Hey guys! Welcome back. It's come to that time of the year again where we list the top
gifts for filmmakers for you to be prepped to create amazing content in 2020.
But before we do, you want to stay tuned for the rest of the episode because there might
be a sneaky peek of something awesome that we have coming out very soon.
Let's get started with items under $100 that we recommend you get for Christmas.
First off, for $20 we have the 5-in-1 reflector modelled perfectly here by Kirstie. So whether
you want to bounce, diffuse, you want to add negative fill, whatever it is, this 5-in-1
reflector has you covered. Whether you're a small crew or you're a studio,
reflectors are always needed at some point on your set. Depending on the size, these
can start from as little as like $10, but if you're feeling a bit flash and you want
to illuminate a larger area, there are distinctly larger options.
Next on our list are color charts for around $50. LUTs have become an industry standard
since everything is now digital and to keep all of your shots consistent, this little
card is here to help. Yeah basically when you're doing a shot right at the start you
can put this color chart up and it gives you the colors so that when you get to your grade
process you can match those, whether that's manually or through a utility to get exactly
the same colors in every single shot that you do.
Fun fact: We actually have a member of our team who is color blind and you would never
know because they use the color chart and it makes all of our grading flawless.
It's true, Tom does think it's fun that he's colorblind.
Next up, awesome 3-axid gimbals for your smartphone which can be, you know, between $80 and upwards.
Every smartphone now is absolutely awesome at taking video, probably better than video
cameras used to be a couple of years ago - but getting a smooth, cinematic look, you want
to get a gimbal for that. And there are makes that start at $90 all the way up to the more
established brands like DJI, but they're all really easy to use. They tend to just snap
onto your smartphone and then you have an app to control it and configure it. Then you
actually get little controls on the device itself. They're very similar to each other
so check out different reviews and find yourself a bargain.
Another great option for the YouTube fan or filmmaker in your life is to get some merch
and there's some great stuff out there. Yeah some of our best friends in the industry who
also happen to make some of the coolest stuff are Corridor Digital and Film Riot who have
their Triune Store. Film Riot specifically have brought out an amazing new collection
of merch very recently - I think just for their Black Friday sale - they got a whole
host of some of their favorites, Write, Edit, Repeat type t-shirts, baseball tees and all
the good stuff. Hoodies and some new stuff as well.
And Corridor, I want everything on their store at the moment. This is old. This is like a
vintage cap now but they have really wicked hoodies and some coats that are only going
to be up for a limited time, but they also have one that's covered in tracking markers
so that you can then track stuff onto it, and it's like a sweatshirt but with tracking
markers all over it and I really really want it. Sam, Niko, if you're out there and you've
got one spare, can you send me one - please? Please?
And so what if I've got a little bit more than $100 to spend - what if I've got up to
$500, what would you recommend? Wow, well that's a lot of money and you can
get a lot of cool stuff. Something that you might want to look at, because we've been
talking about using your mobile phone for doing filmmaking, is maybe to look at getting
some lenses that actually clip onto that. So if you've got a fairly standard phone,
you can still get lenses that you clip on top of the lens that's there to give you a
wider angle, a macro lens, all sorts of things. and they start from around $75 but can go
all the way up to $150 or even more. And that will be on the quality of the lens. So do
look for reviews before you buy. Funnily enough, a bunch of you have actually
asked us what we're using in a lot of our tutorials as our microphone. We love this
thing, it's called a Blue Yeti mic and you can get them for around $100. If you're looking
to do tutorials, podcasts, cool filmmaking in 2020, we recommend this microphone. How
do we sound? Sexy.
So they're available in loads of different colors so you can make it match your decor
- we've aimed for that before - you can get them on a great big stand which goes above
you which is a great place for a mic if you're doing podcasts and things like that. In fact,
all the time, picks up voice really well. And they connect with USB or actually this
one has an audio jack that goes out into our camera over there. So loads of options, really
good quality. And it's so pretty. So hold up, it's Christmas Kirstie. And christmas
is a time for giving. Joy. A time for sharing. Sharing. A time for thinking about other people.
Absolutely. So why not think about us this Christmas?
No but seriously, joy to the world and all that, if we're talking about giving to other
people then HitFilm Pro is a fantastic gift for the filmmakers in your life. Yeah we've
updated it more than we ever have before in the last year and this is going to keep on
going. When we started with the product, we wanted it to be a great visual effects product,
and then we wanted it to be a great editor, and then we wanted it to be a great color
grader and now it has a 3D camera tracker, it has mocha in there, it has loads of awesome
stuff. It's really the all-in-one product and you get three licenses so you can use
them all yourself or you can maybe share them with some loved ones or some friends. So it's
a great product for $349. Now, let's move on.
