5 Free Filmmaking Lessons Available on Mzed Right Now

This article was written by Mzed, who is an official sponsor of My RØDE Reel 2020. With $1 million in cash to be won, plus heaps of awesome prizes and filmmaking gear (including 1-year Mzed subscriptions), this is the biggest My RØDE Reel edition yet. Got an idea for a short film? Head to myrodereel.com to find out more and download your starter pack. Entries close October 7, 2020.

Free filmmaking education is alive and well right now, thanks to online learning. You could spend a lifetime watching amazing filmmaking tutorials and how-to guides on YouTube alone. For more structured, in-depth learning, online paid courses can also be a bargain, and the MZed Pro yearly subscription is a great example. You get over 200 hours of film-school-level courses for about $25 a month.

But nothing beats free, and there’s actually quite a lot of free filmmaking education at MZed. For many courses, the first lesson is free to watch – all you need is a login to get started. Here are our top 5 favorite free lessons.

The Definitive Guide to DaVinci Resolve

It’s no secret that DaVinci Resolve is the fastest growing video editing software today, with many filmmakers choosing to use it for all of their post-production needs. From media organization, to rough cuts, color grading, motion and effects, and final delivery, there is a lot to master for anyone new to Resolve.

To give you a head start, educator Ollie Kenchington provides a free 40-minute overview on editing a short movie in Resolve. This lesson alone is enough to get many beginners comfortable with the layout and menus and tools that enable a basic editing job.

As a bonus, you’ll now be armed with a brilliant counterpoint to all of the ongoing Premiere vs. FCPX arguments.

ARRI Christmas Master Class with Julio Macat ASC

This isn’t just a free introductory lesson - the entire 3-hour master class is free to watch. There are endless bits of advice in this course from a cinematographer who knows the art and science through and through (his first feature was Home Alone!). We follow Julio along as he directs a few different scenes, all set in a home interior during the holiday season.

Master the Moment: Ray Roman's Wedding Film Masterclass

Master the Moment is a wedding filmmaking masterclass that allows you to see precisely how a wedding works, without having to get married yourself. Ray Roman takes you on-location throughout an entire wedding and breaks down his blueprint for creating films that have made him the world's most influential and in-demand wedding filmmaker.

Whether you’re about to shoot your first wedding or are a seasoned professional who wants a behind-the-curtain look at how it's done at the very highest level, this masterclass is a must-see.

In the first 21-minute lesson, which is free to watch, Ray describes how he transitioned from a police detective (!) to the world's most sought-after wedding filmmaker, shaping the industry along the way.

Cinema Sound

You’re here presumably because you are interested in audio for filmmaking, and so, let us present to you the completely free-to-watch first lesson of Cinema Sound. “Recording: Process, Perfection, and Purpose” is an hour and a half lesson on recording theory and Hollywood secrets in quality audio production.

This is a great introduction to the mammoth 86-hour Cinema Sound course, which guides viewers through virtually every aspect of sound that you may need to know as a filmmaker. There’s even a special tour of a microphone manufacturing factory in Sydney, Australia. Hint: it begins with “R” and rhymes with “toad.”

Philip Bloom’s Cinematic Masterclass

One of MZed’s most popular courses begins with an epic lesson on “free lensing” - also known as “lens whacking” - a creative technique that uses affordable, old lenses to achieve a stylised look.

The 20 minute lesson is completely free to watch, and it also provides a brief look into the rest of the Cinematic Masterclass course, from visual storytelling to interviews, slow motion, timelapse, aerial cinematography, story development, post-production and more.

If you haven’t already experienced a tutorial by Philip Bloom, give the first lesson a go and you’ll see just why he’s one of the most popular filmmaking educators today.

Entries for My RØDE Reel are open now and close Wednesday, October 7th, so get filming! Head to myrodereel.com to find out more and download your starter pack.