1. They Promote You & Your Film
Getting your film on at a film festival will not only give you and your video production credibility, but it also helps to promote both you and your film. Just by being accepted you’ve already got a great piece of information for your press materials and there’s a good chance you’ll receive a few reviews of your project too, which you can also use. That’s one great promotional opportunity waiting to be grabbed just by entering.

2. They Help You Reach A Like-Minded Audience
Although you’re trying to get festival goers to check out your particular production, they’re already there to check out some films. This means that your job at getting them to check out your film project won’t be half as difficult as trying to get the worldwide public to check it out. A like-minded audience such as this will also be able to give you quality praise and criticism or maybe even ask to be a part of your next video production.

3. You Could Come Away With An Award
A lot of filmmakers want to win at festivals and winning a prize would be a monumental push for your film and so could just receiving a nomination to begin with. Not all filmmakers are in it for the glory, but the opportunity of winning an award or getting a nomination should never be passed up.

4. They Allow You To Make Connections
The networking opportunities alone should be reason enough for a first-time filmmaker to start going to film festival events. These festivals are full of huge industry players from big directors, crew members, script writers, promoters, distributors and thousands of enthusiastic video lovers. Making connections with these kinds of people is incredibly powerful and should be one of the main reasons you’re filling in applications for upcoming festivals right this second.

5. They Are Great Ways To Have Fun
Film festivals can be a lot of work, but they don’t have to be. A festival gives you time to celebrate your video production and let your hair down. Whether that’s just sitting back and relaxing for the whole festival or just using your nights to have a good time and getting your promotion done in the day. Never forget about the chances to just have fun at these events. Creating your production was long and challenging enough, a festival should be a fantastic way to congratulate your team, take some necessary R&R time for yourself and just enjoy being a part of the industry.

Summary
There you have it, 5 essential reasons why first-time filmmaker should always take the chance to go to a film festival. Don’t pass up such opportunities just because you’re a first-time filmmaker, all filmmakers and video productions have to start somewhere.

What Is A Set Made Of?
Your typical set is made up of what the film industry call ‘flats’ these are artificial walls made from plywood. These flats are used for the floors, ceilings and walls of your set and are held together by 3 or 4 wooden beams, which are also made from affordable materials.

1. Flying Ceilings
Flying ceilings are ceilings that are suspended via supports from the studio ceiling. What this seeks to do is allow you to include a ceiling in any shots that need them and let you take it away to add extra lighting for close-ups and high angle shots where a ceiling isn’t visible.

2. Flying Walls
Much like the flying ceiling notion, flying walls seek to do the same thing, but also allow film teams to get into and access the scene far more effectively. If the set was completely closed off with 4 walls it would be a nightmare trying to film in. Flying walls allow you to film all 4 walls at different times while allowing your crew to access the scene to capture the best shots possible.

3. Architrave
Architrave aims to hide the joins between your physical ‘flat’ wall and your flying ceilings/walls. This can be done in a variety of ways whether it’s a style of plastering you’ll tend to see in most living rooms or whether it’s a subtle dark bordering to hide the joints for flying ceilings/walls.

4. Struts
Struts are your ‘flats’ best friend. Struts seek to give your flats strength and give much needed support to your quite flimsy set structure. Struts can be made out of the same low budget wood you’ve used for your flats.

5. Flooring
Your floors should be made of the same plywood you’ve used all over your set. You can dress your flooring in any way you wish, but it is probably worth painting your flooring your desired pattern or colour rather than trying to get anything fitted. Ensure your flooring is raised enough for your flying walls to fit against it and look natural.

6. Weights
Weights are nothing fancy, anything from metal fixtures to sandbags. These weights are placed on your struts and aim to keep your set stable and securely in place. The last thing you want is any walls wobbling during filming or anything falling over.

7. Backdrop
You may be wanting to incorporate a window or an open area into your closed set. These open areas will need a backdrop behind it. Whether it’s a matte painting or a photographic image you’ll need to make sure that the view from your windows and open spaces show a believable background. Backdrops typically are suspended like your flying ceilings/walls as you may need to interchange backdrops depending if it is day or night.

Pay Attention To Detail
If your set is supposed to be a living room make sure it looks like one. That means lighting fixtures, plug sockets, wallpaper, skirting boards, windows etc. If your set is supposed to be a jail cell make sure it has barred windows, heavy duty doors, brick-looking walls etc. Your set is basically just a blank canvas, it is up to you to paint it and make it the scene you require for your video production. The more detail you put into that canvas the more believable it will look.

