Full class final project – week two. YPI 2011. Team Members: Alicia, Will, Nick, John, Jeffrey, and Zack. Featuring Acting for Film students: Georgina, Thomas, Seamus, and Allison.

Screenwriting Tips Store

Article by Aldene Fredenburg

Advances in digital cameras and computer hardware and software technology are democratizing filmmaking. Every year, digital video cameras are getting sharper, faster, and more complex, while computers with super-fast operating systems and phenomenal storage capacity are putting advanced editing tools in the hands of aspiring filmmakers at record-low costs.

Single-chip digital cameras, available for under 00, can produce sharp, high-quality images and are perfect for creating home movies, documentaries and training films suitable for local distribution. Videos of exceptional quality can be transferred directly to CDs or DVDs and, if used solely for viewing on a TV screen, produce beautiful, crisp video. For producing a film with more versatility, for instance for projection onto a large screen in a theater or for broadcast purposes, entry-level professional three-chip cameras offer more control over color balance and broadcast quality beginning at around 00.

Editing software allows the filmmaker to take raw digital images and process them into a final product. For years the Avid editing system was the standard in video editing, and has been used extensively in Hollywood to edit motion pictures: raw 35 mm film footage was transferred to video and edited, then the final cuts were made to the film footage. Now there are several computer based software programs giving Avid a run for its money. Anyone who has Windows XP on their PC, for instance, has MovieMaker, a simple digital editing system with some powerful capabilities. Beyond that, Adobe Premiere and Final Cut both offer professional level video and audio editing tools, Premiere for PCs and Final Cut for Mac computers. Many other editing software systems also offer digital editing capability.

With powerful editing software comes the need for more operating memory and lots of storage capacity; audio and video data require a tremendous amount of memory. While computers, both desktops and laptops, come with more storage capacity all the time – some systems routinely provide 60 to 80 gigabytes of storage memory – it’s wise, at the very least, to back up your raw footage and your edited product elsewhere, on CD Roms, DVDs, or on an external drive. A better arrangement might be to store both raw data and final edited movies on an external drive, backed up by DVDs, and import your work as you need it only for the purpose of editing.

Make sure you take into consideration the rest of the filmmaking process when you choose your software; Final Cut, for instance, is compatible with Final Draft, a screenwriting program which makes screenwriting easy and can generate all kinds of production lists which make organization a movie project easier. So if you think you’ve decided on an editing software program, see what else the software company creates and how it interfaces with the program you’ve chosen.

So if you’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, take the plunge! With all the digital video equipment and software available these days, the only limitation is your creativity.

Screenwriting Tips

Article by Seth Peters

Filmmaking is costly, even more when you consider it as your hobby. People who are known to produce films in the olden times are considered as filthy rich. Nowadays with al the advances in technology, filmmaking has become changed. It’s easier for you to come up with your own film, even when you have less budget. This is even more emphasized with the emergence of independent filmmakers.

Filmmaking enthusiasts having limited resources now have a venue to express their craft. You can also find award-giving bodies that recognize those non-mainstream filmmakers.

A filmmaking software is one of the latest advancements that can be a great help to non-Hollywood but equally talented and skilled filmmakers. What’s even great is that this software can be accessed for free. All you need to do is to acquaint yourself with each one of them and still be able to find out which part or aspect of the filmmaking process it would fit in.The first filmmaking software you might want to get to know of being a filmmaker is the Celtx. This works just like the Final Draft software. It is a free, open-source screenwriting or pre-production tool. This would also let you mark up the script for production breakdown and others.

Cinepaint or what is formerly known as the FilmGimp is another tool. This is a paint program that was developed by and for film studios and intended for giving finishing touches to images of high resolution. This software has been used in several movies already and it has a new version called Glasgow that’s coming up.

Video Capturix 99 is another filmmaking software you can avail of. It is an easy to use video capturing program that allows you to capture simple movie footages from all types of video source, freeze, and save them as.BMP format or simply copy and paste them in clipboard for use in the future.

Adobe After Effects is also a great tool to use for creating high quality animation. You can enjoy sophisticated and expensive video-editing tasks in this software. The standard version of it can already provide you high-end 2D animations, composites, and advanced special effects meant for movies, broadcast video, multimedia presentations and even the web.

Movie Magic Scheduling is an industry standard in Hollywood for scheduling. This however comes with a strict copy protection. This is also true for the equivalent software in budget preparation which is called Movie Magic Budgeting. Now you are more familiar with some of the film production software choices that are available in the net. All you need to do is just figure out which ones you really need.

Screenwriting Tips

Watch us LIVE on alternating Thursday nights, 7.30PM UK time: www.productionoffice.org Season 2 Episode 4 Elliot Grove, founder of Raindance Film Festival, talks to The Production Office about trends in independent filmmaking, the importance of genre and the rise of YouTube and social media. Elliot also discusses what’s next for last weeks guest David Reynold’s winner of Raindance Pepsi Max challenge. To see more of this interview and for other filmmaking videos, check out our channel!

To submit a script to a studio and get it read, find your best work, find and hire an agent to represent the script, and research which studio is the best fit for the script. Use a critical eye to find the best script in your catalog of material with advice from a writer, director and editor in this free video on script writing. Expert: Nathan Boehme Contact: www.nathans-reel.com Bio: Nathan Boehme is a writer, director and editor who currently lives and works in Los Angeles, Calif. Filmmaker: Nathan Boehme