What software and equipment do I use?

I've come along way from the boy who sat for hours on end breaking down videos into frame by frame on his digital camera. I am now using Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro both of which are fantastic programs and although the effects still take time to do, the outcome is much better and much more rewarding.

I do all my work on my laptop, and I film using a Sony digital 8 and a HD Hard drive Recorder. I have also recently come to possess a green screen and lighting set which have already played a part in my film Space Battle.

Work I have done for other people

Since I started filming, I have been hired a few times to film, edit and produce a DVD for local groups and friends. Being a young leader in scouts, I took my video camera to our 2006 annual summer camp and spent most of the week with it glued to my hand filming the scouts as they played games, ate and just did general activities. When we got back, I spent a few weeks editing it all together so that the parents could watch it and also for the scouts to enjoy watching themselves back on film. They seemed to like it as they asked me to do the same again last summer and it turned out even better than the one before.

Another friend who asked for my filming assistance was the local magic man, The Bizarre Ollie Mealing. Ollie came to me soon after I had done the scout DVD and asked if I would make him a show reel for his magic so that he could send it off to pubs and restaurants to see if they would offer him work going around entertaining customers. Soon after, Ollie put on a magic show at the local village hall and asked me to film it for him so that he had a record of what he had done. Believe me, he's good.

Filming for Ollie, as well as being fun, did give me a good break. It just so happened that a member of our local amateur dramatics group was sitting in the audience and saw me there. She had the idea that I could come and film some of the shows they put on in the village so that, like Ollie, they could keep a record of the shows they put on. Like the scouts and Ollie, they liked what they saw and asked if i would film for them again.