Summary
By following this guide to creating your own set you’ll be able to create all the scenes necessary for your video production. Building a set can be as cheap or as expensive as you like, but it will take a lot of work. Allow time for the building and testing of your set to ensure your scenes are as perfect as possible.

What Is A Filter?
A filter is a transparent piece of plastic that is manipulated in a way to create unique effects when placed over your camera lens. You may find you can purchase filters that fit perfectly for your camera model, but most often you’ll need to get a bit DIY about it and stick filters on with tape or get a member of your crew to hold one in place. You might also find that some filters fit in a peculiar way with your lens that actually causes the filters to move as you try to focus your shot, which can make things rather tricky.

1. The Graduate
A graduated filter has a portion of it shaded horizontally. This shading allows you to generate effects to the top portion of your frame. These graduated filters come in all varieties of colour allowing you to create grey skies, blue skies or even help to produce an artificial sunset.

2. The Polariser
A polarising filter is a fantastic filter to have at hand. It’s polarising nature allows you to minimize reflections and surface glare allowing you to film through windows, in mirrors and even help you to shoot individuals wearing glasses while maintaning a good quality image.

3. The Split Diopter
A split diopter helps to force a unique depth of field look. By nature it focuses a close-up on one portion of the screen. What this means is that you can have an individual at the front of the frame in focus and someone in the background also in focus at the same time. Traditionally depth of field tries to keep only one individual in focus so this is a great tool to counter that problem.

4. The Close-Up
A close-up filter works just like the zoom on your camera, only it saves you having to do so. It has a great ability to magnify what’s in shot allowing you to zoom in to a particular object or individual without having to alter anything on your camera. This can be a real time-saver.

Summary
There you have it, your essential guide to working with the 4 most common camera filters. By using and understanding the benefits and uses of these filters you can begin to make some very creative shots in your next video production and help to make your footage as professional as possible.

The Ingredients
To get prepare your mixture you’re going to need to track down some mouthwash, coffee, water, golden syrup and some red food colouring. You’ll also need to get hold of a saucepan, a wooden spoon and a hob to provide heat for the mixture. All these items are readily available at your local store if you don’t already have them at home.

The Process
Grab your saucepan and fill it with 500g of golden syrup. Heat the syrup gently and stir well until it has become nice and fluid. Add half of your food colouring mixture, leaving the other half to add if necessary later on. Get a mug and dissolve a heaped teaspoon of coffee into half a mug of boiling water then add it to the saucepan mix and stir. Test out a few drops down your sink to check the consistency is as you require. Take it off the heat and let it cool until it becomes slightly gooey. Once it’s turned nice and gooey add 100ml of your mouthwash, which will help to slightly thin it again and then bask in your DIY make-up triumph.

The Problems
One of the biggest issues with shooting with fake blood is continuity and consistency. Not only do you have to make sure your actors get the right make-up treatment everyday they’re on set, but you have to make sure your set does too. Using the same set and costume over a day or two can make the fake blood mixture dry out and look very different to how it did when it was first applied. Pay careful attention to every little detail any time you’re doing the make-up on your actors or on your set as a whole.

The Little Extras
There are a lot of extra uses for fake blood from shooting out through prosthetic tubes or just throwing it all over the walls. You’ll always need to amend the formula slightly to make it the right liquid consistency for the job at hand. As fake blood can be made into a few consistencies it can also have a few little extra features. A great tip is if you boil down your mixture until it’s very thick and gooey you can put a few drops on your actors skin, which when dry will resemble very realistic scabs. Not bad right?

Summary
There you have it, your essential guide to creating realistic make-up for your next zombie-fuelled video production. By using such DIY make-up techniques you’ll be able to keep your budget low without settling for poor on-screen visuals.

1. Slow & Steady
Just like the case of the tortoise and the hare, an effective zoom cannot be achieved through speed. Trying to quickly zoom in or out during a scene could spoil the flow of the shot completely. If you need to zoom always do it at a slow, smooth pace. By maintaining a steady pace you won’t draw too much attention to the camera movement allowing the audience to still stay connected with your film.

