However, what is of note is the quality of this project, the in-depth material on their website (which is actually becoming characteristic of this director‘s projects, who is also helming the long-in-progress Human Residue), and the obvious dedication that went into the project from the acting, the costumes, the CG (which is impressive, they whipped Terragen 2 into shape and did some sweet-ass work for this project), even their Gollum wasn’t disappointing. Yes, an independent project pulled off a version of Gollum this soon after the multi-million-dollar studio-backed features won Oscars for theirs. Why don’t you go and check it out? The trailer’s below, along with a link to the full film.

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Website Link | Full-Length HD Stream

Free Stuff

Clone2Go Free Video Converter looks like a somewhat-sketchy piece of software, but could be useful. I myself and a fan of MediaCoder for Windows and Handbrake for Mac (and Windows, but last I tried it’s build didn’t work too great).
DVCreators has a list here of some free and cheap stuff that could be cool. I like to keep lists of free stuff, you know, just in case .
Paranoia FX has some great macros for Shake, I actually use some of them in my comp work.
Celtx recently came out with a new edition of their sweet-ass filmmaking app. And don’t forget to check out their Project Central section, a cool spot to look for collaborators, browse other projects, list your own and gain attention.
Lee Gabel has generously posted some links to resource sites, as well as his ‘Screenwriting’ section which shoots you on over to Frankenscript, a sort of in-progrss blog about his screenwriting, as well as a short listing on his work.

Tutorials

HenryTheJedi has a list of After Effects and 3DS Max tutorials and downloads up for the taking, complete with watchable, downloadable videos and project files, so head over and check that out.
Videomaker’s new article Color Correction/Enhancement could prove useful, especially for compositors, motion graphics artists, or a anyone just starting out in the digital realm of filmmaking.
The always-awesome Studiodaily blog added a tutorial on tracking and compositing with Mocha and Final Cut, definitely a useful skill for you low-budget DIYers out there in the film world.

Articles & Sites

Videomaker also put out a kind-of-funny article titled ‘Anatomy of a Vidiot‘, pointing out the common characteristics of someone getting into videography who has no idea what they’re doing.
21st Century Cinema is an article I would really like to read when I get the chance. The subtitle is ‘An indie look at DIgital Dinema’, that should be intriguing enough for ya .
CGpov looks like a decent blog by a 3D artist, offering up opinions, points of view, showcasing work and occasionally handing out a tool or two.

This is a sweet-ass example of how literally paper, pens, a video camera and access to two windows and a crosswalk (which could be in three completely different places, mind you) could make a short film pretty cool. Pretty close to the ultimate in low-budget filmmaking techniques. Oh, yea, I guess a kitchen and bedroom would be good too, but I’m assuming most people have one of those . Basically, once again, proof that a solid, simple story with common human characters acting in identifiable, even lovable, even hateful ways.

Anyway, enjoy the film, feel free to leave comments, thoughts, reactions and whatnot at the bottom of the page, and happy filmmaking .

YouTube via Videomaker

Tutorial Sites

Layers Magazine is always a great place to look for when delving into something new.
Maxafter‘s got a decent list of tutorials for AE, Max, even RealFlow. Good place to look for some random learning time.
Forging Fire Studio: lots of cool-looking tutorials.
After Effects- and 3DS Max-themed visual effects blog posting articles, tips and resources.
CMIVFX has put out some great video tutorials in the past…see if you can’t squeeze some out of here.

Filmmaking

Guidebook for Indie Filmmaking.
202 DIY Filmmaking Tutorials! Yea!
A list of Filmmaking Links & Feeds from a bunch of different sites.
IndyMogul posted a cool video with a section on cheap DIY lighting kits.

