Filmmakers Academy

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Expand your technical knowledge, find inspiration, and collaborate with fellow creatives.

09/04/2026

Balancing your load on a diesel generator is essential for keeping lights running, the crew safe, and the day on schedule. In this clip from our Generator Etiquette Masterclass, Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Gaffer Tom Sigurdsson walk through best practices for powering up HMIs and maintaining an even load across all three legs.

It starts with preparation:
• Label every component — A HMI to A head cable to A ballast — so if a unit will not strike, you can isolate the issue instantly.
• Warm up HMIs slowly (30–60 seconds), keeping ears and gels clear from the front.
• Use heat shields to protect gels from damage.
• Watch your meters — HMIs pull more amperage while coming to temp, then idle down.
• Balance the load by dimming other units up or down until all three phases are close in amperage.

In this scene, two 18Ks and a 20K are brought online in sequence, adjusting dimmers and monitoring readings until the red, blue, and black legs are perfectly balanced, then adding a final 18K for backlight without risking overload.

This masterclass covers:
• Generator placement, leveling & safety
• Load balancing & voltage for HMIs
• Battery vs diesel setups
• Preventing failure before it happens
• And much more

Now is the time to join. Our Annual Membership is $50 off and includes:
✓ This masterclass + 8 others
✓ Monthly coaching with working pros
✓ B&H EDU gear discounts
✓ On set access through the Shadow Program

Click the link in bio to save and join!

09/03/2026

Cinematic Light Quality Tip: Use Depron Foam for Close Ups. Depron is a 3mm piece of foam that has a stunning light quality when a light is fired through it. In this case, Shane uses DMG Maxi’s. He would typically light the scene without the depron dome and then will swoop in for the close up and bring the light very close with the depron foam. Shane adjusts the light to 2800K and showcases the direct sidelight.

Right now, we are having one of our biggest sales of the year where you can save on our annual all access membership. For only $24.99 a month (billed annually) you can access the Filmotechnic Camera Car Masterclass along with our 1000+ hours of content, other premium masterclasses and our global community. Trust us, you don’t want to miss out on this sale. Hurry and click the link in bio before the sale ends.

Ways to move your film career forward this month. September at Filmmakers Academy is stacked. Here is what is coming, an...
09/02/2026

Ways to move your film career forward this month. September at Filmmakers Academy is stacked. Here is what is coming, and how to use it.

Learn underwater cinematography from the best in the world. Spotlight Group Coaching with Pete Zuccarini, the cinematographer behind the underwater work in Avatar: The Way of Water, Life of Pi, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Ask him how he captures the impossible below the surface. End of September.

Prep your next project the smartest way. The new Fix It In Prep Masterclass with Shane Hurlbut, ASC drops next week. Break down your script, scout your locations, and build a plan so airtight nothing is left to chance. You do not fix failures on set. You fix them in prep.

Commercial directing and AI. The Commercial Filmmaking AI Workflow with Jordan Brady. Treatments, previs, and speaking your post team’s language. Streaming September 15 at 10AM PT.

Plan your career with the pros. Private Office Hours with Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Brendan Sweeney. Career guidance, honest feedback, and unfiltered advice. These calls have led to connections, collaborations, and breakthroughs.

Get your film seen. Brendan Sweeney and Ryder McNeal of PREVO Streaming on getting your short in front of Hollywood executives, plus the Lost Objects team with 2026 marketing strategies and live social audits.

It is all included with the Annual Membership, now just $24.99 for the year. Our best sale yet, with Fix It In Prep included. Link in bio.

09/01/2026

Lens Tip For Shooting Action 🎥 Typically using a really wide lens can distort cars and wouldn’t be the right choice for a car commercial. However, when you’re shooting action and using pushing and pulling movements, you want to be in the moment on a 14.5 millimeter pushing on the front grill or the back of the car so you can see objects in the front, back and sides. Speed is all about what you see on the left and right side and the right lens choice can help immerse the audience and intensify the speed.

Right now, we are having one of our biggest sales of the year where you can save on our annual all access membership. For only $24.99 a month (billed annually) you can access the Filmotechnic Camera Car Masterclass along with our 1000+ hours of content, other premium masterclasses and our global community. Trust us, you don’t want to miss out on this sale. Hurry and click the link in bio before the sale ends.

