This is a little post about what software and hardware I use when working on my little films. I’m always curious to know what other people are using, so I thought I’d share, even if only to have this as an inventory list for myself.
I want to note, that to start with making things it’s not necessary to go out and buy expensive tools (or the tools listed below). Best policy is to use what you already have, and expand your toolbelt slowly, when necessary, and when affordable. Most things I own I got second-hand or for free.
Where it makes sense I’ll link to the product. I’m UK-based so it may not be helpful to most, but it’s a good reference. And, of course, I’m not paid to promote and I don’t endorse all of these. They’re just what I use at the moment. The list is in no particular order, and non-exhaustive - just what’s most relevant.
Building this Website and Writing
I used to host with blot.im, but since write my notes and scripts in Obsidian I’m trying out Obsidian Publish. It’s more expensive than Blot but more convenient for my purposes. The setup was a pain though.
Obsidian is a mardkown text editor. It comes for free unless you want their cloud sync or their online publishing service. Its stand-out features revolve around linking notes together to relate new ideas with old ones, and create structures that help you rediscover old thoughts in new contexts. I don’t dive too deeply into all that, and mostly use it as a wiki to manage my personal notes and projects.
3D modelling and animation
I use Blender for most things 3D, including modelling characters and environments, rigging, texturing, animating, rendering, etc. It’s a great free and open-source tool, and I’d love if more tools as powerful and available existed.
For CAD modelling and drawing, I use Rhino3D. Very precise and quick, with a great supportive team and community.
This is very niche, and not worth learning for the sake of film making. It’s more useful for people designing for real world procurement (architecture, industrial design, jewelry, engineering), but if you already know CAD this is great if you need a precise and complex model quickly. For instance, a structurally convincing building, a blue-print / plan, a machine part, a plane or a ship (Rhino was originally designed for ship-making), etc.
The geometry could be made in Rhino and moved to Blender for texturing animation and detailing.
To examplify the distinction between Blender and Rhino: For a film, I wouldn’t model a skyscraper in Blender - not precise enough; and I wouldn’t be making a water bottle in Rhino - overkill, I could do this in a minute in Blender without the need to export & import. Since the animation happens in Blender, all the 3D scene assets must end up in here.
Video editting
DaVinci Resolve is a film post-production programme that I could see becoming industry standard. Its selling feature is the node-based colouring workspace, but does it for me is having the whole post-production package (cutting, effects, colouring, exporting) in a single app which performs well on my laptop.^[This is in opposition to Adobe programmes which are slow, old, crash, are expensive, and you’d have to rent like three of them to produce even a simple video that includes some visual effects (like animation, or masking).]
Digital Illustration, Painting, and 2D animation
Krita - free and open-source. It’s perfect for painting and illustration (not so much for photo editting or text) if you are fine with working with raster-based images. It has a minimal but robust enough animation feature-set, and I’ve used it to finish several animations, including a 1-minute short. There is even a way to embed an audio file into the animation timeline so you could do a whole post-production inside Krita if you don’t mind its limitations.^[Although, for large (>1GB) multi-scene films, I highly recommend splitting up the file. The programme can start struggling, slow down and even corrupt your project data. I’ve had this happen and had to manually search for and delete corrupted layers by opening the project file as a .rar - it was fine in the end but scary. Also recommended are frequent backups.]
Filming
Cameras
iPhone 12 Pro, got on sale for around £800. If you have a smartphone, nowadays, you probably have a great camera right in your pocket, and I’d recommend using that before buying something else. I buy a new phone every 5-7 years, usually refurbished, discounted or second-hand from relatives, so for me it was a worthwhile investment.
Cannon EOS 700d, I bought off of my friend for £200. DSLRs are not ideal for filming, but if you have one, might as well use it. This one is a little old and I’m feeling its pain-points everytime I use it.
What I dislike about using this DLSR is that it shuts off after an hour of filming (the sensor is not intended for extended filming), and you can’t use EOS 700d as a webcam - Cannon’s drivers and PC apps don’t support it.
That said, the benefit is that I have two separate cameras, if I need it for some scene (i.e. cross-shooting a dialogue). The challenge would be setting them up and editting the footage in a way that the viewer is not distracted by the differences in video quality between the two sensors.
Tripod
National Geographic NGPT002. This is a very cheap, light, and large tripod. I chose it for the price and because it can elevate the camera up to my eye-line.
It’s quite a light stand, so I can imagine that outside in windy conditions it would give you trouble (although there is a hook at it’s base so you could weigh it down very easily).
For filming it’s also not the most optimal because it doesn’t give the smoothest pan. It’s okay for slow turns, and you can adjust the sensitivity, but it tends to be a little wobbly.
