Helpful content for indie filmmakers and video content creators. Includes tips on planning, shooting, editing, post-production, film festivals, and more.
So I thought it was time for a quick update on the Unreal Engine 5 short film project. I’m still testing out city designs and building different scenes. I’ve created a more gritty look for the city, which I like. As I wrote in my last post, I found my initial design too pretty. I …
Ring lights are one of the most common lighting choices for YouTubers. A ring light creates good lighting for video content with a flattering result and is easy to set up and capture high-quality video. Ring lights come in a variety of sizes. So, what size ring light do YouTubers use? The most common size …
Exporting is the final step of your editing process. How much data your export will need to encode depends on where you decide to publish the video. But how can you export a high-quality video that doesn’t eat up your hard drive? To export a high-quality video with a low file size, there are three …
WARNING: The following article may contain sexual content, mature themes, and major spoilers unsuitable for readers under 18. Reader discretion is advised. 😉 How many times have you watched a steamy sex scene in a movie or a racy hookup in a television show and wondered how they did it? Are the love scenes real? …
Since I was a kid, I’ve been a big fan of Disney cartoons and comic books. The same is true for Star Wars movies and the Marvel Entertainment universe. Now that Disney owns all of those franchises – and more, it made me think. How many companies does Disney own??? The short answer? A lot! …
As I mentioned in part III of this diary, I’ve been working on different city designs to see what I like and don’t like. So I want to share one of my ideas and what I like (and don’t like) about it. Here’s a quick animated fly-over of the design. The idea behind the design …
I think it’s time for a status update on the FilmDaft cyberpunk animated short film I’m working on in Unreal Engine 5. Read Part I here. I’ve been working on three things: finishing the screenplay, creating characters (and starting animating them), and building the scenes (and testing city designs) for the movie. In this article, …
I’ve begun to understand how to create a cyberpunk city in Unreal Engine 5. But even though the city itself is a very important element in neo-noir and cyberpunk films, without characters in it to bring it to life, it is just dead and empty streets. So I created a small test scene to take …
The lines between the tools used in the gaming industry and the film industry are getting blurrier each year. Not at least thanks to Unreal Engine, which is now being used on hit shows like The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi. For those unfamiliar, Unreal Engine (UE) is, in essence, a gaming engine created for making …
It’s a great idea to add closed captions to your video if you want to reach the widest audience possible. Captions have been designed for people who are hard of hearing, but it has also grown in popularity with everyday viewers. In this easy-to-follow step-by-step guide, I will show you how to create and export …