Homemade and Cheap Overhead Camera Rig and Studio Light with Softbox!

We're back! And for our first real post of 2010 we're going to share not one awesome instructables, but two!

Here we go! The first instructable we found is an excellent tutorial for making an overhead rig for your camera. This is perfect for heavicameras that strain your arms carrying all day. Sadly, there's very little stability, and it bounces when you walk, so we suggest using this only for non-moving shots. Still very cool though! Check it out!

The second is a great light for indoor shoots! It combines a regular worklight, with a softbox. This allows a softer, less harsh light, and helps minimize hard shadows, especially important for green screens. Remember kids, lights can be BIG fire hazards, especially when used indoors. As always, we take no responsibility for any damages, injury or death caused by anything here on the site. Just remember to be careful where you put your lights, as they get VERY hot and can cause fires and burn skin.

For more tutorials on camera rigs, click here.

For more lighting tutorials, click here.

Happy New Year! Welcome to the New Decade!

Just wishing everyone a Happy and Successful 2010! Let's see what the new decade has in store for us Indy Filmmakers. Obviously, 2009 was a big year, with Indy movies like Paranormal Activity making huge money in the box office, and Paramount starting it's own Low to No Budget division. And the last 10 years have been great, with the success of HD and Digital, now Indy producers film in similar qualities to our rich film counterparts! 3 cheers for Digital Video!

Epic Fail

Well, I learned a few things from the filming way back in September, and they seem so dire that I am going to share them with everyone.

This is hopefully useful information, so what happened to me won't happen to you.

I have been planning, writing, and tweaking this film idea for over a year now. It's got a great, solid script, that has gotten good review from everyone who has read it.

I finally got all the supplies I needed for shooting, and organized a day to film it all.

It went horribly wrong, the actor's didn't want to act, stuff was broken, and the whole thing was taken very unseriously (not a word).

We hardly got anything done, and all the shots we got where hardly usable.

And I can now recognize what the biggest problem was.

The biggest problem I experienced was who i chose to fill the roles, and the way I acted. I chose my closest friends to play the main characters and film. Sadly, only one of them had the actual desire to work on it. The other two messed around most of the time.

So this is what I have to say. If you are going to try to make an indy film, choosing friends is often a great and easy option, but may not always be your best. If your friends don't share the same passion as you do, it is generally unwise to choose them. Unless you have some really great friends who are into whatever you need them for, I would highly recommend choosing someone who may not be so close. Choose the person you know is best for the job, not the easiest.

The most important thing to remember when filming is that everyone has to WANT to be there. They want to make this movie nearly as much as you do, or at least understand your passion about it and want to help you. Especially when the people you're working with don't have the motivation of being payed (or the fear of being fired). They have to want to do this, but not just as a favor. Otherwise your filming will be filled with issue and problem.

I hope you can learn from this, as I now have.

Shooting Tomorrow

Tomorrow, we are hopefully going to be shooting a short test of concept film. We'd like to apologize for the recent lack of posts, I have been rather busy recently. Soon, we will start posting more regular stuff again. We're currently in construction of a low budget greenscreen room, and will have some tutorials and info on that shortly.

Thanks for your patience!

The Project: ANNOUNCED!

Ok, we're finally ready to announce the project we're working on. It's still in early stages, so if it never comes to be, don't get mad. Presenting The Indy Burst Pistol Muzzle Flash Collection.


The collection features over 50 Royalty Free muzzle flashes from 5 weapons for use in your film projects.

All you need is some video effects software that can key black backgrounds, and voila! your ready to go!

We've spent hours recreating the muzzle flashes from 5 pistols, from tons of real videos and pictures. We've tried to make them as accurate and real as possible.

The weapons:
.38 Special
.44 Magnum
Desert Eagle
Glock
M9

And if you don't care for accuracy, you can use these flashes with just about any gun in almost any action movie!

Every different flash style has 3 angles, so you can tweak it to fit virtually any scene. There are 19 flash styles, each with 3 angles, totaling 57 flashes.

This great collection will be available on CD in HD (1280x720 Progressive), SD (640x480) and both (in one package).

For more information, watch the promo ad here or view the info sheets bellow (click to enlarge).


Prices and details are subject to change without notice.

Film Riot

Hey everyone! I just found an amazing site for independent filmmakers called Film Riot! Seriously, this site is absolutely amazing! It's like an awesome mix between Indy Mogul and Video Copilot!

It's a series of free online video tutorials and short films designed to show you how to reproduce Hollywood effects and inspire. They show you how to do everything from bullet wounds to giants, all in an entertaining and humorous way! I highly recommend you check them out!

http://revision3.com/filmriot

Blogged.com Review!

A Blogged.com Editor has reviewed our site and gave us an 8/10 or Great! That's fantastic news! The rating will now be displayed to the right of the main column for all to see!

Project: Update

Part 1 of the new project is nearly complete. Arrangements for distribution when complete are being researched, and future parts are in the design stage. We still can't make any official announcements though. We should be ready to formally announce it soon.

Important Announcement

As you may have noticed, there hasn't been any new posts in some time. Know we are still active here at Indy Burst, and we are planning a big new project. The project may or may not ever come to be, so no promises, but we are hoping it will greatly help people with movies, especially in the action movie effects department. No announcements yet, as the project is only in the planning/concept phases, but it should be very very popular. We'll try to keep you posted on future developments with the project, and start posting more content like normal shortly. Thank you for your patience and you continuing loyalty.

Indy Filmmaking: The Importance of Stock Footage

As an independant filmmaker, I know the difficulties faced when trying to make your final film look good. Let's face it, we (generally) don't have the time or money to get panoramic on location shots, or fly overs of landmarks and famous places where your movie "takes place".

This is where stock footage comes in. Stock footage allows you to get the shots you want, without hiring a pilot, or finding that special place yourself. Need a shot of nature? You got it. Need an aerial of a jungle? You got that too.

Sadly, stock footage isn't cheap, and doesn't always match your movie. If your filming on a Handycam, and you have HD stock footage, it's not gonna work, same with the vice versa.

Good stock footage can make and break the look and quality of you movie. Same goes for action movies. Indy filmmakers probably don't have the budget or resources to go buy squibs and hire pyrotechnicians. That's where stock footage of muzzle flashes and explosions come into play. With a basic effects program, and some footage, you can key in and make some pretty awesome and expensive looking effects. Here are two videos I've made, and neither would've been possible without stock footage:

In both those videos, stock footage was vital to it's creation. I used stock footage from two sources. In Daniel's Tropic Thunder, I used footage and effects from Video Copilot's Action Movie Essentials (1) and Riot Gear collections. They may seem expensive, but they are very reasonable for the quality and price.

For the city picture test, I used parts of Video Copilot's Action Movie Essentials (1) and free footage from Detonation Films. Detonation Films has a lot of very cheap stock footage perfect for action movies! All the explosions and fire you need, and a lot of it is FREE! They have quite literally just about everything you could possibly want in your movie. The only downside is you get what you pay for, and the free footage isn't always the greatest quality (Pre "Unit-K"). If you filming in HD, your probably gonna want to put some money down, and go to their HD site DetFilmsHD. Overall, there's a lot of great free and cheap stuff to find and use.

Thanks for reading!

indy filmmaking