After Effects

VideoCopilot is always hugely helpful, so it follows they’d post something like this.
I may have mentioned Artbeats before, and you’ve now doubt heard of them while searching for free stock footage (no, they charge for their stock), but I haven’t mentioned their tutorials sections before. They’ve got a pretty cool video tutorial series, a great effects podcast and a written tutorial section too.
All Bets Are Off Productions is headed by Aharon Rabinowitz, an After Effects guru with a tutorial section.
A bit more technical, Studiodaily posted a tutorial video on controlling RGB to HSL conversions in AE.
Pretty cool list of a whole bunch of AE tutorials, definitely worth checking out for beginner to intermediate level users.
Ayato has been a secret of mine for a while, I don’t know that they’ve updated recently, but the tutorials were pretty cool, simple, a sort of mix between motion graphics and VFX, mostly title stuff, but all cool. Takes a bit of reading carefully, as I don’t think English is the writer’s first language, but still worth it.
Graymachine is a pretty cool all-around AE site, worth checking back on occasionally for new stuff.
AE tutorials listed on the Adobe website. Yea, I know, logical, huh?
AE I OWE YOU could be decent. Haven’t looked through it much, but there was an intriguing two-part face replacement tutorial up when I saw it last.
After Effects tutorial and resource site.
Motionscript: The go-to site for scripting and programming in After Effects. Technical. Awesome.
Tutorial on particles in AE.
People love lists, don’t they? Here’s 30 tutorials to “teach you After Effects.” I like how it’s so boldly stated too…teach you After Effects. I’m pretty sure you won’t be done after these, but give them a shot. You’ll definitely learn something.
Just in case my link dumps aren’t enough, this site‘s got a massive list of extra After Effects related stuff. Check that out if you’re in the mood to be overwhelmed.
Nice looking After Effects tutorial site for you Spanish speakers/readers out there (also, you could use Babelfish or something to translate the site for you).
Sweet looking list of tutorials here. Definitely excited about the retro sci-fi one. Check it out!
Another list…40 AE tutorials for your learning pleasure.
Cool quick motion graphics tutorial on making a shot from still images.
The Genesis Project: After Effects related articles, advice, tips, tutorials, thoughts, etc.
Steve Whatley’s After Effects Cookbook.
1001 After Effects Tutorials. Wow. I’m really happy for whoever got the ’1′ at the end.

Motion Graphics

MotionGraphicsLab: Tutorials and downloadable projects for motion graphics artists and learners.
Mograph Wiki: Cool index- and search-based site about motion graphics, covering a multitude of programs and a variety of topics. I’m intrigued by the ‘After Effects Easter Eggs’ category…
Motionographer: Cool showcase and article site on motion graphics and their creators.

Visual Effects

VFX School looks like a pretty cool VFX blog to check in on from time to time, some resource posts, tutorial videos, articles, etc. Good stuff.
VisualFXTuts looks almost like a renegade child of the TutsPlus group, but with some differences.
Check out the Tip of the Week section of this site.
Some cool Shake and Houdini resource posts, worth looking through. Also a post on an open-source render engine. Cool stuff.

Cinema 4D

Mostly Cinema4D tutorials but some AE ones thrown in there. Worth taking a peek.
3D Fluff: Cinema4D tutorial site.
Another Cinema4D resource/tutorial site.

3DS Max

3DS Max tutorial listing.
3DS Max tutorials and resources.

Eclectic

Random site with tons of links. Could be useful, worth peering through anyway, just to see.
Russell Brown’s Photoshop Tips and Techniques. ‘Nuff said.
Not tutorials, but some cool behind-the-scenes and making-of videos from classic movies (the original Star Wars series, for example).

I’ve got a massve…and I mean massive collection of links ready for ya. So massive, in fact, that I’m breaking it up into a multi-part series, because frankly, opening tons of links at once won’t be fun for you, and copying and pasting and reviewing what all of them are won’t be so fun for me. Not all at once, anyway. So next week, Link Dump: Tutorial Edition. But let’s get started with part 1.

Freebie Lists

CreativeCow apparently has a 2-part article series full of links to free element sites online. Part 1, part 2.
Bittbox is an awesome tutorial and resource site, so definitely keep an eye out on that for resources.
MotionWorks is a cool place for tutorials and whatnot, but they’ve also got a decent free downloads area, so check that out if you’ve got a minute.
This blog post has got links to a huge amount of plugins and whatnot for After Effects, FCP, and other programs.
CSSStyle.me has a list of freebies here.

Applications

Here’s a list of free 3D apps available on the ‘net.
Norrkross MorphX is a free morphing application I found in my web-perusing. Could be cool to play around with, test it out a bit.
JES Deinterlacer sounds like a great tool to have for DV filmmakers. Interlacing = bad for most VFX, and generally looks bad, one of those aspects of video that makes it look like video instead of film. Good to get rid of it.
This could be a decent free audio editor. Looks similar to Audacity.

Add-ons, Scripts & Tools

Pixelfudger is a pretty cool group that makes macros for Shake, good tools, good collection, nicely useful set.
AEnhancers is a sweet-looking spot for After Effects related downloads (scripts, expressions and presets).

Textures & Photos

Lostandtaken has got some cool graphical resources (photos, textures, links to other resource sites).
A Touch of Texture has a bunch of texture photos, very useful for motion graphics or 3D endeavors.
MacText is a cool-looking texture photo blog, always useful stuff.
Not sure about the validity of this, but it’s a possibility…StockFootageForFree.

Finally, this site’s got an opportunity to submit your documentary-style film about your personal feelings in relation to Star Wars and George Lucas. I’m posting it mainly because it’s got a timeline, as the film will be completed and released eventually, so check that out, enjoy the links above, and I’ll post the next part next week. Thanks for visiting, hope these links help you out in your filmmaking endeavors and you like the new blog, and I’ll see you again next week.

