StudentFilmmakers Magazine

12 stories

StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoThe New Medium in Capturing Sound: Transfer, Storage and Backup By Bryant Falk With hard drives and flash storage, tape is done. Sound designer Bryant Falk explains how to transfer, […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoWeekend of Live 360: Live Streaming 360 Video on Facebook By Al Caudullo Al Caudullo describes 360 live streaming for Facebook’s Weekend of Live 360, from planning a Bangkok rooftop […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoInternet Audio Production: Clarity and Loudness By Bryant Falk Media moved online and audio has to keep up. Sound designer Bryant Falk explains how to produce […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoThe Importance of Dolly Shots and Setting Up Your Track By Michael Corbett Dolly shots build tension and reveal story. Michael Corbett explains why moving camera shots matter and how […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoInterview with Filmmaker Paolo Dy on His Award-Winning Short Miko By Jody Michelle Solis Filipino filmmaker Paolo Dy talks about Miko, his first-place short film starring Sam and Raymond Concepcion, […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoEffectively Balance the Brightness of Different Scene Elements By Ira Tiffen Balance matters in images too. Ira Tiffen explains how to balance the brightness of different scene elements […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoThe On-Set Cadence: A Script for Calling a Shot By Michael Corbett “Roll sound. Speed. Roll camera.” Michael Corbett gives a brief script you can use to call a […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoMoney Makes the Film Go ’Round: Balancing Budget and Schedule By David K. Irving Time is money on any shoot. David K. Irving explains the balance between budget and schedule […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideo26 Tricks for Adding Layers of Suspense to Your Stories By Sherri Sheridan Stories without tension feel flat. Sherri Sheridan shares 26 tricks for adding layers of suspense, conflict and […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoPre-Visualization Tools By David K. Irving If the screenplay is the blueprint, previs is the model. David K. Irving explains pre-visualization tools, […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideo27 Ways to Add Humor and Funny Moments to Your Scenes By Sherri Sheridan Almost every movie needs funny moments to relieve tension. Sherri Sheridan lists 27 ways to add humor […] Source

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StudentFilmmakers MagazineVideoAn Editing Time-Saver By Torb and Nola Jensen Lessons from an Alaskan fish factory: Torb and Nola Jensen share an editing time-saver for […] Source

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The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo