Technical Editing Props for Fan Film Makers

Fan Films
Technical Editing Props for Fan Film Makers
By Hervé St-Louis
Aug 31, 2008 - 16:45

Fan film creators have more and more choices to create their original films than creators from a decade ago. Just a few years ago, when John Fiorella created Grayson, he had to spend upwards to $18,000 to shoot the famous fan film Grayson, about an older Robin following in the footsteps of his mentor Batman. While much of the cost was used on props and cameras, a significant amount was also used on the editing suite.

Just a few years later, the options for budding fan filmmakers are multiple and more affordable, making the presence of high quality independent films like Grayson something more attainable by the majority of fan filmmakers. While many will stick to professional platforms like Final Cuts Pro or even Sony Vegas, there are other options on the market that allow directors to do everything between grabbing stock all the way to making DVD copies on demand. I’ve briefly played with a suite of audio and video converter called Blaze media Pro and was surprised at the amount of features I found in the package.

The feature set far outweighs what is available with a personal computer, like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. The most useful set tools were the multiple converters allowing me to grab media from several formats and use them in one composition. If you’ve ever chased around for a specific converter that could convert and SWF file into an AVI and backward, you know what I’m talking about. There is a good set of features that although, not as intuitive as say those in Adobe Premier, make up for it in their price.

Basic audio editing is also available which is a good thing. Although not available for the Mac, Blaze Media Pro, will work with recent Windows operating systems. Even if you’re not into making full blown fan films with budget ranging in a few thousand dollars, this suite of program is good for the You Tube director that lies dormant in most of you.