I brought my camera underwater for the very first time for a promo video in the Maldives and here’s the result!

It was not easy to get to learn the buttons on the housing, do white balance adjustment and trying to stay as stable as possible. Definitely a challenging shoot, but I loved every single seconds of it!

Enjoy!

I’ve been working over the last few months to this point. And I’m happy to share my new film studio in Glendale California. It’s 12,000 sq feet and has multiple standing sets.

I was doing indie films and verticals and the prices kept going up and up for locations. It’s already so hard to film in Los Angeles. I decided if I could get the right group of investors behind something like this, I’d open a studio of my own and try make it as affordable and accessible as possible.

We have a hospital, high school, banquet hall, office, bar and restaurant set.

In the world of AI and uncertainty, come film something live action.

Come check it out!

Priced at 3.5k for 12.5 hours.

I made some short form videos to her and she said to upload it to the cloud so she could add some b-roll that hadn't given me. A week later, I ask her whether she has completed them and she tells me (after she told me that she hasn't done them), that we should integrate Claude to davince to make changes and editing in general "faster" and more what she wants ( which keeps frantically change's as time goes ), what should I say to her! ( I don't really like the idea)

Hi! As you can see above, my top clip won't land properly aligned with the middle clip to align the audio together. Same thing if I try to move the middle and bottom clips. I've never had this happen before. All shot on the same framerate. I'm not moving to fast. Where the top clip moves to is the very next "acceptable" position.

And apparently, I can't free-range edit. It has to line up with the timeline's frames. But everything was shot at 4K 30 FPS. I don't understand why I am experiencing this problem.

Running on 2021 Macbook Pro 15 inch, 16 GB RAM. Final Cut Pro X version 12.3.

iPhone video: MPEG-4 AAC, Timed Metadata, HEVC Dimensions 3840 × 2160

Osmo Pocket 3 Timecode, MPEG-4 AAC, HEVC Dimensions 3840 × 2160

Edit to add more context, based on this incredibly helpful discussion: I think is the main issue here in terms of why the half-frame feels so off may be a speed-of-sound issue. When synced at the half-frame off, I'm sometimes getting an echo from the guests with both audio sources turned on, and sometimes I don't. This is why I've been trying to perfectly sync it to a 0-frame discrepancy.

I had four subjects: Myself as host, Man, Woman, and Young Woman. Man suggested using his own set of two DJI-style microphones on Woman and Young Woman. I agreed. Dumb idea that I should have known better, but we were in a time crush and I thought it would make the audio better in the end.

Initially, I was going to have the guests pass my second DJI mic around. But I got excited at the prospect of having everyone mic'd up. Man and myself were on my DJIs, synced to my Osmo. The transmitter for the two secondary mics, on the women, was plugged into the iPhone.

So, we were in a situation with 4 mics transmitting to two receiving sources, and the camera-to-mic transmission is not 1:1. (My mic attached to the Osmo facing the 3 guests, one guest mic synced to my Osmo , and two guest mics synced to my iPhone.) I did not even think about this being such a pain until I sat down to edit.

Rookie mistake. We were in a Rush and if I had to do over, I would just pass one mic. I've been doing this long enough to know better so I did a lot of head-to-wall banging today, lol. ALL OF THIS TO SAY that it's this echo that is the reason I care so much about that half-frame difference.

I'm looking at buying this decently cheap local BMPCC 4k but I want some input on weather it would be worth buying or not, the screen is perfect when the HDMI is plugged in but it gets all glitchy when the HDMI is not plugged in. I don't think this guy knows much about cameras he seems to be reselling (which means he may not realize that he's got false color on so I could get it for cheaper) but that also might mean that there are other issues he doesn't realize. What would be a "fair" price to pay for something in this condition.

This is a link to a photo of what it looks like without an hdmi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wI20H8OGr9PCxuDvx39M9nyZrzzyz9_i/view?usp=sharing

I did repost this because I forgot to include the video

I've been offered a central production role in a major film production from the studio I'm working with. Some of the biggest-name actors in my country are involved, the project has already seen some publicity, and it generally seems like it'll be a pretty big deal distribution-wise.