Next up we recommend the DJI Ronin-S which is available for about $439, check the link
in the description below. Do you have a DSLR and you're looking for a way to stabilize
it while you're running across rough terrain, well we would recommend this. Seriously, is
this like, $439? This is maybe one of the best investments you can make once you've
got your camera and some decent audio gear. It is fantastic, it's easy to use, it lasts
quite a long time too and it just makes all of your shots super cinematic and cool.
There are alternative brands out there, maybe some of them are cheaper too but, you know,
DJI are the big boys and it's a fantastic tool so - highly recommended.
And now if you've got over $500 to spare. You are swimming in cash, you have christmas
sorted - what do you get? What about the new GoPro Max. We got this and we don't do a lot
of action cam stuff, or a lot of 360 camera stuff, although HitFilm does support it, but
actually this camera is really really innovative, the way that it can stabilize things is pretty
amazing. And that it's got the resolution that you can crop in and get a 1080p shot
out of it. We actually talked to some filmmakers we know, talked to Calvin Serrano, he's awesome.
He bought one of these after he tried out our one - like, the next day. Literally. Because
he was just so amazed with the stuff that it can do. He's going to make some kind of
action short. I think there's a lot of possibilities for the filmmaker here, for the vlogger here
and for people doing interviews and all sorts of things. It's a really great device, really
great form factor, so highly recommended. So what about getting a drone? Now, I really
hope someone gets me this for Christmas. It's like $400 and it's a drone that fits in your
hand. And the amazing thing about it is not that it's really really small, but it makes
it really really light and that means that in loads of places where you previously had
to have a license to fly a drone, you are allowed to fly this. It's a 2.7K camera, so
it's great quality - may not be 4K but it's going to fit in really well wit your HD stuff
and it's DJI so it's a quality item and they're pretty much the biggest people at making drones.
So it's going to be good. It's a simplified flying experience and you
can get the drone itself for about $399 and you can get it with a bunch of extra bits
like controller, batteries, case for a bundle price of about $500. And because it's so cheap,
if you crash it, it's not the end of the world. Yeah, so you could get me one for Christmas,
right Kirstie? So what if you've got your birthday, and Christmas,
and New Year, everything's come at once - and you're a King. And you're a King and you have
all the money, and you're like - I want to spend over $1000. What do you get?
Well if you wanted to, you could invest in a BlackMagic 4K Pocket Camera for about $1295
give or take. So BlackMagic, they know a thing or two about color and they've put a lot of
that color science directly into this camera. Not only has it got great dynamic range but
it can also record in BlackMagic RAW which means you can capture more of that data so
that later on in your grading, whether that's in HitFilm or DaVinci Resolve, you can do
all that color grading and make your images look absolutely beautiful.
Sure, it's not a RED camera, but actually the level of technology here that is freely
available here for you to use whether it's ProRES or RAW or whatever is astounding, so
it's a great camera. It also has a big brother who's maybe even better value for money, which
is the 6K bad boy here. This is a fantastic camera as well, so definitely check them out.
Batteries don't last that long on them, but hey - for this price, buy more batteries.
So I want to mention something here Kirstie - at the moment we're going through a war
in computers which is between AMD and Intel who are both making amazing technology at
the moment. And we are always asked - what do I get to run HitFilm? So if you're going
to get an amazing christmas present like a new computer, you can't really go wrong - mid-range
and high-range computers are all fast - but we'd recommend one of these ultra amazing
new laptops. So this is an Intel laptop, it's half an inch thick but it has an NVIDIA 2070
RTX in it, which is a super powerful graphics card, more than capable of running HitFilm,
has 8GB of video memory on it for God's sake. This is an amazing machine and some machines
like this were down as little as $1500, $1600 in the Black Friday sales which means that's
probably about the regular price they're going to be before too long. So check out some of
the amazing laptops, it doesn't really matter about the make, get one that you hear is good,
check out the reviews but there are so many great laptops out there now. Best machine
for running HitFilm. So exciting. We really hope you enjoyed this video. Maybe,
if you're lucky, you'll get one of these things for christmas. If you do, tell us in the comments
down below. Do not forget to - STOP - we said we were going to show them this first.
No more! This is a secret peek at a Star Wars thing that we're going to be doing very soon.
You know who we've got working on this, we've got Javert, we've got Tom, we've got Calvin
Serrano. Very talented people working on our most epic project yet. It's coming out very
soon - remember to subscribe so you don't miss it and please hit that bell icon. We
will see you very soon. Happy holidays people!