Otherwise, it’s decent enough. It gives you control over all the axis of rotation, and you can clamp in your phone for filming, which is nifty.
Phone Camera App
If you are filming on your phone, the Blackmagic Camera phone app is something to consider. It’s free and gives you control over your phones sensor. You can change focus, aperture, exposure, ISO, colour temperature, resolution, frame-rate, switch between lenses if you have multiple, change aspect ratio. Basically, it turns your phone into a cinema camera.
I think it’s absolutely fair to use your phone for filming, and if you need someone with more authority to give you the permission, then listen to Claudio Miranda.^[Why “Shot On iPhone” Commercials Look So Good! Ft. Claudio Miranda]
Sound
Microphone
To preface, I’ll say: you can get away with your phone’s microphone for voice-over projects / voice-acting if most of your film comes together in post-production.
BOYA BY-M1 got for £14 but it’s £10 at the time of writing this.
It’s… not the best, but for the price it’s good. The sound to my unsophisticated ear is fine, but the wire is very long and gets in the way. The length is good if you are pluggin it into your camera. I usually plug the lav into phone for audio recording (and keep phone in my pocket) and then sync it in post. If you’d want to do that you might need an adaptor if your phone doesn’t have an audio jack. Which could be another £5-15. I use this one, which… works I guess.
Ideally I’d get a wireless lav at some point, but BOYA is fine for the time being.
Music
Instruments
Acoustic Guitar
Blue Moon BG-28. Got this in univeristy with a student discount for, I believe, £100, with option to sell back but I decided to keep. I think the store was Hobgoblin Music Edinburgh / Scayles Music.
The guitar is not necessary to make films, but I wanted to share this, because if you, the reader, own some instrument, you could score your own film. It’s of course a big challenge. But to me having a project that motivates me to learn more about music, to spend time practicing, is always a good thing. And film, in adittion, provides you with a bouncing off point, you have some vision, some feeling that you are working towards. To me this provides a good starting point that starts putting musi into my head - the challenge then is getting it out.
Electric Piano
Yamaha P45. Got on Gumtree^[Gumtree is an online social marketplace where people sell or give-away second-hand things. There are many other options but, living in London, this has been a great one for me. I got things like my bicycle, table, chairs, desk lamp. I’ve had good luck with finding good bargains here.] for £200. Very worthwhile if you starting to learn piano.
Like most electric pianos it can interface with your computer so you can compose/record with it. It doesn’t offer the range of tools a MIDI keyboard or a more expensive piano would, but, as someone who knows nothing about pianos, I’d say it’s a decent full-sized 88-key starter piano. This has been corroborated by some of my music friends and YouTube reviews.
I got the piano at first, because I wanted to compose a small piece for a short. Since then I’ve gone down a rabbit whole of music theory, so now I’m doing my (almost) daily practice, learning scales, sight reading, and following the ABRSM syllabus… I’m bad at music, but some day I’ll be not-so-bad enough to express myself. For now my clearence goal is to write a simple composition.
Audio Software
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
At the moment, I’m at my primordial stages, but I’m trying my hand at Cakewalk, which is free, and has been around for a long time, so there is a wide selection of instrument packs, and VSTs.
One benefit is that Cakewalk is a conventional DAW, unlike some other freeware alternatives, meaning if I want to move onto other pro options, it should be a straightforward transition. A downside is that it’s development has been discontinued, although it is still maintained for now.
Reaper is an option if you want something with a good free trial. But when using it with Yamaha P45, I had issues with input lag and some notes being “swallowed”.
A music composer friend of mine recommeneded to use FL Studio which is not free but also not awfully expensive, so I may move to that when time comes. I used their trial: the interface feels intuitive, it has some nice default plugins a lot of good free ones.
Audio Editting
Audacity which is technically a DAW, albeit cery limitted, is lightweight, easy to use, and free. It works for removing background noise and ‘pops’ in voice recordings, normalising , for splicing, and layering sounds. For now I need nothing more.
To conclude
Today, we’ve got so many incredible tools at our fingertips, and so many of them are free or affordable. I’ve seen amazing projects by people with far fewer gadgets than I’d listed, so I don’t want the take-away to be that this is some minimum entry requirement to start making. You can create awesome stuff with MSPaint and a free screen capture software^[Like NobeyOne - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07g1A5f3jJI], or with a camera and some paper.^[Like Lev Yilmaz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMlc7Edou7E] All you need is to find the time, and to start making. Push through the initial fear, push through the doubt and the gap of betwen your vision and skill. Take your ideas, use what you already have, and make something, have fun with it—keep at it! If you like it, keep at it, and you’ll get better.