Being a person that so far hasn’t caught GAS or gear acquisition syndrome, I tend to buy very little equipment unless I really need it. On a recent short road trip, I met up with an old classmate and her husband. I found out she was quite an enthusiastic outdoor photographer for their hikes and they use a mini tripod/selfie stick. Something Small And Light I didn’t get the opportunity to ask what tripod she used but I thought that was really useful a tool to bring along. I’ve a large heavy Manfrotto tripod which I almost never carry out because it is large and heavy. ...

A new version of Shotcut has been release. In version 23.07.29, there are man bug fixes. There are also 2 new audio filters to over audio issues i.e. pop and crackling sound some users have encountered when they export. Watch the short 2 minute video below where I explain the new features. A viewer on my YouTube channel said there were more bugs in some of the newer versions of Shotcut. This may or may not happen to you. ...

Filmora now allows you to create visual effects that are based on music. You can create effects like dancing lights vertically, horizontally even in a circle. Here’s how it works and how you can create them. You can also keyframe them to make it do all kinds of creative effects. If your videos are targeted to an older audience, I suggest you don’t go overboard with them. ...

Big things coming to Shotcut. Among them GPU effects with 10-bit video, motion tracking, speed ramp filters, save/load filter sets, Mask Simple Shape VUI. Watch this short video for my take and some sample of what is to come. Stay tuned for more tutorials and subscribe to my channel to be notified. ...

Filmora 12 recently integrated ChtGPT and an AI image generator into the software. This make using Filmora so much more interesting especially if you suddenly run out of ideas. This short video below will show you how to use ChatGPT and the AI image generator inside Filmora. Hope you try it out yourself. ...

In the video below, I will show you some practical examples of how you can use ChatGPT for video creation. You don’t have to use it just for YouTube video titles and ideas. You can prompt ChatGPT to help you plan a video including scenes, best location to shoot even if you are making videos as an amateur. Hope you like the video. ...

The lesson below shows you how to add text behind moving objects. The object can be a person, a vehicle or even if the camera moves. It uses the built in Glaxnimate mask feature and can make for a dramatic effect. It is great for showing location if the text shows a location. By the way, this lesson is part of The Official Shotcut Training. A number of people asked for it, so I released to YouTube. ...

To add text behind a moving object using Filmora, we will make use of mask. A mask is a tool to select a section within a frame and hide the rest of the frame. With Filmora 12, you have the ability to keyframe a mask. This is extremely useful because the object is moving and/or change shape. This method works whether the object moves in a scene or like in the tutorial below the camera moves. ...

This is a short tip if you use Shotcut. If you have a lot of clips say from holiday that you want to make into a video with transitions, here’s how to do it in less than 2 minutes. This uses the Playlist function. By the way, the Playlist is useful in many ways. If you want to learn how, check out my Shotcut Training. ...

Here’s a quick simple trick to make a big head or a bubble head effect for your video. For this, we will use Filmora 12. It should take you 2 to 3 minutes to do this. From a scale of 1 to 5 (easy to difficult) in terms of difficulty, I rate this as Level 1. The real challenge for this effect is to make sure you don’t move your body too much when you want to “big head” to happen. ...