Plugins for both photography and video are plentiful nowadays, and the quality of them varies hugely. Here are one cinematographer's favorite video plugins that he is glad he invested in.

I love photography and videography competitions, particularly with they take some thought to be able to enter. Well, this one light challenge is exactly that.

There are a lot of keys that unlock great-looking video productions, and one, in particular, is your b-roll. Not only can it improve your story-telling and flow, but it can keep the viewer engaged and watching — something more important than ever in today's world of distractions. Here is how you can shoot a great b-roll sequence from start to finish.

The show Stranger Things created a stunning way of representing the inner mind of the character Eleven, showing her in an endless black void and standing upon a reflective layer of water. How is this achieved, and how do you avoid electrocuting your cast in the process?

Gimbals are now as much of a consumer item as they are a high-end professional one, which means far more videographers are using them. Although stabilized footage is the goal, you can get extra creative with how you use it, and these three techniques can really help you stand out.

It's exciting when you are hired for a music video, but you are allowed to film it as a drama short film with elements of musical. In this article I will share the challenges in such a production.

With a blacked-out studio setup and iPhones mounted to what looks like selfie sticks, they’ve documented experiments that showcase visual reactions. It’s all on display here.

If you are shooting on a budget, many desirable effects are tantamount to impossible to guarantee, particularly if you want to capture them in camera. Rain is one of the trickiest and with this tool, you can add it in, realistically, in post.

Brandon Li has forged a reputation for finding imaginative ways of producing professional results with limited gear. In this short video, he teaches you how to remove all of the lighting equipment from a shot by intelligent use of split screens and layers.

Science meets art once again. Abe Davis, a computer science PhD student at MIT, recently published a research about interaction with the objects in videos, by measuring and mapping the vibrations of their movements. His project, which he developed with Justin Chen and Fredo Durand, and patented by MIT, aims to be used both in engineering and videography.

It’s been said that when directing any project, 90 percent of your time will be dedicated to communicating with personnel. This means that directing, while it’s often branded as a personal, individual process, is inextricably tied to the quality of the relationships you hold with the creatives on your team.

Mission Impossible III was recently launched, and what makes it a special movie to go watch is the fact that most of the stunts were done by Tom Cruise himself and that they were done in real time and space, on location, and without much CGI. His movies are revered as some of the best action movies, and it's because of this reason it's worth noticing that the real thing is often better than the simulation.

Are you more into narrative-based video production than commercial ad-based video? In this video, Studio Binder shows you how to reproduce a scene from Christopher Nolan’s Inception for a mere $310.

The beauty of cinematography is that a lot of the requisite skills are practicable in your own home. In this video, watch as a professional cinematographer creates a high-end shot in his own house, walking you through every step.

If you're into travel photography and video you've heard of Sam Kolder. You can find tutorial videos about how to get his transitions and how to shoot to make your videos flow like his does. This video breaks it all down and gives an overview of what gear he uses and how he shoots in a certain way to be sure to get the transition from one shot to the next down so he can edit it in the style he's known for.

As a freelancer, I find myself taking on different roles in both production and post. I can do some modest animations, but any major work, I outsource to an animator. With plugins like the Trapcode Suite though, even a simpleton like me can make some eye-catching graphics.

As we all know, even the most stunning visuals require an equally amazing and unique soundtrack to bring the audience's emotions to their full potential. Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Christopher Boyles from Skywalker Sound discusses his work and the burden of creating original sounds for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" that will stand the test of time.

Using smoke has been a staple in photography and cinematography for some time, and to great effect. Here is a tutorial on how to create a spiral look to the smoke for an awesome result.

Writer and director Ryan Connolly, over at Film Riot, wanted to challenge himself to see if he and his crew could turn out a realistic, action-packed, science fiction short film with no script, three hundred dollars, and a whole lot of help from his friends.

Slow motion is, certainly, one of the most beautiful cinematic inventions of all time. It can show us so many things that are not normally visible and can make any "normal" scene look magical and unique. For the past few years the slow motion technologies have continued to improve, and just last year the Phantom Flex4K Digital Cinema Camera was announced introducing some groundbreaking slow motion abilities like shooting at 1,000fps at at 4K resolution. Shortly after its release, Director Brendan Bellomo and cinematographer Greg Wilson got their hands on the camera and took it for a test and created this beautiful video called "Let Me Know When You See Fire."

If you're striving to create more interesting and unique shots in-camera, one solution might be to use some of the creative filters on the market today. Here's how one videographer found using some and the results that came of it.

In this Film Riot video, actor and director Ryan Connolly gives us the rundown on how to create a blind eye effect, similar to what we see happen to Arya Stark in HBO's, "Game of Thrones." Film Riot pulls this off in Adobe After Effects (although this tutorial can be applied to your compositor of choice) and without the use of painful contact lenses.

The amount of high-end television and film on display in recent years is unparalleled. One show that got a lot of attention is the drama mystery, DARK after it was added to Netflix. Its acting and plot are both brilliant, but the cinematography is utterly superb.

Sam Kolder is one of the prolific YouTube creators who has gained viewership because of his editing skills, the transitions he is able to make, and style of narration and cutting footage to fit the story. In this video, he tells a story about animal conservation, and for any photographer or video producer, it should be inspiring and motivation to use your skills to do good.

Videography has become more demanding than ever before in terms of expected quality. While much of this difficulty is found behind the camera, on location, your edit makes up a large part of it too. In this video, find out how one videographer makes his videos pop in the post-production phase.

Some Dads bring their kids to the playground, some even play the same sport. Action Movie Dad sends his son to other worlds with his VFX know how and childlike imagination. This time around, he's showing us exactly how it's done.

Through Premiumbeat.com's Vimeo channel and blog, motion graphic designer Kevin Gater did the world a huge favor by recently providing a tutorial on creating realistic, falling snow with RED Giant's After Effects plug-in. There are a ton of settings in After Effects, let alone in the RED Giant Trapcode Particular plug-in, that would take forever to navigate; but Gater does a great job going through which settings to ignore and which ones to pay attention to so you'll know exactly what to tweak for your needs. Thankfully, in 15 minutes, you can be ready to add great snow effects for the holiday season or that high-mountain horror short with just a few careful clicks.

Green screen footage is really meant to be worked with in post, but it's assumed that it's shot in proper fashion.