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I’d like to introduce you to a new feature here on Filmmaking Lifestyle. Each month, I’m going to post a round-up post of the best things I’ve found around the web on filmmaking and video production.
We’re talking articles, videos, infographics, all sorts. Anything that stands out to me and that I think is worth keeping in an archive, I’m going to include in these reports.
I’ll be posting one of these at the end of each month, along with all the regular posts you get on Filmmaking Lifestyle as usual.
This is a dated archive of what working filmmakers were reading that month. The cameras, plugins, and platforms will have moved on. The craft points — how you light a green screen, how you steal a frame, how you talk about a director’s eye — often have not. Some 2015 third-party URLs may have moved.
The Best Posts Of October 2015
This month has been pretty eventful in the world of filmmaking and video production!
As this is the first of these monthly wrap-ups, I’ve been a bit liberal with the date ranges and included some things have were posted a little before October 2015.
That first-of-series looseness is part of the record. I was building a habit: once a month, write down what was actually worth a working filmmaker’s time, not what a press release said was important. If you are reading this years later, treat it as a time capsule with a still-usable toolkit inside, not as a shopping list for 2015 kit.
From random inquiries to a steadier rhythm
A guided sequence to tighten how you show up, who you follow up with, and what you say when opportunity appears.
Filmmaking & Directing
Pretty cool to see a David Fincher talking about his secrets on directing and visual storytelling.
I keep going back to Fincher interviews for the same reason I go back to a well-cut trailer: the man talks about control as a craft, not as a personality trait. Coverage, lens choice, how much you let an actor wander, how you build a world that still feels like a photograph of a place — that conversation does not expire when a new camera body ships. If you direct commercials or narrative, steal the seriousness. You do not need his shot count. You need his habit of asking whether the frame is actually doing a job. For a longer sit with the films themselves, I later collected the best David Fincher movies on this site.
The always interesting No Film School came through with a couple of very useful articles this month. You can learn 5 Secrets to Pulling Off Hollywood-Level Chroma Key (Besides Good Lighting), and then discover 8 great sources of public domain footage for your films and videos.
Chroma key is still the same unforgiving physics problem it was in 2015. Spill on blonde hair, wrinkled fabric, a subject too close to the cloth, a key light that does not match the plate — the software has changed names, the mistakes have not. I would rather a filmmaker read one honest lighting-and-distance checklist than buy another “Hollywood key” plugin. Pair that article with how you actually light your videos: the screen is only as good as the light that hits the talent and the light you pretend they were standing in.
Public domain and archive footage is the other half of that NFS pair, and it still matters if you cut documentaries, explainers, or anything that needs a world bigger than your last location day. The legal and catalog details shift. The habit does not: know where the footage came from, know what you are allowed to do with it, and treat old film as material with a look, not as free junk to dump under a voice-over. Grain, stretch, and mismatched frame rates will tell on you faster than a client will.
And whilst we’re on the subject of master filmmakers talking about their work, here’s famed director of photographer Roger Deakins on how to frame a master shot like a master cinematographer.
Deakins is the opposite of a gadget recap. A master or a medium that is actually composed — eyeline, negative space, where the practical sits, whether the camera is a participant or a witness — will outlast whatever body you rented that week. I still send people to Deakins when they are trying to make a talking-head or a two-shot look like a scene instead of a deposition. Read him for the patience. Then go look at your last locked-off interview and ask whether the frame had a reason.
Did you know there was a recent documentary shot on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera? The film is called Junun and it was shot by There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson.
That one mattered to me because it punched a hole in the idea that “real” cinematography only happens on the most expensive sensor in the room. PTA shooting a music documentary on a small Blackmagic did not make the Pocket a magic camera. It did prove that taste, access, and how you expose a face in available light travel further than a rental house brochure. If you are still waiting for permission in the form of a bigger body, this is the October 2015 reminder I wanted on the record. The Pocket line has been through several generations since. The permission slip has not expired.
Going Viral
Always cool to see how things were. This funny GIF went viral recently and shows how the well-known Old Spice commercial was filmed.
From feast-or-famine toward predictable income
No magic promises — just a clearer pipeline rhythm from the Get More Video Clients guide so work feels less random month to month.
I like process GIFs more than most “BTS” packages because they are honest about labour. You see the rig, the reset, the fact that a casual-looking gag is a repeatable machine. If you make commercials, that is the job: design a moment that feels thrown away and then hit your marks until it is not. Watch it for the blocking and the crew, not for nostalgia about a brand campaign.
Speaking about how to go viral, on Filmmaking Lifestyle we featured an article in October all about the importance of social media for your video production business.
I was already arguing then that a video business is a publishing business whether you like it or not. Platforms have changed their names and their punishment systems since 2015. The operator problem is the same: can a stranger understand what you shoot, who it is for, and why they should reply, in the time it takes to scroll past? If you only post finished films and never show the thinking, you are asking the algorithm — and the client — to guess. That post is still the one I would hand a new company before I handed them a new gimbal.
Video Of The Month
Always good to hear from Casey Neistat. This month, he posted this solid video tutorial entitled, [Watch on YouTube](
):
Neistat’s vlog-era tutorials are dated in kit and in YouTube fashion. They are not dated in the useful part: a working filmmaker talking out loud about how a piece got made, at a pace you can actually follow. I would rather you watch one messy process video and then go shoot than collect another ten “cinematic” LUTs. Steal the candour. Leave the cargo-shorts mythology if it is not yours.
Find anything else that was great out there in cyberspace. Drop some links in the comments below!
What to read on Filmmaking Lifestyle next
If this October pile is your entry point, these are the pages on this site I would open after the roundup.
- Roger Deakins cinematography — the craft conversation behind that Premium Beat link, without waiting on a third-party URL.
- Best David Fincher movies — if the Indie Film Hustle interview sent you looking for the films, start here.
- Best Paul Thomas Anderson movies — Junun sits beside a proper PTA watchlist, not instead of one.
- Lighting your videos — chroma key, interviews, and product work all fail in the same place, which is the light.
- Social media optimization for your video production business — the in-house piece from this same month, still the business half of “going viral.”
That is the first instalment as I filed it: Fincher, No Film School, Deakins, a small camera in a famous director’s hands, a viral commercial, and a reminder that your company needs a public voice. I will keep doing these at the end of the month.
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