If you’re interested in getting big budget looks in your low budget indie film, then you should be very familiar with the Shanks FX channel on YouTube. If you’re not, you should get acquainted with it… like now! Joe Schenkenberg aka Joey Shanks is the man with the know-how when it comes to creating Hollywood effects out of simple household items. He teamed up with PBS Digital Studios to bring you quality behind-the-scenes content online and has recently partnered with Red Giant to explain how he created a black hole effect very similar looking to the one in the recent movie Interstellar – all captured in-camera.

Lately, I've found myself watching lots of stop motion films. It's something I've always wanted to try (I've tried very simple things thanks to Vine), but never really dove into. Now, after watching "Infinitude," my head is spinning at the possibilities of what you can create with stop motion.

I'm not much for gambling, but I've always said that if I spent some time in Las Vegas that I would check out a show by Cirque Du Soleil. This short film absolutely confirms the kind of creativity and magical displays that I've longed to see in person.

Flare has become a huge part of modern photography for how it can add both depth and excitement to an image. Many of us have resorted to manually creating lighting effects using Photoshop or by layering pre-made textures above our photos. Red Giant, however, looks to replace and augment this rather tedious process with Knoll Light Factory.

Canadian Designer, Photographer, and Cinematographer Tom Kucy doesn't sleep. Less than two days after we reported on NASA's huge release of over 10,000 never-before-seen photos from the Apollo space missions, Kucy decided to work them into a project that involves taking these almost half-century old two-dimensional film images and converting them into moving, stereoscopic 3D photographs.

Have you every attempted to take a photo or video through glass? What about shooting through a fence or a tree branch? These common obstructions can easily ruin our footage but this new software can completely clean the scenes with just a few reference frames.

If you've played a few shooter video games in the last two decades, chances are you've seen at least one with a point of view that is looking from the top-down. The team over at Corridor Digital wanted to recreate this style in a video short (which also meant doing it all in a single take!) so they partnered with DJI to make it happen. This video takes you behind the scenes on their shoot, but check the full post for the final video and a second BTS piece.

The era of 360-degree filmmaking is upon us. Google, in collaboration with The Mill and production company Bullitt, has released the 360-degree short film "HELP" for free on Google's mobile storytelling platform Spotlight Stories. The film is full of explosions, aliens, and action all within a beautiful 360-degree world.

Always looking to try something different with his aerial videos, Vietnam-based Filmmaker Rufus Blackwell recently shared with me his latest project. His techniques combine motion control through planned waypoint missions, and then manipulating the footage in a visual effects software to mirror the ground in an almost "Inception"-like effect.

Two years ago I featured a macro videographer who was creating incredible visuals using chemicals and substances. Roman De Giuli has done it again, this time for the Winter Olympics.

Audi took advantage of Monday night's presidential debates with its "Duel" ad spot. Nearly the entire clip plays in reverse, allowing the chronology of the true story and how the action unfolded to the point at which you began to unravel itself in an action-packed scene. The rewound clip -- fit for a 007 film -- features quite the production, complete with excellent, blockbuster-born sound effects to sell every punch and shattering glass shard. But it doesn't take much studying to see this was hardly as easy as rewinding an otherwise-normal action sequence: it took great audio to create this spectacle.

South Africa native Matthew Rycroft creatively combined creepy music, a creepy-looking dude, and some dark, chiaroscuro lighting techniques to create a video that brilliantly mocks the cliché Instagram accounts with which we're all too familiar. The final result is a well thought-out piece that's short and sweet and definitely leaves room for more.

In this tutorial video, Caleb Pike shows us how to make a double exposure video. It's as simple as it is to do it with digital photography, and it can be used for wedding videos, documentaries, road trip vlogs, or just for fun as a profile GIF.

We’ve noticed the trend. Video is becoming the way most people communicate online these days. How can you as photographer use video as a tool to influence the personal brand you are constantly building, and how can you expand your product offering to clients? There are various types of videos you can focus on to produce, and the aim should be to make videos that you would like to make for a client. Therefore, it needs to be professional, and something clients might actually use as their marketing and advertising materials.

Of the many categories in the Oscars, perhaps one of the most interesting for photographers and videographers is the award for Best Visual Effects. This awesome compilation shows a clip from every winner from 1929 to 2017.

For all you creators out there! LG understands there’s more to the final output. There’s also the “process.” All the hours spent working, toiling, creating, that no one ever sees. The endless brain-strain and ideating a creator dedicates to their goal is what makes up their UltraWide Time. Few will ever see or understand the process, where all the work and magic happen. But LG understands.

