Hello there

First time user. I've recently stopped shooting my shorts on 16mm film and have moved over to digital (mini DV). I couldn't believe the power of digital editing/shooting. I use Premiere Elements on my home PC. I got so excited when I realised that Premiere Elements could do blue screen that I embarked on my first special effects film. I thought: what's the simplest monster I can create and manipulate with blue screen? The short is called Doodlebug and you can see it here:

Doodlebug The Best Ever Fifty Quid Monster Movie You'll See - Virgin Media Shorts

The process took ten months; I'm very proud what we managed to achieve, at home(!) on such a low budget (fifty pounds).

My quick question is: I'd like to take my special effects film making at home to the next level. Premiere Elements isn't really a compositing/animation programme; it's an editing package with a little blue screen application embedded in there.

So, which reasonably priced PC based software would you recommend, please, specifically for creating special effect shorts (animation and blue screen)?

Thanks for this


Lee

Have a look at Composite LabPro (check out the link in the Forum Announcements section where I have a thread called 'Free Stuff'), but you are really looking at spending a large amount of money as you will be looking at something like After Effects from Adobe. Go onto the Adobe website and download a 30 day trial of it and see if it's what you are looking for. Wax 2.0 is a freeware compositing application, it also has a link in the Forum Announcements section, 'Free Stuff'.

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