2. Stop & Start
A zoom shot doesn’t necessarily have to take place all in the same shot. You can zoom in or out of an object by using your standard camera techniques such as close-ups and long shots. If you want to zoom in or out without having to do the entire motion try recording in stages. Press record and film one shot, stop recording, zoom in and then begin recording again. This could create quite an innovative zoom technique without you having to perform the entire duration of the traditional zoom shot.

3. Change Position
A zoom shot isn’t always necessary. Have a long hard think about whether the shot will really add anything to your scene, as you may find an alternative shooting solution could be the answer. Changing your position to move in or out of the shot, much like you would do if you were using a handheld camera, could give you the affect you’re trying to create without having to use a zoom at all.

Summary
By following these zooming suggestions you’ll be able to start using zoom techniques far more effectively in your video productions and know when and when not to use them.

1. The Horror Flick
Your token horror film is going to need some classic DIY sound effects. You can create the sound of eerie footsteps by putting two shoes together and slowly tapping the heels together then the toes. Try using different styles of shoes in different acoustic areas to create varying sounds. You might also want to go a bit Amityville Horror with a plague of insects in your horror film, which you can recreate by gently humming against a piece of wax paper that has been wrapped around an everyday comb.

2. The Spaghetti Western
No good western is complete without cowboys riding horse-back. Strangely the Monty Python lads had it right all along, by using two halves of a coconut shell you can create a very realistic audio interpretation of horses riding. Eventually your cowboys are going to need to rest up by the campfire. To create the sound of a crackling fire you’ll just need to crumple cling film or wax paper to your hearts content.

3. The Heartfelt Romance
Every romantic film whether it’s a romantic comedy or a chick flick needs that big blockbuster kiss. Now you could recreate such audio by wooing your sound technician, but that might not always be an option… Upon better judgement or just after bitter sound technician rejection you can always get acquainted with your forearm. Smooching a bit of your arm will create just as good of an effect. Besides you’re too good for that techie anyway.

4. The Action Adventure
Action adventures are all about one thing – action. Sadly you can’t really recreate the sound of a building exploding at home, but you can handle all those jaw-dropping fight scenes. Warning: this one won’t please the vegetarians. By punching a good piece of raw meat you can capture a similar sound to man on man combat. If you’re scenes are particularly violent you can even recreate the sound of breaking bones by breaking and snapping carrots and celery. When you’ve finished beating up meat and killing vegetables you may want to apologise to the vegetarian community at large.

5. The Documentary
When you’re doing a documentary you want to make sure your sound effects represent the scenes on screen from the weather to roaming interviews. A good way to recreate rolling thunder and stormy weather is to fill a good sized cardboard box full of conkers/balls and slowly rotate it to get the right sound, it’s rather genius really. If you’ve filmed in snowy or rocky regions you may need to recreate the sound of walking through those areas. To do so just run down to your local store get a load of cat litter, throw it on the ground and walk all over it.

Summary
There you have it, your essential guide to the most common sound effects from an array of genres. By following these sound effects tips you can create good quality sound effects for your video production without having to fork out the big bucks.

1. Picturing A Storyboard
A storyboard is merely a visual plan of your script or screenplay. First, imagine a box much like a camera frame that you can present a mock image of your shot in. Then secondly place a few lines underneath for you to write a written account of your shot and any extra essential information that might be necessary to that particular scene or shot.

2. What If You Can’t Draw?
You really don’t need to be able to be an artist to create an effective storyboard. As long as you can create a rough visual representation of your shot, with notations you’ll be able to get a good feel for how your video production is going to look. If you’re really adamant about having good drawings there are plenty of storyboard computer software packages you can make use of or you could even employ an artist to help you construct your storyboard.

3. What Is A ‘Shot’?
A shot is simply everything that happens on your camera from the time you press Record to when you press Stop. Most shots in a video production are quite short as camera angles and shots change frequently within the same scene. This means that each storyboarded shot shouldn’t be as long or as complex as you might have first thought.

4. What Goes In A Storyboard?
Everything about your shot goes into your storyboard, which may seem like a lot, but it’s easy to breakdown into sections. You’ll need to note your shots location, the actors on screen, any props needed, the type of shot you want to shoot, the camera angle, camera movement, the lighting and any special effects that need to be present in the shot. If you are storyboarding one particular scene you won’t need to note all of these details in every shot. Remember the camera is always the most fundamental aspect to document.

Summary
There you have it, your essential guide to storyboarding. By following this guide and understanding the nature of storyboards you can help to create a storyboard that is truly reflective of how you want your final video production to look.