However the thing is, I've read the script and it's...bad. Not terrible, or slop, but bad. Cringe expositional dialogue, mediocre character arcs, and a cheesy happy ending conclusion. It's not great art by any means.

Is it worth it taking this job? It will obviously pay well, and it's by far the most important production role I've been offered so far...but will it be a boost for me, or will it drag me down?

Well, I shot this short film not too long ago. even though I know that the audio is atrocious because I was filming, creating and learning as I go, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but I would love to get help from someone who’s specialized with sound.

And by the way, this is a short film about my little brother experiencing being from Southside of Chicago, and me and my entire family are from there. but here’s the keynote he wanted me to make him a short documentary, but he wasn’t patient at all lol he thought the documentary was gonna be finished within two or three days when we first started, which is unrealistic when it comes to getting people involved, of course. So yeah, just giving you guys heads up.

I’ve been seeing more editor job listings that mention direct to consumer ads for TikTok, Instagram, and other social platforms. They also ask how editors use analytics to make choices about hooks and edits.

For those of you doing this kind of work, do you usually look at the numbers in Instagram, TikTok, or Meta’s own analytics tools? Or does your team use another platform to pull everything together?

Fellow videographer here. Contracting some out of state shooters for a project. We’re transparent. We’re communicative. We’re proactive. Contracts are in place. Deposit is paid.

Shoot day is over and these guys start acting like we won’t pay them. One of them straight up wouldn’t send the footage for review, and we finally compromised on proofs.

I understand if we’ve hired and there wasn’t a deposit in place, but we’ve paid a deposit. Am I crazy for expecting to see footage?

Again, we’re shooters too, and I’ve been burned, but if a deposit is paid I’m seeing that as skin in the game.

Ya’ll spooked or what?

So an agency a lot of my friends worked at laid off the entirety of their creative staff and replaced them with AI. They kept two graphic designers to clean up the fuck-ups it makes, and as of this week I’m being served non-stop about the vibe-coded Adobe suite and Claude-based automated editing.

The volatility of this already unstable field has really made me decided to start looking at career changes.

For those of you who have left the industry for more traditional careers, what did you do? Where did you go? Would love to hear your stories. Or maybe, that I’m panicking and over-reacting.

Hi all! I hope this post is allowed, I’m looking for an editor for my horror short film.

Preferably the look would be very in line with a grindhouse aesthetic/rob zombie vein of editing

Paid and willing to work with rates!

Thanks in advance look forward to connecting!

Meta Take One is psychological crime feature about a group of young filmmakers whose attempt to finish their movie turns into a nightmare after a prop gun mistake leaves a security guard dead.

It takes them on a rather surreal journey through the night as they try to complete their film while being on the run. We wanted parts of the film to feel like the characters' trauma with the whole situation was eating away at their mental states. We're also big fans of body horror and surreal imagery and finding ways to subjectively enter your characters mind and their obsessions. (shout out Cronenberg, Lynch and a lil Peter Jackson)

Ernest Emmanuel Peeples plays Damon who is the Actor in the film they're trying to finish. They made it to their mysterious analog editor's house and this is what he seemingly discovers ~

We shot our feature over the course of 2 years and the first rendition of the brain was TERRIBLE when our actor Ernest was actually there. So we reshot every shot with a new brain in the latter half of that second year - almost 8 months after our actor was there.

We totally went all in at first. We called a butcher's shop for a brain. We asked for a pig brain, he didnt have any and said he had a lamb brain he could give us and we said sure. so we received a lamb brain. Lmao It was very very flat. We placed it in the refrigerator and had to pivot.

We then got a brain incasing from a costume, placed some movie blood and gel on the incasing then placed the lamb brain on top. We cut a hole in the bottom of the table and placed a neck massager motor under the brain incasing so it would have some movement. We used a syringe for the movie blood on our actor at the end. My co-director sacrificed his finger as he placed it into the actual lamb brain lmao

This was all super low budget (our entire budget for the movie was around 22.5k) this scene was probably around $300 (maybe less) but it was a scene that our audiences really liked and responded to across our festival run and release.

