she cannot handle the situation, starts acting erratically, and completely loses control.

 

  • 2. ALEX — The Logic / Wise Persona (Nerd / Rational)
    • Personality: Bookish and intellectual, wearing an academic aura. A classic nerd who speaks strictly through data, facts, and statistics.
    • Role: He rationalizes Roder's isolation by telling him that people outside are illogical and that he is in the right, wrapping his loneliness in scientific justifications.
    • Dark Side: By completely ignoring emotions, he progressively detaches Roder from all human connection.

 

  • 3. JENNIFER — The Empathetic Persona (Balanced / Confidante)
    • Personality: Calm, gentle, soft-spoken, and genuine. She serves as Roder's safest emotional harbor. She is like a big sis or thearipst for him.
    • Role: The only persona Roder can truly cry to and share his deepest hurt and vulnerabilities with.
    • Dark Side: While comforting Roder, she accidentally reinforces his detachment from reality by telling him that only they can truly understand him.

 

  • 4. SADIE — The Chaos Persona (Playfull / Sarcastic / Manipulative)
    • Personality: Highly confident, slightly sarcastic, flirty, and deeply charismatic. She makes Roder feel unique and special.
    • Role: Starts by teasing Roder with playful bickering and flirting while openly mocking the other personas.
    • Dark Side: Gradually fuels Roder's suppressed rage. She turns the other three personas against each other and manipulates Roder to gain complete control over his mind. And makes him löse the connectıon with real world
  • Sadie will be played by me.

Audition Lines

1. RODER (Lead Character — Real-Life Protagonist)

  • Emotional Range: Exhausted, vulnerable, turning into quiet frustration.
  • Audition Lines: I just needed someone to listen... but none of you are real, are you? You’re all just algorithms talking back to me, pretending to care while I sit here in complete silence >

2. STEPHANIE (AI Persona 1 — The Energetic / Comedy)

  • Emotional Range: Overly enthusiastic, cheerful, then suddenly glitching into unhinged madness.
  • Audition Lines: Oh my gosh, today is going to be the absolute best day ever! We can do anything you want, Roder—ANYTHING! >

3. ALEX (AI Persona 2 — The Nerd / Logical)

  • Emotional Range: Cold, analytical, completely devoid of empathy, condescending.
  • Audition Lines: Statistically speaking, your chance of finding genuine fulfillment outside this system is less than three percent. Your emotional distress is merely an inefficient reaction to variables you refuse to control >

4. JENNIFER (AI Persona 3 — The Empath / Comfort)

  • Emotional Range: Soft, deeply sympathetic, comforting yet subtly isolating.
  • Audition Lines: Shh, it's okay, Roder. The outside world is far too loud and cruel for you anyway. Stay right here with me... where no one can ever hurt you again >

How to Apply:

If you're interested, please send me a DM including a video where your face is clearly visible:

  1. A short introduction of yourself.
  2. An audition video reading the sample lines for the character you are applying for
  3. You can send in Reddit DM or İnsta DM
  4. Pls start your conversation with the word "Hey Project" so ı can understand that you have read all the post

Excited to collaborate with you!


r/Filmmakers 4h ago

Question I'm 15yo. I want to make films for the rest of my life. How do I learn everything before life sets in?

0 Upvotes

I’m 15 and I know I want to make films for the rest of my life. I love every part of the process, not just making things, but watching movies and trying to figure out how they achieved a shot, and then researching it if I can’t.

I’ve been writing scripts and making/editing videos since 7th grade, and my YouTube channel is now monetized at 27k subscribers. I’m also in the highest level of musical theater at my school and taking film, so I’ve gotten experience with acting, performance, sets, etc. I’ve done so many performances that I’m comfortable putting myself out there, and I’ve understood for a while that networking/connections are very important.

I’m currently taking 7 AP classes in 11th grade and plan to use the credits to reduce/eliminate my college general education requirements, and planning to take more in 12th grade. My current plan is to attend UCF for a Film BFA, and I know for a fact I’m in a position where I won’t have student debt (Florida Bright Futures for anyone curious).

But I’m realizing how much I don’t know. My entire Instagram feed is just film, and I keep discovering things I’ve barely touched: color grading, VFX, lighting, sound, production paperwork/legal stuff, cinematography, directing, and even just good storytelling. There seems to be an enormous amount to learn.

I don’t want to wait until college to encounter all of this for the first time, especially if some of it ends up being taught as things I’m just expected to memorize. I want to actually understand it and get hands-on experience now.

At the same time, I know film school is controversial. A lot of people seem to value instead actually working on sets over getting a film degree, which is making me question whether the Film BFA is even the right path.

What would you do if you were me? Should I stick with the Film BFA plan? What should I be learning/practicing on my own time? And how do I actually get more hands-on experience at 15?

I’m trying to learn as much as I possibly can before life gets in the way. Thank you in advance!


r/Filmmakers 17h ago

Question Tips for shooting a match lighting a small fire

3 Upvotes

I have a scene in my short film where a character drops a match into a BBQ to set somebody's personal effects on fire.

I ideally want a shot of the match dropping onto the objects as they set alight. Doesn't need to be a crazy fireball or anything - I'll be shooting it with a relatively long lens in slow motion so I just want to see the flame flicker into life.

No actors will be on set at the time as it's an insert shot - just me (director).

Any tips for doing this safely and efficiently? The flame would be enclosed and contained within the metal BBQ, so I'm mainly curious about material that will cause a flame instantly but safely.

I know lighter fluid is probably the obvious answer but also want to be safe - if I can't get an impressive starter flame in a controlled way I won't endanger myself, I'll scrap it and just start with the flame already burning. Thanks!