I'm starting to get into amateur film making, and I've noticed some massassians seem to make films as well (Cazor and President Evil)
I was just wondering who else does stuff like this, and any tips or tricks you have, or whats some good free editing and special effects software.

There really isn't any good free video editing or special effects software. Adobe makes the best stuff, but it all costs money.

I disagree. Apple makes the best stuff.

Of course its much more expensive. I havn't used Premier for a while, but it was nowhere near as stable as any version of Final Cut Pro that I've ever used.

Even iMovie is pretty good. Newer versions let you do more and more sophisticated stuff, although its still nowhere close to on par with premiere and Final Cut... although they shouldn't be, seeing as they're $600+ programs, and iMovie is in a $60 bundle with iPhoto, iDVD and iTunes.

See if you can find a friend who has an apple and use their iMovie, that'd be my suggestion.

I used to do lots of film stuff...if you have any questions I'll definately try to answer them. As far as editing, I'd pretty much have to agree with everyone here. I use Premiere and love it, I've heard great things about Final Cut Pro as well.

If you have some budget, you can buy lots of video software for large discounts if you're a student. If not, I-movie (as much as I hate it) is probablyl your best option. For compositing/special effects, try axogon composer. It's an older version of software that you have to pay for now, but I've gotten good results from it. Here's some tutorials on it:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/tomfoote3/BIM/id71.htm

Here's a download link:
http://www.softlookup.com/display.asp?id=10349

And again, if you have any questions about anything, I'm always here.

Thanks for the help:)
I'm heading to college soon so I'll have to try to figure out some of those student discounts, and I'm gonna download that axogon composer.

i use premier, its sweet.

but thats just because i'm using college machines full of expensive software.

for a low special effect budget, make a lot of pr0n.

Unless it's godzilla pr0n.

I use Premiere and Photoshop, going to get After Effects going sometime, and I have something called VideoMach, which I haven't tried. You can download the shareware version here.

I don't know of anything free that's as good as Adobe's stuff. Sorry.

I have the goal in my life to go to film school and become a movie director... So yeah I'm into the same stuff.

I'm a beginning filmmaker as well. I've actually got a short film I made for my cinema final on my computer right now, I just have no place to upload it.

E-mail me. My user name without the Lord_ at gmail.

I made tons of home movies a few years ago. The greatest special effect we had was throwing a dummy out of a third story window and having it explode in mid-air. All of this was done the old fashioned way...by hand. No computer graphics or anything. And if you mess up like this, you've got a dummy that you have to rebuild. Old school, baby.

To begin with, iMovie is definately a great place to start. I haven't had to do much in the way of making movies, but I made a DVD for my Senior Exit project last year, and edited the entire thing with iMovie. It took a little over an hour before I was very nearly totally proficient with it. Very easy, very simple. And even though the likelyhood of you going that route is probably slim, the obstacle of not having a Mac can be overcome with the Mac Mini, which is pretty cheap, and allows you to use all of your pre existing PC equipment (monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.).

i've made a few amateur films... but i can't show them