Benjamin Carter

If you’ve ever heard a faint buzz through your speakers during a quiet movie scene, or watched your projector flicker during a thunderstorm, the culprit is almost always your home theater’s electrical supply. The best home theater power conditioners solve three problems at once: they clean up electrical noise, protect your gear from surges, and … Read more

I spent the last six weeks testing projector screens in three rooms – a blacked-out dedicated theater, a sun-flooded living room, and a backyard with three oak trees blocking the view. After 47 viewing sessions, 18 movies, and enough contrast-pattern slides to make my eyes cross, I can tell you with confidence: a dedicated screen … Read more

Buying your first FPV drone feels like stepping into a movie cockpit, but the sticker shock hits fast. Most beginners on r/fpv will tell you the same thing: the drone is the cheap part. A real starter system, including goggles, a radio controller, batteries, a charger and replacement props, lands somewhere between $700 and $1,500, … Read more

Eight of us on the Short Film Central team flew 8 different drones across 14 real wedding ceremonies and receptions in to find the best drones for wedding videographers. We logged 240+ flights, graded footage against Sony A7S III ground cameras, and timed obstacle avoidance responses near arches, tent rigging and tree lines. The best … Read more

Every filmmaker I know has, at some point, trusted their camera’s built-in meter on a backlit scene and ended up with a face lost in shadow. I have done it twice on narrative shorts, and both times I wished I had grabbed one of the best light meters for filmmakers before we started rolling. In-camera … Read more

If you’re posting vertical video daily, picking the best phones for TikTok and Reels creators changes everything about how your content looks and feels. I have spent the last three months swapping phones between shoots, walking through city blocks, filming dance takes, and editing jump cuts. I wanted to know which devices actually deliver on … Read more

I still remember my first breaking-news MoJo shoot – chasing a city council vote with a borrowed iPhone, a windscreen-mounted microphone, and a battery pack held together with gaffer tape. Half the interview ended up on a single clipped audio take, and the rest was unwatchable because the codec choked in low light. That night … Read more

Mobile filmmaking accessories turn a phone into a real cinema camera. The must-have categories for creators are gimbals, external microphones (wireless lavalier and shotgun), anamorphic or wide-angle lenses, LED lights, phone cages, ND and VND filters, external SSDs for ProRes recording, and a sturdy tripod with a phone mount. Our team spent the last three … Read more

Finding the best phones for vlogging used to mean renting a cinema camera. In , the phones in your pocket can shoot 4K 120fps, log profile video, and feed a USB-C external microphone straight into a project timeline. I run Short Film Central’s gear tests, and our team has spent the last six months pushing … Read more

4K 120fps video is the new baseline for serious phone filmmakers. It captures 120 frames every second at UHD resolution, which means you can slow real-world action down to one-quarter speed on a 30fps timeline and still hold detail when you crop or stabilize in post. After three months of side-by-side testing – skate runs … Read more