08/29/2026

Get This Masterclass FREE + Save on Annual Membership 🎬🔥 Right now our annual membership is on sale and that means you get access to ALL of our premium masterclasses + unlock the entire content library on our platform.

Capturing high-speed action is about precision, timing, and technical mastery. But where do you learn how to shoot with a camera car if you don’t have access to one? Introducing the Filmotechnic Camera Car Masterclass—the most in-depth training ever created on shooting dynamic, high-speed sequences using professional arm cars. Whether you’re an indie filmmaker looking to craft immersive action shots or an experienced DP wanting to refine your skills, this course delivers the knowledge you need to shoot with confidence.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
✔️ Focal length & f-stop selection for high-speed cinematography
✔️ Insider tips for ACs, camera ops & crane operators
✔️ How to prep your camera for the Filmotechnic Flight Head
✔️ Optimal shooting times for action
✔️ Choosing the best spherical & anamorphic glass
✔️ Communication protocols inside the arm car
✔️ DIY camera car rigs for indie filmmakers

This is more than just a behind-the-scenes look—it’s a step-by-step guide to mastering one of the most powerful filmmaking tools available.

Join Shane Hurlbut, ASC, and an all-star team of industry pros as they take you inside the world of professional arm car cinematography.

Turn the key. Unlock high-speed action. Enroll today and take your action cinematography to the next level.

Click the link in bio to save and unlock our entire masterclass library.

08/26/2026

How do you start a shot list? For Shane, it always begins with the keyframe. The keyframe is one shot that delivers the full emotional impact of the scene. That is a lot of weight to put on a single frame, but that is where the process starts. Once Shane has the keyframe, he backward engineers all the coverage around it.

Everything is driven by emotion, not by how cool a shot looks. You are not chasing an incredible technocrane move or a oner because it would look amazing. You are only doing it because the emotion of the scene tells you to. Most screenplays make that pretty clear once you know how to read for it, whether it wants to feel like a oner or wants to feel locked off and still.

Lesson 2 of the On Set Series, Shot Listing is out now. You will learn how to find your keyframe and build your shot list around it, then do the homework using resources from an actual production and get feedback directly from Shane. Click the link in bio to start the lesson.

Our annual membership sale is also live right now. Unlock every masterclass we offer for $24.99 a month, billed annually. Click the link in bio for our back to school sale.

Your plan for when you feel stuck as a filmmaker. Everyone hits the wall. Rejection, failure, and progress that takes fa...
08/25/2026

Your plan for when you feel stuck as a filmmaker. Everyone hits the wall. Rejection, failure, and progress that takes far longer than you want. What separates the filmmakers who make it is how they respond. Here is the plan.

Get your mind right first.
-Expect to get knocked down and keep showing up anyway.
-Discipline is the difference. It comes down to who does the work when no one is watching.
-Measure yourself against your last project, not anyone else’s timeline.

Choose one weakness and go deep.
-You cannot get good at everything at once. Name the exact gap: night exteriors, interiors that feel intentional, composition.
-Follow our career paths, a structured path built by working pros instead of a scattered playlist.

Learn it, then actually do it.
-Watching teaches you something, but you only grow when you put your hands on it.
-Recreate a lighting diagram. Take a scene from shot list to shooting. Prep it and execute it.
-Grind on the weak spot, then reward yourself with something you have always wanted to try.

Ask the people who have done it.
-Bring your specific question to our weekly office hours with Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Brendan Sweeney.
-Learn in monthly coaching calls with award-winning filmmakers like Lawrence Sher, ASC, Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3, McG, and Vic Mensa.
-Ask for the honest feedback

Put yourself in the room.
-Our Shadow Program gets you on sets with working professionals and has jump started members’ careers.
-Stay close to the work between shoots.

Keep putting yourself out there.
-Share your work, show up in the community, reach out to people you want to work with.
-Start a group, shoot something, keep your momentum going.

Everything behind this plan lives inside the Filmmakers Academy Annual Membership, and right now it is 50% off. Tap the link in bio and start leveling up today.

