Oh I love you and Beginte. Beginte if you see this you are seriously becoming one of my favorite peoples now

I'd like to share one that I did a few months ago before preparing to go to college. I'd had Magician's Nephew on my mind and I was in a phase of making videos until I toured the transitions with one and decided, I want to seriously make myself disappear. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2tPrxXPuOY

What I did was edited it first. I used a tripod. I walked in and out so if you want to make yourself disappear make sure that when you are off camera give it a few seconds to keep recording because that is when you disappear.

Disappearance: Make sure you go to effects and click slow motion(If you want, I didn't do it but I should have darn, make sure this scene is separate). I explained the transitions in the video. So no need to here

Edit: Yes I used a ring. How did I make that disappear you ask? I walked off with it.
Anymore Questions just ask me and this has been brought to you by Windows Movie Maker.

short but interesting. it reminds me of a video my father has of me and my sister. We played a boy and a genie, with terrible acting- especially on my part. We were kids at the time

back to you: you should follow it with a video of you appearing in the woods, that'd be neat if you could.

yes I want to that. During this I was working on two college films and really concentrating on academics.

During this summer I really want to make a short film with a widescreen panasonic SDR-S26 I just got. So you'll be seeing more

Plus I'm going up to Los Angeles to see one of my film buddies soon this summer and we're going to do a short. Don't know yet but it's going to be interesting

I have several things on YouTube, but this is the first film I ever made, started in 2003 but finally finished a year later.

The Princess and the Cowboy

It's in two parts, and there's a sequel as well. In fact there may one day be a trilogy - some of the cast have expressed interest in it! The first one was filmed on Hi8 tapes which are the same size as a cassette tape. The second was made on miniDV.

Christmas Musical

This one is slightly out-of-season but I want to talk about the different effects in it! It was pretty hard to make because everyone had to mouth along to the words. In the edit I took out the original sound and put in the songs instead. I'm most proud of the blue screen, though! We hung up a big bit of blue cloth (easy to get - just go to a cloth shop and get a big piece of either blue or green matt cloth) and lit it so there were as few shadows as possible. By lit I mean we nicked every bedside lamp from every bedroom and angled them so that they bleached out the shadows behind the actors. It didn't really work; there really wasn't enough room. But it was fun and the effect is kind of cool. You have to have software that lets you do Chromakey, though. I know Windows Movie Maker doesn't have it, but I don't know about others.

I love doing special effects, though. Yours is great! It would be fun to see it in the context of a movie.

I've been wondering and wondering if there was a thread for this, and it turns out that there wasn't, but now there is! Thanks Beginte!

Film is a really fun medium to work with. I'm both a fan of acting and doing behind the scenes stuff, but my favorite thing to do is write. I love screenwriting very much.

It's such an interesting medium, and they're written so weirdly. For example, did you know that if you have a distinctive sound or kind of movement you have to capitalize the word? (i.e., BANG! The gunshot went off.) You also capitalize new props and characters. After the first capitalization for these, you don't have to anymore.

I've learned a great deal about Screenwriting from Script Frenzy, a program in April that has a challenge in writing a hundred page script in thirty days. They have great resources for writers, and I learned more than I knew when I looked at 'em! Then and again, when I started I knew nothing.

And as for films, I've made several with my friends. In general, I've directed them, but for the next film I think I'm going to let someone else do that, or else have help planning or a cinematographer, because I get so, so stressed about it.

I use Adobe Premiere for editing. How about you guys?

@AJ: That's cool about the bluescreen! I've always wondered if that would be possible to do with less-than-a million dollars-worth of equipment.

That reminds me-- one thing I'm really going to focus on in my next film is lighting. I know a filmmaker and one of the things that he told me is that filmmakers are masters of light. They use it in every which way and with every sort of lighting to make the shots look really neat. I haven't done much of it before, but it is really important, so I'm gonna try.

Ooh! Almost forgot! I have a friend from piano practice that's a super-good composer. I mean SUPER-good. She's made it to the Nationals for a country-wide composing competition, which means that she already won for our county, then state. The competition is still happening, too. Anyhow, she takes lessons right after me and our piano teacher has gotten us together to have her do music for my next film! I'm very excited cause it means that I'll have an original SCORE!