We see computer-generated effects every day of our lives, but very few of us fully appreciate the amount of time and talent they take to create. It's easy to believe that these effects and characters are "computer-generated," but in reality, very talented artists are the ones creating this photo-realistic content; computers are simply the tool.

The time-lapse has been a fundamental technique in filmmaking and videography for some time, and the methods and results have simply improved consistently, year on year. Watch this comprehensive guide by the time-lapse photographer known for works like the intro sequence to the hit U.S. remake of "House of Cards".

Comicbookgirl19 has to be my favorite channel on youtube at the moment. She and her trusty side-kick, 'Robot', review the latest shows, movies and comic books. Recently she interviewed one of the greatest practical special effects artists of our time, Alec Gillis. They discuss why practical effects seem to be losing traction in the film industry and how it will affect future filmmaking.

If you've been on Facebook or hopping around YouTube's popular videos lately, chances are you've seen the video advert for the "Squatty Potty," a step stool used to make, well, going poop much easier on your body. Sound like a tricky concept to sell? See how a team of creatives turned an ad about a dookie-easing product into an Internet sensation.

The Hitfilm crew, Kirstie Tostevin, Josh Davies, and Simon Jones take over Film Riot to bring you a kick-butt tutorial on how to create an Iron Man heads-up display effect with their free HitFilm 4 Express software.​ This eight-minute video takes us all the way from pre-production to post-production.

There are many times in the automotive industry that when you're asked to shoot a car, you frequently cannot move the car either from where it is or far from where it's being stored due to its rarity, sometimes condition, and sometimes even questionable street-legality. This can definitely cause some problems when it comes to producing high-end images of the cars for a client. If they want only detail shots then you're good as you won't need to show much of the background to accomplish their goals. However, if they've got high hopes and want the car to be pictured anywhere except where it actually is you have to be a bit creative.

Ryan and Josh Connolly of Film Riot always brings us the coolest do-it-yourself filmmaking and special effects tutorials. In this "rewind" episode (read: old) they show us how to create the killer effect of throwing someone clear across the room. What's doubly cool is how easily this can be done with just a still camera and software that most of us already have (Photoshop and After Effects).

So many photographers have recently been dipping their toes in the world of video. You can edit photos like a pro, but maybe you just can't seem to figure out video editing; it's very complex – like an onion, so many layers – and now you have to deal with sound design! If you've used presets for your photo editing, then you should definitely consider plugins for your video editing. Red Giant sent us a copy of their recently updated Universe 2.1. Jump on in and see what it's all about.

The guys from Film Riot catch ‘Guy Ritchie Disease’ and in the process teach you how to create the "Guy Ritchie" freeze frame effect. Whether you need an awesome intro title for your film or even a great effect for your own behind the scenes photography vlog, this Film riot video shows you how to create it in Adobe After Effects. If you’re more comfortable in Photoshop, you can put it together in there and then animate it in After Effects.

Whether you realize it or not, most videos produced for cinema or even high-end marketing campaigns have some sort of cropping on it, be it by design or with a specific purpose in mind. It's a common occurrence, and for the most part, when you wanted to use this kind of cropping you either had to make your own templates or scour the web in order to find what you were looking for. Well thanks to the folks over at PremiumBeat.com, they have compiled an extensive list of what they claim to be every popular video resolution in the world. All the way from 720 HD to 8K and creating crop ratios from 1:1 to 4:1 Polyvision.

In their latest video, Film Riot's Frontman/Director Ryan Connolly comes to my backyard (Vancouver, BC) to film a truly epic bar brawl short. This entire series of videos is extremely useful when it comes to learning what it takes to film a quality short. The "Uncut Behind the Scenes" video is seriously my favorite of the bunch as you get a very candid look at every little detail and consideration the cast and crew had to make.

The price disparity between entry-level and high-end equipment in photography and videography is larger than every, and in many ways, that makes comparing them more interesting. In this video, one videographer shoots b-roll with a cheap smartphone gimbal and an expensive stabilizer rig to see just how much difference there is.

There is almost no area of videography that won't use B-roll at one point or another. In this video, add three great B-roll transitions to your arsenal that are quick and easy to learn.

The team at Red Giant Films, working with special effects guru Stu Maschwitz, have yet again released another compelling short video. Unlike other shorts such as Spy vs. Guy and Plot Device, this is actually a pitch trailer for a film based on a video game that they hope to create. Check the full post for the behind the scenes video too!