Everything inside our platform is build to get you working. For 82 cents a day ($24.99/month) you could access everythin...
08/24/2026

Everything inside our platform is build to get you working. For 82 cents a day ($24.99/month) you could access everything inside Filmmakers Academy. We’re talking all masterclasses, career paths, lessons, courses and our exclusive on set shadow program.

Unlock it All:

8 CURATED CAREER PATHS
($5,179 Value) Get 8 structured roadmaps from Beginner to Advanced. Finish your track and earn a Certificate of Completion to prove your technical authority.

PREMIUM MASTERCLASS LIBRARY
($1,000+ Value) Access our flagship on-set sessions led by renowned filmmakers. From one to four hours of deep-dive training in camera, lighting, and directing.

MAJOR GEAR DISCOUNTS
Unlock the B&H EDU Advantage Program and get 10% to 50% off over 450,000 items from 300+ top brands, plus exclusive rental deals. Buy one piece of gear and the membership pays for itself.

THE SHADOW PROGRAM
The only initiative of its kind. Get invited onto real narrative, commercial, and music video sets. Observe working pros, ask questions, and build a network that actually opens doors.

Invest in yourself, click the link in bio to save now 🎬🔥

08/18/2026

Directors all have different styles for prep and shot listing. Some want the cinematographer to build the whole thing themselves. Others want to sit down and work through the entire film together. Some already come in with storyboards and a very specific vision. And in 35 years, Shane has only worked with one director who embedded the shot list directly into the script itself. These are some of the ways he has experienced it.

When a director comes in with storyboards already worked out, the picture is already conceptualized, and the storyboard gets embedded right into the shot list document alongside the description, showing exactly how the camera and the actors move. Shane sets up a dolly shot moving in, close ups, all of it mapped against the board.

Then there is the director who embeds the shot list directly into the script. A 102 or 106 or 108 page script becomes 220 or 280 pages, because the entire plan is built into it. Gabriele Muccino works this way. Every shot is written into the script, so the whole team knows the game plan from day one. The assistant director knows how many shots are in each scene. The production designer knows which direction the camera is shooting, so they might not need to dress or build two thirds of the set. These are things you would not normally know until way late in prep, but here the script comes preloaded with all of it.

Working with a director like that is effortless. Because the shot listing is already conceptualized exactly how he wants it, Shane can spend that time on the camera emotion and the lighting emotion instead, and push the performance and the direction even further.

This is Part 1 of the On Set Series, Shot Listing. Shane breaks down how to build a professional shot list from scratch, track lighting continuity across complex schedules, and adapt to different director workflows, plus a practical exercise using real scripts and floor plans from the Disney film Safety, where you can get feedback directly from Shane on your work.

Click the link in bio to start the lesson.

Great stories should not depend on studios, executives, gatekeepers, or algorithms. This Monday, join Filmmakers Academy...
08/15/2026

Great stories should not depend on studios, executives, gatekeepers, or algorithms. This Monday, join Filmmakers Academy for a conversation about The Peoples Cinema, a community-powered film movement built to create more jobs, more productions, and more opportunities across the industry.

🗓 Monday, August 17

⏰ 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET

📍 FREE and live on the FA Platform and YouTube Filmmakers Academy

What is The Peoples Cinema?
Instead of relying on a handful of corporations to decide what gets made, TPC lets thousands of people collectively fund and grow independent films together. For less than the cost of a coffee a month, members contribute to a fund that goes directly into production. Revenue from finished films returns to the ecosystem to fund the next one. The cycle repeats, over and over.

Meet the Founders
Sven Soukup is a filmmaker and the Founder of The Peoples Cinema. Tired of watching the industry suffer through cycles of uncertainty, he launched TPC to create a new path for independent filmmaking that keeps professionals working.

Shane Hurlbut, ASC is a cinematographer with over 37 years of experience on blockbusters and indie productions including Terminator Salvation, We Are Marshall, The Perfect Couple, and Música. Co-Founder of Filmmakers Academy and now Co-Founder of The Peoples Cinema.

What We Will Discuss
How the model works and how it scales. Why this movement started and who supports it. The goal of building a sustainable ecosystem that funds productions and employs crews. How to get involved and spread the word. And why an independent model for change matters now more than ever.

This is an open conversation, and we will end with questions from the community. Bring your thoughts, your skepticism, your ideas. This is about building something together.

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