I'm considering ditching my home PC in favor of switching back to Mac. In doing so, I've been spending a bit of time considering what my options are in terms of software and how I'm going to outfit my new system.
Since I have a lot of interests in the area of film, animation, video editing and the like, I looked to see what open source tools were available to handle these tasks. I found quite a lot of neat stuff and in theory you could use a lot of these tools to manage all stages of a film production.
Your initial script writing and budget planning could be handled by a tool like Celtx. (interesting bit of trivia, Celtx is developed on the Mozilla development framework just like Firefox.)
If you have a lot of writing, presentations and spreadsheet financial information (and you don't feel like shelling out $$ to Microsoft) the Open Office suite might be just what you're looking for.
I can't help you with any free, open-source DV cameras, but you can record audio for free with Audacity, a very slick multi-track tool.
Once you're finished shooting your film it's time to edit, and here you have some choices. On linux, there's Diva. For Windows and Mac users, Avid offers you FreeDV. And , of course, for Mac users you could always go with iMovie, which may be a free tool, but hey... it does HD.
Need to edit images and create graphics without splurging on Photoshop? (gasp) Well, there's the Gimp, which might just fit the bill. Check out the screenshots to see how closely it mimics Photoshop.
For 3d effects and/or character animation you don't need to spend thousands when you have Blender. This app has been around in varous forms for almost 10 years and seems to have a very good following and strong developer community. It has the most advanced and stable UI out of the tools I've seen personally.
If you really want to integrate your video footage with your effects, you will need a 3d motion tracker. Boujou is pricy, but Voodoo is free.
Finally, you need a way to combine all these effects, animations and 3d characters over your footage, you might look to something like Jahshaka, which seems modeled after Apple's Shake.
So, there you have it, a pretty set of tools to get started with when creating that masterpiece. In the words of Robert Rodriquez, "go be scary."
1. | On April 1, 2006 8:11 AM, JIm added:Well, it's about time! Once a Mac user, always a Mac user.
Come back from the dark side, Obi Steve. ;)
2. | On September 4, 2007 10:38 AM, Bob added:Cool I'll Really Use Theese
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