Recommendations & Resources

People often ask what tools I use or where to learn more about some aspect of film production. This page houses all those links and rants.

📅 Last updated April 2025

Where applicable, I’ve used links that support the blog (read more about that here).

The Short Stack (or “TL;DR”)

Here’s a quick summary of what I currently use for a typical production. (Further down, I will provide more detail, opinions, and alternatives.)

Equipment Rentals: LensRentals
Equipment Purchases: B&H
Video Editing: Adobe Premiere
VFX: Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Blender
Motion Graphics: Adobe After Effects
Stop-Motion: Dragonframe
Stock Media: Pond5.com, Storyblocks, Adobe Stock, iStock, Freesound.org
Team collaboration: Dropbox
Virtual Meetings: Zoom
Team SOP & Project Briefs: Google Docs
Client & Team Notes: FrameIO
Client Final Delivery: FrameIO or Dropbox
Invoicing & CRM: Hubspot
Website: This is a static website, made of HTML, CSS, and a smidge of JS. It was assembled with Hugo, a static site generator.
Webhost & Domain: Bluehost

The Big Resource List

Here is the big list of all those things I recommend. I have included things I currently use, have used in the past, or have experimented with enough to recommend. It’s getting unweildy… I’ll add a Table of Contents when I can. In the meantime, use your browser’s “Find” or “Search Page” function if you’re looking for something specific.

I try to keep this list current, so check back often. I have removed recommendations over time, and added others.

Some of these resources are free, or offer a free tier; those are indicated with a lightbulb emoji like this: 💡

A Note About the Adobe Suite

I mention a lot of the Adobe stuff on this page. I’ve been editing video with Adobe Premiere exclusively since 2004 (and now rely on After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Audition as well.) I’m not thrilled about software bloat, updates, or the subscription model in general. There’s a lot of room for improvement. In spite of that, I still use and recommend Adobe if you are able to pay for and learn these tools. The apps integrate well with eachother and many are essentially industry-standard. If you’re a teacher or student, be sure to look at their education pricing for a discount.

A lot of the free tools on this page are suitable alternatives to certain Adobe tools, and I try to indicate that when possible. I don’t have many opportunities to hear about these alternatives anymore, so I appreciate recommendations if you message me.

Video Editing

Adobe Premiere – Advanced, industry-standard editing software. If you’re a teacher or student, be sure to look at their education pricing for a discount.

Audio Editing

💡Audacity – Free audio recording and editing; (you’ll need to download an additional file called “lame_enc.dll” if you want to save mp3 files)
Reaper - A more robust audio tool (DAW), a good alternative to Adobe Audition. Free trial available, and a persistent license after that.

Image Editing

💡Gimp – Free alternative to Photoshop

Animation

Adobe After Effects – Most of the animation projects I do are vector-based motion graphics, animated in AE. My team is also experimenting with Adobe’s “mogrt” workflow, which allows an editor to update an AE graphic from Premiere.
DragonFrame - Frame-by-frame animation software with features like onion-skin, playback, and a live-view overlay with compatible cameras. It’s pay-once “persistent” software.
💡Monkeyjam – free frame-by-frame animation software for drawings, stop-motion, etc.

STOCK MEDIA

Before you use media from other sources in your own work … Make sure you understand copyright rules and Creative Commons licenses. Check the license on ANY MEDIA you did not create yourself.

For example: Some creators will provide their work “royalty free,” but require attribution or limits on how you can use their work.

Images

💡My textures page - My small collection on this site, shared for free (and CC0) for use in your VFX and graphic design projects.
Pond5.com – You have to pay for images here, but the selection is huge.
💡unsplash.com– “Beautiful, free photos. Gifted by the world’s most generous community of photographers.”
💡pexels.com– “All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free”
💡Textures.com - Huge collection of textures and photos for 3D modeling and design work. Price tiers from free to premium.

Sound Effects

Ambient Sounds Vol. 1 – Pack of 40 field recordings I’ve created over the years, now available in one easy download for a small fee.
💡Freesound.org – Download sound effects and share yours with the community

Music for video

Pond5.com – This is my go-to. Tons of great music here, typically ranging $20-$60 per song. Always check to make sure the license you’re buying is extensive enough for your purposes.
Storyblocks.com - Another paid source. After Pond5 I usually check here.
💡Incompetech.com – Check out Kevin McLeod’s “creative commons” music collection. This guy is a hero.
💡Bensound.com – A small, but excellent bank of music, great for corporate and commercial videos
💡Mobygratis.com – A small collection of music from Moby (yes, that Moby). You have to write to get permission to use these songs, but they respond relatively quickly.
💡Freemusicarchive.org – Another bank of music, much of which is royalty-free
💡Musopen.org – Royalty-free recordings of classical music from different recording artists

VFX

Video Copilot Action Essentials – awesome set of pre-keyed explosions, fires, muzzle flashes, exploding dirt, smoke, etc. probably used by every visual effects artist in the industry. (Some of the industry’s best After Effects tutorials and plugins are on Video Copilot. Plugins like Element 3D, Optical Flares, etc. are great. They have a few free scripts here and there, too, and 3D objects to integrate with their Element 3D plugin.)
💡Blender - Blender is a free, open-source tool for 3D modeling and VFX. Technically you can use Blender for video editing too, but learning resources for this were limited last time I checked.