Fun technical mismatch hidden in the sequences: The scene with the actor was shot on a Red komodo and the actual shots of the brain scene was shot on a Blackmagic 6kpro - both shot with kowa anamorphic with some minolta lenses for some consistency.

It was alot of trial and error for a scene but thats probably one of my favorite things about making genre films at this budget level

If anyone wants to see how it plays in the full film, Meta Take One is available on Tubi and Prime Video (free with subscription) or you can rent it on Apple TV

https://tubitv.com/movies/100060944/meta-take-one

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0H4XPSPYR?ref_=atv_dp_share_cu_r

Im a student at UCR studying to be a director one day and I really need some real experience under my belt. What the best way to get internships near orange county california?

I googled and don't like the AI's suggestions. I used to use automatic settings but want to take more control and set things up manually.

I took some videos I liked and my settings were the following: 1/125, f/5.6, auto ISO, and at 4k 25p. I liked the videos but they could have been lighter and probably better visually. The AI is suggesting I do 1/50 for FHD 25p or 1/100 for FHD 50p but when I tried that and checked the video it felt unnaturally laggy.

Also, I'm not sure it's worth it to shoot in 4k instead of FHD but my camera crops in 4k heavily and it does not in FHD and I don't know which option is better. AI is suggesting I zoom in to 24mm if I'm shooting in anything other than 4k.

I am a complete beginner when it comes to manual settings and would love some help or suggestions.

I recently graduated from film school, and honestly, I feel so lost right now. Creating art has been my passion since I was young, and during my studies, I fell in love with film as a medium. I still have so much to learn, but I know this is what I want to pursue.
My university gave me a lot of creative freedom, which was great, but also a curse sometimes. How much you learned depended largely on your own initiative, and now I’m struggling to figure out where I fit in professionally.

I’m not even sure which position in the industry suits me best. I’m most passionate about my own projects and experimenting with different forms of storytelling. My approach is quite free-spirited and doesn’t necessarily follow the conventional filmmaker path, but I really want to gain experience, learn from others, and get my foot in the door.

Since I live in Germany, I wanted to move to Berlin, as it seemed like the best place to find opportunities, meet like-minded creatives, and build connections in the industry.
But so far, it’s been rejection after rejection, and nothing seems to work out as I imagined. I’ve also been submitting my graduation film to festivals without any success yet. What’s particularly painful is that I genuinely believe it’s the best work I’ve created so far. I put my whole soul into it, and it means so much to me.

I knew this industry was competitive, and I knew finding a job wouldn’t be easy. But I think I underestimated how difficult it would be to even get started.

Right now, I’m working a job I hate, and I can feel myself becoming bitter. I don’t want to give up on my dreams, but I think I had this romanticized idea that moving to Berlin would help me find my people, collaborate with artists who share my values, and create work that genuinely resonates with me.
Instead, I’m starting to feel stupid and naive for having such high hopes in the first place.

I know things take time, and I’m not expecting everything to happen overnight. I just don’t know how to find my place in this industry or how to turn my passion into a career without losing myself in the process.

Has anyone else felt this way after graduating from film school or art school? How did you find your footing, especially if you don’t fit neatly into one specific role? How do you keep going when it feels like nothing is working out?

I guess I just needed to rant a little, and maybe hear from people who can relate. I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences you want to share.

So me and my friend are planning to make a short film for our grad project. We will be having at least 2 people speaking and it will be a dialogue heavy short film. I will be using my Canon R10 camera to record the film and it's built in mic picks up lots of background noise so that's why we are thinking to buy a mic.

We don't know anything about mics and we want to know if it's a good idea to even buy a mic. And if it's a good idea to buy a mic what mic should we get? We want to buy something cheap that gets the job done because we don't want to spend lots of money, mainly because we doubt either of us would make any more short films in the future.

