Movie Production:
Basic After Effects Training - The best set of free introduction videos for After Effects beginners.
After Effects Tutorials - More great After Effects tutorial videos.
CyberCollege - A free site that goes in-depth into TV production and covers everything, including Directing, Cameras, Lighting, and Audio. It even has quizzes at the bottom to test your knowledge and help you retain what you have learned.
Detonation Films - A site with a lot of effects stock footage that can be easily composited over video for explosions, fire, sparks, etc. They’re all shot either against a blue sky for bluescreen keying or against black for luma keying.
Camcorderinfo.com - One of THE best websites for information and specifications on camcorders. If you’re looking to purchace a camera, check out this site to find extensive reviews and opinions on the latest in video technology.
Music/Audio
Flash Kit - A great site for sound FX, sound loops, even fonts! Plus, lots of other helpful information on Flash.
Jamendo CC-Licensed Music - A site where you can download free music! Jamendo gives music artists the opportunity to offer their songs through different variations of the Creative Commons license. Great to find songs for your own film or just to listen too.
Public Music Project - This project is an online compilation of publicly available music. All songs on the website are 100% free for any type of use to anyone. The project involves no money and is useful to musicians because they can get exposure. Artistic users (i.e. filmmakers , DJ’s, etc.) of the music are required to credit and notify (but never pay) the musicians.
Kevin MacLeod’s Royalty Free Music - This site has music that you can use in movies legally and for free under the Creative Commons licence. Categorized by genre, this site includes everything from horror music to Beethoven to rock.
Audacity - A free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
ZynAddSubFX - An open source software synthesizer capable of making a countless number of instruments. Great for audio customization! Click here for the Windows executeable file.
Screenwriting
A Few Notes on Formatting - By the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
How to Write a Screenplay - A well organized site on screenwriting.
Celtx - A multi-use software application for writing screenplays, AV scripts, Audio Plays, and more.
Cinergy - The easiest way to automatically apply industry standard formatting and pagination rules to your script.
Video Encoders / Players
SUPER - A free, all-in-one video converter. A simple and very efficient tool to encode or play any multimedia file. INSTRUCTIONS: If you’re having trouble finding the download link, here’s what to do. From the home page, scroll to the very bottom and click “Start downloading SUPER”. On the next page, click “download and use”. Finally, scroll to the bottom, and you should see a “Download SUPER setup file” link. Done!
Riva FLV Encoder - A free tool to transcode your existing videofiles (AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, WMV) to the advanced Flash Video (FLV).
JW FLV Media Player - A CC licensed website embeddable program to stream video files. It supports playback of FLV, MP3, H264, SWF, JPG, PNG and GIF.
EDMS DVD’s
EDMS Homepage - Educational Media Services (4th Floor of Library Annex)
Full List of DVD’s Available
Software Videos
- Getting Started with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0
- Total Training for Adobe Design Bundle: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Golive, Flash, Acrobat, CS2 (a 17-disc set)
- Total Training for Adobe After Effects Pro: Essentials
- Total Training for Adobe After Effects Pro: Professional Features
- Total Training for Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
- Total Training for Final Cut Pro 5
- Environment Creation for Production: 3ds Max Modeling and Texturing with Tim Jones
Other Recommendations
- The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing
Other Links
Safari Books Online - Free books available online through A&M’s network. If you’re not on-campus, you will need to use VPN to access this resource.Click here for more information on VPN.
A&M Student Software - Low priced software avaiable to student’s at A&M.
Studica.com - Discounted student software.
RSS Feeds
Video Copilot
Planet Photoshop
Withoutabox.com - Festival Submissions
Withoutabox.com - Upcoming Festivals
Camcorderinfo.com - News & Reviews
Camcorderinfo.com - Blog