Free Software For Digital Filmmakers
You don't have to pay for high-end filmmaking tools
Mar 22, 2009
With a bit of extra effort, these downloadable applications give professional results for zero cost.
Here's a short list of freely available video and film production applications that serve as very effective substitutes for commercial packages costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. They range from screenwriting and pre-production to visual effects compositing to nitty-gritty video processing. And while they may not be as pretty or user friendly as the big names, but they get the job done.
- HDVSplit, the easiest, least resource-intensive way to capture video from an HDV camera. A completely stable solution that equals or bests even the built-in capture utilities in commercial NLE packages. It includes a reliable "scene detection" fuction so that your video captures as separate clips, not just as one long file.
- AVISynth, essentially a programming language for video processing. Which might seem scary, and the learning curve is steep. But it provides an astonishing amount of control over how your video is handled, ensuring optimal video quality. It can be used to do just about anything, from merging video and audio to pulldown removal. And it functions as a frameserver, which means that there's no need for intermediate files--your source file is processed on the fly and fed to the application of your choice as if it were already saved with the changes in place.
- VirtualDubMod. The Swiss army knife of video processing tools. It will batch process any pile of avi files in any way you wish--frame rate changes, color depth changes, resizing, deinterlacing, field swapping, sharpening, blurring, codec conversions, and on and on. And if you have really specialized needs, there's a whole host of plugins available with remarkable capabilities that rival or exceed commercial packages. The DeShaker plugin, for example, is easily one of the best and most feature-packed image stabilization solutions out there, all the more remarkable because it is free.
- Icarus, a 3D camera tracker for compositing visual effects elements into a moving-camera shot. A freeware alternative to commercial packages like Boujou, it analyzes a video file and produces a virtual camera that matches the movement of the real camera and can be imported into any 3D package. Its status as freeware is questionable at the moment, as it was picked up by The Pixel Farm and turned into PFTrack. But if you hunt around a bit you can still find the personal edition for download, if you're using it for non-commerical purposes.
- Voodoo Tracker, another, definitely freeware, 3D camera tracker. If Icarus fails, Voodoo might just do the job. And unlike Icarus, it appears to be still in active development.
- Blender, a remarkably capable 3D modeling and animation package that competes well with high-end expensive packages like Maya and 3D Studio Max. Use it to build digital sets, creatures, spaceships, whatever. Steep learning curve, even for experienced 3D artists, but it produces entirely professional results.
- Celtx, a screenwriting and pre-production tool. A freeware alternative to programs like Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter, it not only allows the creation of properly formatted screenplays, but will also assist you in breaking them down into production needs and scheduling your shoot. Constantly in development, and its collaboration tools are no longer free, but it remains a completely viable and inexpensive alternative for pre-production. (See the review of version 2.0 here.)
The copyright of the article Free Software For Digital Filmmakers in Filmmaking 101 is owned by Doug Sinclair. Permission to republish Free Software For Digital Filmmakers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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