EQUIPMENT

LensRentals.com – I mostly work in the Southeast/USA, so Lens Rentals (headquartered in Tennessee) is where I get all my gear rentals. Renting is great if I want to test a new piece of gear, or borrow something I need infrequently. This is also a great way to have gear shipped to your shooting location instead of having to travel with it. I recommend signing up for their emails; they send generous discounts nearly every other month and the newsletter is genuinely useful.

UTILITIES

Dropbox - Using Dropbox for collaboration and file delivery for years, no regrets. If you’re collaborating on a film (or on anything), Dropbox is an invaluable tool for sharing and backing up small files. For quick, self-destructing shares under 2GB, I also use WeTransfer. 💡 Both are free until you want more GBs, basically.
💡Simple Calibration & Detailed Calibration – Free sites to calibrate your monitor

Website

💡 This website is just HTML content, css styling, and a little bit of JavaScript copy-and-pasted for things like the contact form and the mobile menu. If you have some experience with HTML and CSS, you can make a one-page site or a landing page for your project really quickly and host it anywhere you choose. I’d like to convert one of my indie film landing pages into a template when time allows, and elaborate a little more on this topic in a blog post. TBD!
Web Hosting: I’ve had some form of hosting with Bluehost since 2015. The service is reliable, and paying in 3-year increments works out to about $15/mo (as of 2024). Since I host several websites, the price per website is very low and doesn’t increase when I add a new project.
Domains: To streamline things, I use Bluehost for this, too.

Newsletters

💡 Mailchimp has worked well for me so far, for managing subscriptions and getting in touch with people who have asked to be updated about our projects. When I’m actively promoting a film project like Local Takes, being able to send a little update to fans, friends, and family is so refreshing compared to battling Corporate Algorithm Media feeds.

ONLINE LEARNING

(💡Pretty sure all of these are free right now)

Video Copilot – I am not exaggerating when I say that I would not be where I am today without this After Effects resource. Start with the free “After Effects Basic Training.”
Socialsounddesign.com – A forum with a great sound design community
AaronWilliams.tv – Great blog on color correction; his tips have helped me out a lot.
The Frugal Filmmaker – DIY builds and tips, the Frugal Filmmaker shows you how to do what you need to do without breaking the bank.
IndyMogul on YouTube – Really fun DIY props, prosthetics, and more for the filmmaker on a budget.
DirectorsNotes.com – Stuff about movies.
ZSnowFilmNotes – Zach follows film “lists” methodically, and does deep-dives on the filmography of specific directors. He writes his summaries and thoughts on each one, and now his notes from thousands of films are available on his blog.

BOOKS & PRINT MEDIA

Some of these I bought for college and continue to reference, some I discovered on my own, and some came recommended by colleagues. These are the ones I’ve read and keep in my office for revisiting frequently:

Voice and Vision by Mick Hurbis-Cherrier | This is my never-leave-home-without-it guide to every step of the filmmaking process. Whether you’re shooting a fictional story or a documentary, need help with writing your script or lighting a dramatic scene, this book has it all. It’s one of the few books from college I kept on my shelf. Although tech has changed over the past decade, the anecdotes and tips are still highly relevant to filmmakers working in digital formats with small equipment loads.
The Independent Filmmaker’s Law and Business Guide by Jon M. Garon | Even the smallest scale film projects should consider or be aware of legal issues related to location shooting, copyright infringement, and actor release forms. For the more advanced, Garon touches on business structures and taxes, getting music rights, and handling ownership of your film when the time comes to distribute or sell.
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider | If you’ve ever wondered where to begin, this is it. A chronological collection of 1,001 film essays describing each film’s back story, cultural impact, influences, and innovations, Schneider’s carefully curated list is as much fun to “check off” as the movies are to watch.
Color Correction Handbook by Alexis Van Hurkman | After weeks and hours of online research I finally turned to an actual book to teach myself the dark art of color correction. I spent a summer teaching myself the craft, and Van Hurkman’s book was the best written and most thorough of anything I found.
AP Stylebook - Look, I’m a fast “Googler” … but sometimes a book is better.

Want more film and video production resources?