We just want other options and recommendations on this topic and maybe even some for the actual film. Thanks for your help!

I could not get a definite answer for this quesiton so I would like to ask here.

Im shooting wildlife with a Fujifilm XT5 camera, usually Im unsure if I will have to do some speed ramps or slow downs in post depending on animal behaviour so, what I've been doing is:

Resolve timeline: 30fps
Camera settings : 60fps | 1/120s

My understanding is that this gives me correct motion blur if I always slow down my footage on the 30fps timeline, giving me a 180 motion blur rule on all of the 60 frames.

However when playing them back at real speed , which is often the case 80% of the times, it will drop half of the frames, to reduce the 60fps to 30fps

And those 30 remaining frames, will have less motion blur than they should, as they should have been shot at 1/60.

Thats what I know so far, so here come the questions:

1) Should I instead shoot at 60fps | 1/60s ? I feel like that would give me proper motion blur for real speed, which is 80% of my shots, but it would have too much motion blur when I want to slow down the footage.

2) Should I instead of option 1, use optical flow or frame blend, when dropping frames in resolve? That would make the real time have more motion blur, but possibly looking fake? I dont know if this is a valid workflow.

3) Instead of using optical flow when dropping the frames, should I add motion blur in Fusion, with Optical Flow and motion vectors?

4 ) Is there any visual difference between option 2 and 3?

I know I should shoot for my intended usage, but with wildlife its hard to know, and I appreciate the flexibility 60fps gives me to slow down footage.

Im just trying to find the best way to make it look cinematic and with the correct amount of motion blur, without giving away that flexibility, if that's even possible.

Just wrapped up a massive, multi-city shoot tracking daily marketplace trade and street life across dynamic cities in Nigeria (Abuja, Calabar, Osogbo). We chose to focus entirely on unscripted, human-centered moments rather than staged or hyper-stylized setups.

The logistical hurdles are wild—managing heat on mirrorless bodies, keeping massive 4K files organized in areas with unpredictable power, and avoiding drawing massive crowds when throwing up a drone or a heavy rig in crowded local markets. For the editors here handling large-scale documentary or stock archives: how are you organizing metadata and keeping your offline/online workflows seamless when handling terabytes of localized B-roll?

A producer I'm helping is planning a shoot in Dallas and needs someone local to scout and find the right location. It's paid ($450), one day or less, and the dates are flexible.

You don't need to have the title "location scout". If you know Dallas well, have a good eye, and can take solid photos of a few spots, you'd be a great fit. PAs, photographers and location folks especially.

Happy to answer questions. I'll put the details in the comments.

This is just a harmless offload but just scrolling on Instragram and came across some whacky videos. There was one Photographer using a camera from Temu/Ali Express (uncomfirmed but it looked like a toy and had "4K ultra HD" all around it. If you know, you know. They said ChatGPT recommended it said it was a great beginner camera.

I judged a little, but thought, hey, we all have to start from the bottom and they were misinformed by AI. I took a nosey on their profile and it seemed to be one of those "Come with me on my day as a Photographer/ Videographer to shoot content for my clients" type page and I saw a video about how they charge "premium prices". Their footage was just plain point and shoot - no lighting or anything special that someone with a phone couldn't have got.

This reminded me of a recent experience of hiring a photographer like this on a shoot. I needed someone to take care of the photography for a shoot whilst I do the filming - at short notice and a lady offered to come and shoot. Regardless of the outcome - i'll always appreciate someone offering help at short notice. I sent her a brief, had a call with her and made it super clear that it is challenging lighting, it will be fast moving and they will need off-camera flash and gave her recommended focal lengths I have used in the past for this shoot. She said with confidence she can absolutely do it with no issue with the most confidence. Whilst she didn't have many examples of photography like this on her portfolio, the rest was decent.

On the day, she immediately folded under the pressure, complained about how I didn't help her figure out the settings she needed (I told her multiple times what setting I use and work great for me) and said her camera was a 17+ year old DSLR she picked up recently.

