Video Making

Google makes french fries with a potato cannon

This is just a commercial, really, but it’s pretty entertaining. Google advertisers wanted to push their whole “Chrome is fast” angle and so they set up and filmed a series of “tests” where they trigger some fast real-world event and load a page in Chrome at the same moment. Guess which process finishes first every time? Yeah, OK, that was an easy one. It’s hardly “science”–not even the watered-down television kind–but it is, in fact, fairly amusing to watch a potato get blasted through a fry-cutter and into a vat of cooking oil. They also spray paint onto a giant ear model using acoustic waves and zap a tiny pirate ship with a Tesla coil. The making-of video is recommendable, as well. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]

DSLR equipped RC helicopter

Some of the newer DLSR cameras will shoot surprisingly good HD video. Put one on a RC helicopter and you’ve got one exciting toy that can that can take a professional quality shot at a fraction of the cost. Texas-based videographer, maker, and RC pilot Eric Austin has done just that by rigging a Canon 7D to a hobbyist RC helicopter. The resulting shots are amazing.

Backyard FX welcomes new host

Backyard FX welcomes new host

Indy Mogul’s Backyard FX showcases cheap, fun filmmaking with great how-to videos. They just announced their new host, Zack Finfrock, who’ll be taking up the role as host of the weekly web series. The DIY movie makers here at MAKE can’t wait to see what he comes up with. In case you missed it, here’s […]

472 movie makers recreate Star Wars

Rachel @ CRAFT explains: More than 450 DIY movie makers participated in reenacting Star Wars by creating their own versions of 15-second slices of the film that have been spliced back together as Star Wars Uncut, making it the largest crowd-sourced film effort of all time. Casey Pugh sliced the film into into segments and […]

Collin’s Lab: DIY Sci-Fi

Collin’s Lab: DIY Sci-Fi

While waiting patiently for what is likely the galaxy’s slowest turbolift, spacefaring duo Metalmags (Erica Magrey) & The Alien Ambassador (Collin Cunningham) take a casual stroll through the seams of their own chroma-keyed reality – in search of an answer to that age-old question, “Why are we here?”

Read more on how the vid was made –
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/04/collins_lab_diy_sci-fi.html

Money counter flip-book animation

Too late for DIY Movie Making Month, but I couldn’t resist sharing this video created by Rethink Communications, Giant Ant Media, and Wave Productions to promote Design Week Vancouver, which is coming up at the end of April. They printed out over 2,000 bill-sized “frames,” ran them through a bill-counter, and filmed the stack piling up in the receiving tray to create the illusion of motion.