1. Invest In Solid Equipment
Before you think about trying to shoot a successful panned shot invest in the right equipment. Trying to pan on a cheap tripod, with a cheap camera grip is going to make your shots look jerky, wobbly and unprofessional. Get hold of a decent tripod that can accommodate your camera with appropriate dials and handles for adjusting the tension to make pan movement as smooth as possible.

2. Don’t Over Do It
You should only ever pan in moderation. Traditionally pans are used for establishing shots or to follow slow movement on screen. You can get away with using a pan once every few shots, but overdoing it will make your cinematography seem very stale and make your overall video production look rather amateur, which you never want to do.

3. Don’t Misuse It
Pans are great for slow movements and the establishment of scenes, but don’t misuse it. Never try to use it to follow quick or frequent action on set. Remember other shots and camera techniques are there for a reason, don’t try use a shot that doesn’t fit. Scenes with a large amount of movement and action should only be followed by dolly, tracking or handheld shots that can handle the spontaneity and size of the shot.

4. Start Slow
A panned shot is always a soft, slow and smooth fluid motion. You can speed up pans during its movement, but never try to do so at the start or end of your pan. This will make the pan seem to finish rather abruptly or make the shot seem unrealistic to the viewing audience due to its unnatural speed. Always try to plan where you want to pick up the pace within your pan and practice the movement to get it exactly right.

Summary
By following this guide to panning you can be sure to use the shot correctly and effectively in your next video production. Mastering the art of panning can take sometime and all the advice in the world is no substitute for good ol’ fashioned practice.

1. What Is Backlight?
Backlight is something many first-time filmakers have a real headache about. Backlight is where your background is made up of natural/artificial light that is stronger than any other light source in the scene. This typically happens if your shooting outside or facing a window. A backlight will then cause your subject to become severely shadowed and create a very poor looking shot.

2. Use Your Lighting
Whether you’re shooting indoors or outdoors always try to tackle backlight with your lighting equipment. You may not need to set up your whole set, but try and use your fill light, key light or hair light to counter the strength of the backlight on shot. It’s also wise to try and shoot away from the backlight light source to minimize its impact on your shot.

3. Use Your Camera
Your camera should have a manual setting for controlling the exposure of your lens. Maximizing the cameras exposure setting as much as necessary to compensate for your backlight should help to bring back a good quality image to your frame.

4. Change Location
Working with backlight in any capacity is problematic and despite the alternatives to correct it sometimes it is always worth just switching your location. The time you could save by quickly changing location instead of battling through the problem could keep your video production on schedule.

Summary
There you have it, your essential guide to coping with backlight and to ensure your shots aren’t ruined because of it. By working with these tips you can be ready for any lighting scenario on set.

1. The ‘Essential’ Essentials
No first-time filmmaker should pull out a camera on set without having the essential camera extras; spare tapes, spare batteries, various adaptors and of course over-the-ear headphones. The spare tapes and batteries are pretty self-explanitory, but adaptors and headphones are important too. You want to make sure you have adaptors for all your microphones and sound cables i.e. XLRs from Boom Mics and if you don’t have your headphones, you’re taking a big risk on your sound quality, especially if its only you doing the sound and filming for a particular scene.

2. Hoods
Getting a hood for your camera lens is a great extra to have at hand. Hoods can provide a nice bit of shade for your lens helping to prevent any issues with intense light/sunlight. Before you pick up a lens hood always check it is compatible with your camera, you don’t want to try and use one that ‘sort of’ fits, because that won’t do any favours for your image quality.

3. Filters
Before you contemplate getting a filter, just like with a lens hood always check for compatibility. A filter works in a similar to a hood in that it helps to reduce bright light, but it also reduces reflections/glares and helps to improve the overall colour on screen. A filter can help to protect your lens too, which could save you the hassle of cleaning it time and time again throughout the day.

4. Cleaning Products
A clean camera is a happy camera. Before you attempt to film any shot make sure your camera is thoroughly cleaned. Get hold of lens cleaner, lens tissue, lens brushes, a lens cloth and even some compressed air to blast on the screen. If you don’t have cleaning equipment with you, you’re taking a huge risk with the quality of your footage.

Summary
By checking out these 4 essential extras for your camera you can help to maintain good quality images for your video production and ensure your camera is always prepared for any shooting scenario.