I'm glad you guys like the thread

I'm quite a film maniac, though for now my specialty is putting together fan trailers for various films I like.

DamselJillPole, haha, thanks! And what a cool vid, I just love playing around with the disappearance effect! You did it great, I love how the disappearance progresses at just the right pace, not too slow, but not a blink either, perfectly quick, and as soon as you barely touch the ring, it's great!

AJ, that was so very neat! I loved the Princess and the Cowboy, great work there! And I've yet to watch the other one, I'll do that when I have more time, sorry!

Right now I'm preparing a trailer for Disney's 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' (no, it won't be as lame as it sounds ), but it will take some long time, so in the meantime I have an old Doctor Who Christmas special trailer for "The Voyage of the Damned"... and each time I write the title I have the automatic urge to write "Dawn Treader" instead of "Damned"

So here it is, I hope you enjoy! PLEASE watch in the higher quality, the sound is unbearable at 360p!

Well, I'm not really a filmmaker. Everything I make is with Windows Movie Maker or Windows Live Movie Maker. (I hate the Live Movie Maker so I only use it when I HAVE to). I made my sisters graduation slideshow and I made mine. Those two were strictly pictures with background music. Well, and titles and transitions between pictures and stuff.

My sister had two classical music pieces and a song called Hey Daddy (I'm all grown up) by Johnny Horton for her video. I never liked Hey Daddy very much to begin with but I tolerated it and now I can not stand that song after hearing it 100 times while editing my sisters video.

Last summer, my dad wanted a video to show our family and friends about commercially salmon seining (something we do as a family in the summer). So I made that. That one was a bit more difficult because it was pictures and video clips and was the longest one I've ever made (20 minutes).

Also, I had this one song I was going to use. It's called Ocean by Ten Shekel Shirt. And there were a couple of lines "There's something about the ocean" and later "There's something about the sunrise" and later "I know Your glory's in this place." Well, I wanted to put a picture of the ocean, sunrise, and then a beautiful scenery picture at each of those lines and have the line typed on the picture. It took me a long time shortening video clips, adding in pictures, lengthening the time each picture was on the screen, etc. to get the timing exactly right. Fortanutly, I love that song and I did not get sick of it by the time the video was done.

You can still do a lot with Windows Movie Maker narnian_at_heart. That sounds really good with what you do

The only thing that makes me mad is that it is definitely no Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express like those Mac users use. I'll get me one these days

My Christmas Musical video - Windows Movie Maker, though I had to use different software for the bluescreen parts.

Knowing how to use the cheap / free software really does help when you start to use Avid or Final Cut Pro. They're a lot of fun and they can be difficult to get into but they are amazing.

I really want to have someone compose for me, but I don't know if I know anyone able to do so. I have some musician friends so I might try bugging them ...

I know final cut is the best thing ever. I've been using it for a year now in a film class and one of my professors lets me come to work on the program anytime there's no class to work on something. It's so cool. I love Final Cut Pro!

Fun idea, IlF. Actually, we already have a similar topic ('twas hidden on the fourth page of the Spare Oom, so would have been a bit tricky to find). The one key difference is that it is for videos that the post-er has made, and not ones that friends have done. Kate has included the topic guidelines in the Intro post, so if you could post there instead, that would be great. Thanks. And hopefully someone will be able to help you with the youtube link over there ... not sure, myself.
(Btw, the voice of the macaw was very parrot-y. Good lesson for kids, too!)

lol thanks. I made it up on the spot.

here is my youtube link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCfiHOPH5Wc

edit: thanks

Okay, how's this ....

IlF, if you want just the link, you need to type {url=

text here, such as "here is my youtube link"{/url}, but use square brackets [ ] in place of { }. If you want to actually post the video here (although I think a link is a better idea, as images just slow down the page), instead of using [url], use [img].

I'm no expert in this, so if anyone else can give IlF further help, feel free.

ok so my video is a puppet p0lay about a macaw, he likes taching young kids lessons and he aint that good at it.. enjoy

Actually, I quite enjoyed that, IlF. It looks like you had lots of fun doing it. And like I mentioned, great squacky parrot-y/macaw voice. To be sure, some of the best entertainment for younger siblings is when their older brothers and/or sisters put on puppet shows. Glad you recorded this one for our enjoyment too! Did you perform both the macaw and Elmo?