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Five filmmaking tricks and techniques that you need to learn

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Everybody’s always looking for tips, tricks and shortcuts to make their lives easier. Whether it’s photoshop, filmmaking, or just about any part of our lives. With filmmaking, especially, there are a lot of different things to learn and experiment with. So videos like this one from the folks at Film Riot are always welcome.

In it, Ryan Connolly gives us five of his favourite filmmaking tips that he’s used regularly over the past 10 years. Things that every filmmaker should at least try and know a little bit about for those times when it might just be the perfect solution to a problem that pops up.

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This is how famous breathtaking stunts were performed before we had green screens and after effects

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Silent films of the early 20th century had some pretty breathtaking stunts that would be made using a green screen in modern days. Just think of Harold Lloyd’s famous clock scene or Charlie Chaplin’s roller skating scene. Some of the stunts they filmed even seemed quite dangerous, but this video shows that it was, in fact, all a matter of perspective and clever planning.

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Here are four green screen tricks you can make without the green screen

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Green screen is a popular and useful tool for creating all kinds of visual effects. You can DIY it, you can even paint it, but there are some awesome green screen tricks which don’t even require it! In this video, Jordy and Yannick of Cinecom.net demonstrate four of these tricks you can pull off without using an actual green screen, but by chroma keying smaller objects.

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How to use Photoshop’s “Blend If” feature like a pro

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Blend If is a very useful Photoshop tool. Jesús Ramirez of Photoshop Training Channel calls it “the unsung hero,” and he wants to teach you how to use this handy feature. In his video tutorial, you’ll learn some theory about “Blend If” and how to use it to replace the sky, create special effects and apply textures in Photoshop.

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How to turn smoke into low lying fog for your next spooky photo shoot

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Low lying fog can be fantastic for those creepy photo shoots, especially out on location. Or, perhaps you’re trying to recreate the look of a particular 80s pop music TV show. Whatever your reason, low lying fog often works much better than a more elevated smoke-filled atmosphere choking your subject.

In this video from Jay P Morgan for The Slanted Lens, we see how to make a smoke machine produce low lying fog. And all you need is a cooler and a big block of ice.

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How to make your own DIY air-powered blood squibs

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Movie special effects usually come with a big price tag. They can be complicated, requiring specialised (and licensed) skill sets. Some are also very dangerous if not performed correctly. Blood squibs are no exception. They’re the packs that you see explode whenever somebody gets shot in a movie or TV show.

Traditionally, squibs hold a small explosive charge that detonates on demand. You’ll generally need to be licensed in order to create and use them, and there are all kinds of safety checks. There are safer options, though. Such as this one shown in this video from John Hess at Filmmaker IQ. We see us how to make our own (relatively) safe squibs using a very minimal list of ingredients..

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Watch: 28 years of Photoshop in only 3 minutes

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We all use Adobe Photoshop, at least up to some point. It’s definitely the most used photo editing software in the world. What’s more, it’s one of the world’s most used and most famous pieces of software in general. This short and fun video will guide you through 28 years of Photoshop in only 3 minutes.

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Aerial Perspective – The depth your images have been consciously missing.

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Something I’m going to be touching on today is referred to in the painting world as “Aerial Perspective”, a way, if not “the” way to create depth in your images. When you see pictures of mountains, or landscapes you’ll often notice that they are coated with fog, clouds, smoke, steam, etc in order to make the background appear further away.

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How To Create Bullet haze and Fire haze in Photoshop

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Sell the fake or add to the surrealism.

As as creative retoucher and composite photographer, these are two aspects that in my opinion are very important, you either learn techniques to help blend realism into the piece, or techniques to make it stand out and add surrealism. For example, you can have a model float in the air with giant swords, fighting a very angry octopus, but if the shadows are in the wrong direction to the sun, then i’m sorry but that is a big fat fail! [Read More…]

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