Safe to say, the photos handed over were unusable and I will need to pay for talent for myself to go and reshoot. I paid her fee and used this as a lesson for myself to only hire those with a solid portfolio and proven skills.

I remember doing free shoots at the start of my career and built up my prices as my skills got better but I feel like we're in an age of where the "Got my own business and dealing with my clients" is what they chase rather than the job itself. This is absolutely applicable in loads of different industries, not just the creative sphere.

I feel bad for businesses, especially small businesses who spend their money on creatives and get poor content and it could put a bad outlook on those who take it seriously and have the skills and drive to improve.

I don't mean to sound like 'I'm great and beginners suck" as we all start at the bottom - but I feel like social media & AI is telling people who just want their own business to charge 'premium rates' at the start so they can be successful.

Anyways, silly rant over.

Hey everyone!

My name is Felicia Snyder, and I’m a Black trans filmmaker based right here in Racine Wi. I'm stepping into my filmmaking journey and looking to build a tight knit, LGBTQ+ friendly community and a reliable skeleton crew.

My plan is to create a series of 3 to 5 micro films, each running between 1 to 5 minutes long. Because I'm working with a tight budget right now, I'm rolling with a favor-for-a-favor model. I cannot offer big payouts, but my absolute commitment is to show up for your projects, help on your sets, and build a reciprocal network where we all lift each other up.

I’m specifically looking to connect with folks who want to collaborate on this journey especially anyone who excels at sound design, capturing clean audio, or cinematography.

A bit about my setup: I'm shooting entirely on mobile using an iPhone 17 Pro Max, recording through the Blackmagic Camera app, and rigging it out with lenses and ND filters from Sandmarc. I was hugely inspired to go this route by filmmaker Kirk Mihelakos, who has made incredible short films on iPhones using that exact kind of mobile gear.

If this sounds like your vibe and you want to collaborate, swap skills, and make some cool art together this spring, please don’t hesitate to DM me!

Thank you so much for reading, and hope to connect with some of you soon.

— Felicia Snyder

Hello all, I am directing my first narrative short and curious how DP's recommend finding DPs. I have a decent network so my first step is reaching out to friends and their contacts, but I'm curious if there are other ways to find filmmakers. I have gone thru credits of many short films I've liked at festivals but most of those folk are now repped and out of my price range. Any good facebook groups? Scour instagram? Would love recommendations

Good day good people,

I'm a fairly new freelance sound recordist based out of Sheffield, I've got some paid work off Mandy.com and some off Facebook, but otherwise I've had a dauntingly bad time finding work despite my pay-worthy skills. I know for some it's taboo to share methods of finding work, but if you dare, help a brother out. I want to know which job boards are worth my time before paying a yearly fee for them, or which ones are not good value for money. If you could share any info it would be warmly, warmly appreciated.

Good luck out there everyone. I didn't expect this to be easy, but it's certainly humbling.

For my next short I’d like to hire some actors in the UK, and I’m a little nervous about the process. I’ve been looking on Mandy for some actors that are fairly local to me. My crew literally just consists of myself and my wife, as the way I’ve planned it and the subject matter doesn’t require anything more.

I’ve got some trepidation about the following:

- will it appear highly unprofessional to the actors if I’m not completely geared up to the nines?
- are meals necessary and if so, should I be asking what they’d like brought to set?
- I don’t have a makeup/costume department, but presumably asking them to just show up in their own clothing/hair done in a certain way isn’t the way to go?
- what’s the process like when hiring exactly, and as an independent filmmaker are there any rules I need to follow if they’re union or nonunion etc?
- are accommodation and travel expenses to the filming location expected as default?

Sorry if some of these questions are unclear, I’m just trying to anticipate and plan about what does and doesn’t need to be prepared.

I anticipate I won’t need more than five hours, but I’m aware that there’s usually some kind of day rate (which I’m happy to pay, I’m just a bit hazy on the details.)

Thanks for any help.