Waqas Qazi – The Freelance Colorist Masterclass Review Waqas Qazi is a professional colorist who runs a virtual post studio called The Post Village, based in L.A. whilst sharing his tips, tricks and colour grading techniques on his popular YouTube channel, with a whopping 398K+ subscribers! His YouTube channel is only four years old, but it has seemingly become a central pillar of the online colour grading community featuring some excellent colour grading look breakdowns as well as valuable information on becoming a freelance colorist. It’s a potent mix of business and creative content. So wh ..read more

Christmas Gifts for Film and Video Editors 2023 The Best Christmas Gifts for Film Editors 2023 Post Production Year End Sales Need the perfect gift for the film editor in your life? Look no further! This is the best list of gifts for film editors available online today!* This year, I’ve selected a range of gifts that will suit every budget, from $10 all the way up to $299. There are digital gifts, analogue gifts and a bunch of stuff in between, but hopefully, there is something for everyone! Here’s a short list of the best Christmas gifts for film editors in 2023: Monogram Keyboa ..read more

Content is moving to the cloud. We’ve known this for years and now, all-cloud workflows are slowly becoming the new normal. But are you really taking advantage of the workflow efficiencies cloud and AI-empowered services can deliver? Newspark.io is one of the services leading the way towards a faster, more efficient video production and delivery system, thanks to its cloud-based infrastructure. While the company has been around since 2006, NewSpark.io has recently been revamped from the ground up to deliver on its mission to make digital video workflows far more efficient and cost-effective f ..read more

How to Break into Hollywood with the Creators of Stranger Things How do you break into Hollywood? How do you break into Hollywood when you have no existing connections to build upon, no relationships to leverage and no network to work? Well, that’s the situation the Duffer Brothers found themselves in back in 2007. If the Duffer name doesn’t ring a bell, you will certainly know them as the creators of global Netflix hit show Stranger Things. So how did they get their first break in the Hollywood scriptwriting scene and, ultimately, successfully pitch a new TV series to Netflix with them attac ..read more

The Best Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals for Film Editors Black Friday 2023 Deals for Film Editors Post Production Promo Codes and Discounts The Best Amazon Black Friday Deals for Film Editors 2023 Black Friday 2023 (November 24th) is nearly upon us, with deep discounts on post-production services, software and essential gear, already appearing online. In this post I’ve reached out to all the post-production brands I know best, to see if they’re running a deal this year, to help save you a few bucks and also support their essential businesses. Some of them have offered me exclusive disc ..read more

How do you get to be Christopher Nolan’s editor? By cutting critically acclaimed films back to back (Manchester By The Sea, Hereditary, Marriage Story) and then sharing a common creative language. Or at least that’s what Christopher Nolan said when he was asked about his hiring of Jennifer Lame, ACE for Tenet and then Oppenheimer. “For me, hiring is about looking at the work people have done in the past, but not necessarily in relation to what you’re looking to do. I look for excellence and judgment. When meeting, it’s more about discovering if there’s a common creative language, which is e ..read more

I’m a big fan of using tools that make my life more enjoyable, more efficient, and more effective. As a video editor, Parsec remote desktop does all three. Let me explain why. As a freelance video editor I work for all kinds of clients in all kinds of locations. Using Parsec allows me to remotely connect to their computers, work on them, and leave, all from the comfort of my home edit suite. Or anywhere, actually. No wasted travel time, expense, or effort means more time for me to spend the way I want to whilst still delivering results for my clients. And Parsec even opens up new ways for me ..read more

If you want to learn how to become a professional colorist or are looking for ways to improve your already advanced colour grading capabilities, then these are the professional tools and training I would highly recommend you consider adding to your arsenal. Lots of these are free, and some of the best ones on this list are paid. It always astounds me how quickly people will spend money on new gear, shiny desk baubles and faster computers, but hesitate to spend the same kind of money on upgrading their wetware; improving their technical competence, artistic sensibilities, and software knowledg ..read more

The Best Film Soundtracks To Work To Film soundtracks are one of my favourite things to have on in the background when I’m working. That could be writing a blog post or issue of Cut/daily, when doing video editing tasks that don’t require listening to sync audio such as colour grading, titles, subtitles etc. Film soundtracks seem to help me focus and often spur me to get in the creative zone. My go-to music service is Amazon Prime Music Unlimited because I’m a long-time Amazon Prime member and I had all my playlists and such set up back when Amazon Prime Music was still useable. You can sign ..read more

Riverside is my favourite video interview recording platform, I use it for personal projects, client briefing sessions, in-depth interviews, podcast clients and basically anything where I don’t want to have to stop and make notes along the way, but I know those notes, summaries and interview content will be essential. In this short sponsored article I’ll share my workflow for recording interviews, downloading Riverside’s auto-generated transcript and using online AI tools to create summaries, detailed notes and draw out the best quotes and moments from each interview. Clever — Alexis Ohania ..read more