What hardware and software would I need to make high quality HD videos with special graphical affects?

I've been inspired to do something like this thanks to Michael Buckley from the "What the Buck?" YouTube show, also located at his personal site: "http://www.buckhollywood.com/". I also have a strong pion for movies and am hoping to go to film school also. I just want to know the specs of the stuff i'll need to do made at home films to upload on video sharing / broadcasting sites like YouTube.