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There’s a lot of internet help forums/message boards all over the web. They are a great place to collect tips, ask questions, get help and even give a little assistance to fellow editors during a long render. The community aspect of the world wide web has been one of the great successes of the internet. Who would have thought that entire communities would build up around a certain subject and people would give their time and expertise, for free (okay, maybe you can earn points) I might add, just to help others. Makes ya have just a little bit of faith in humanity doesn’t it? There are many forums devoted to filmmaking and post-production. Digital Production Buzz has some 40+ forums cataloged just for editing alone. A site that I want to point out is studentfilmmakers.com.

When I was a film student, I looked for knowledge and help every where I could find it. If I found a working professional willing to let me ask questions I would attempt to extract their knowledge until they finally told me to shut up. Studentfilmmakers.com is a great resource for students to post questions about every aspect of filmmaking and they have forums divided into every conceivable category. I frequent the post production forums, more specifically the Avid and Final Cut Pro topics and try to offer assistance when I can. There’s something I find a bit more enjoyable about the studentfilmmkers.com forums as opposed to many of the others out there on the internet. Maybe it’s the idea that I might be helping a poor college student who can’t afford a Classroom in a Book as opposed to the new Final Cut Pro owner too lazy to open the user manual. I may be naive but the way many of the questions are phrased often feels like someone really trying to learn. If you are one of the many users who like to help out, give the studentfilmakers.com forums a try. They don’t have the traffic of say … the apple.com discussions so a quick check in every few days is plenty. You never know what future Speilberg you might be helping out.