First up, the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning trailer got me excited about fantasy gaming for the first time since high school, and I found this rockin’ four-part making-of article series, as well as their video podcast page, on the company’s website.

We’re doing storyboarding this week for our final project so I figured I’d do a bit of research, finding mostly old resources I’d forgotten about, and figured I’d share my progress. First is eejit’s storyboarding guide, a great site overall for filmmaking (check out their 10-minute film school with Robert Rodriguez…if you can’t come across it already that is).

Next is one of my classic favorites, TheForce.net and their tutorial section. They’ve got plenty of stuff there about all aspects of filmmaking, but mostly from a Star Wars fanfilm standpoint. Though that’s still plenty helpful. It’s thanks to this site, actually, that I became interested in filmmaking as a kid to begin with. Check it out.

There are plenty of ways to create and display storyboards, from on the wall to using software (like Director’s Boards, which I have but haven’t had the opportunity to use yet, though it looks cool), and this forum even suggests making a simple PowerPoint out of your frames and using that as a presentation/display tool (youknow, what the application was built for in the first place…to present things). We’ve been using OpenOffice’s Impress for our presentations. Alternatively, you could use Celtx’s built-in storyboarding organization tool, which would be great in an all-digital approach to the pre-production process.

On one last side note, Photoshop For Video put out a new episode (that I have yet to watch but will in the morning), this time on making a lower thids graphic for your videos. Not too common in amateur filmmaking, but a very useful tool nonetheless. Well, that’s it for this week’s link dump. I may have to cut back on the quantity of the links themselves, since we’re getting heavier and heavier into classes and production, but I’ll do my best to keep something coming each post day, at least to say I’m still around and life is still…well…going. Happy storyboarding!

The key here in my mind now, though, is that it’s a short film.  Of course the length doesn’t actually matter, if the trailer looks good enough, someone will buy it, but if it’s a short film that looks thoroughly professional, well done and generally entertaining, it’s a good step in the right direction.  The most important thing, though, is that it’s important to the filmmaker, and that they care about it and love it enough to carry it on despite the difficulties.  Personally, LATENT(CY) wasn’t that project for me.  But I’m hoping that after school ends (or even before) I’ll have scraped together some film-loving friends with enough interest and passion and drive to make another short film, and hopefully this time, we’ll be proud enough to make a campaign out of the thing.

It also occurred to me that if you’ve already got a short film made that can be shown on YouTube and other video sharing sites, then show it.  And not only that, post bulletins about it, send messages about it to all of your friends, make a website, sell DVDs, get the name out in the public’s eye because it’s your project, and it’s your responsibility to showcase your own work.  After all, if you’re not proud enough to show it off, what kind of impression does that give?  Best of luck and happy filmmaking!

Over at Film & Video, Bryant Frazer talks with director George A. Romero about his return to low-budget filmmaking with Diary of the Dead using Panasonic HDX900 and HVX200 camcorders.

So naturally I emailed that quote off to the first friend I thought of when I think of zombie movies, and he responded pretty quickly saying that he didn’t like the new “Blair Witch sort of style that’s coming back.”  That I can completely understand, so I responded with the following passage, which is the basis for this post:

I kind of like the shaky cam style that’s on the rise, it’s more viral and amateurish, and it blurs the lines between amateur films and professional ones, making it so that it doesn’t matter as much anymore to the audience if it’s a “real movie” because they can’t always tell, so it’s not worth bothering about.  If it’s good, it’s good, and it deserves praise, if it’s bad, well, they leave it alone (or flame it, the bastards).  Sometimes it’s hard to see or hard to handle (I got mildly nauseous watching Cloverfield), but I think it’s a cool way to kind of get the super-hype of paying high attention to lighting, costumes, and even set design a little bit out of the way, and letting amateurs get more into the field, simply because the cheapest way to film (handheld and shaky) is often the most real feeling, because it’s not completely stable like a statue, nor is it to the extent that Cloverfield was (though that was pretty wonderfully done).  Basically, it give me even more of a chance to go out and shoot random stuff, put it all together in some sort of cohesive, understandable and entertaining story, and then market it and get attention because it looks real, it could be real, and if it’s good, people will appreciate either the documentary-ness of it or the realistic acting and detail of the thing.  So basically I don’t put anywhere near as much effort into the preparation of the film that Hollywood does, and I can still come out with a viable film to show at festivals and gain a reputation among the biggies of the business.  So that’s why I like it.  As a style, though, you’re right, it’s hard to take sometimes.

Now, that being said, I haven’t seen the trailer for this, but I’m going to look it up and see what I can find, heh.

NOTE: You can see the trailer here.  And I actually was a little disappointed with it when I watched it.