New Film Update

Winter break is coming up fast. I have one and a half weeks left then it will be time to finish up the set construction, weapons, uniforms, and then film it. My friends and I are going to do a WWII European Theater short action sequence. We are looking at something ranging from 5 mins to 10 mins. But we are going to do just the action sequence. This will involve some trenches, a pill box trench, foxholes, and a blown up French Cottage in the hills that we constructed years ago. Hopefully it might snow a little to give it the atmosphere we are looking for. We will have real weapons mixed with our prop weapons to compliment our uniforms and make them look more realistic. Seeing how I am the prop guy and gore guy, I have a couple ideas for one German soldier in particular. I don't want to spoil it but needless to say the end result of that soldier is messy.

Taking a Bullet Hit

I have been trying for many years to perfect the bullet hit method in all of the films I have been involved in. I have tried the make-shift blood squib technique where you take a condom fill it up with fake blood, tape it to the person and glue a washer and fishing to it and pull. I have also tried the air compressor with red chalk in tubes to get that red mist shot. And lastly I have tried adding it in through post production. All have partially worked. None worked all the way or looked the way I planned them to. I need to perfect this so if you have done this before and you know a cheap way to accomplish this, let me know.

Stop Motion

So I have never tried stop motion filming. I think it is a hard patient requiring filming style that requires a lot of time and I don't know if I can find that kind of time. I would like to attempt it at least but I just don't know if I will be able to. If you have ever created a stop motion film or have helped someone throw some ideas or pointers my way. I also don't have an idea of what I would want to do. So if there is something that you would like to see in stop motion let me know.

New WWII Winter Short Film

So it is a for sure thing now. Me and my buddies will be creating a WWII short film this winter in my backyard sets. This Thanksgiving break we will start cleaning up the foxholes, trenches, and other installments so that when we all get home for winter break we can get started filming. It has been interesting because we created the story for the film over the film and through emails. It's pretty solid but there are still a few things that need to be figured out, but that is what Thanksgiving break is for. We will finalize the story, characters, and details. While cleaning up the sets we will get a better understanding for where we want things to be shot and how. This should be a lot of fun.

Music Videos

Amazingly I have never created a music video. I think it would be really interesting but I would like it to look professionally done. I think if I had the right set and an actual band I would be able to create an awesome one. I love watching music videos but I just never have tried my luck on doing one. If you have any suggestions let me know and I will see if I can create one.

Zombie Movie

I have had this idea for a zombie movie for a while now but I don't think I will ever get around to doing. I want to do a Christmas style zombie movie. A zombie apocalypse during the winter. I just see an empty snowy street with snow falling and Christmas lights hanging from the light poles with Christmas music playing then people running from a zombie hord. Its creepy and disturbing but something about the Christmas music and a zombie eating a person is an awesome combo. I want to do it but it might be a while.

Music

In films there are songs that compliment the mood or situation in a scene. This is hard mainly because not everyone is a composer and secretly has an orchestra in their garage. Many amateur film makers use copyrighted music which is never good to use unless you have permission. Here is what I do for music to compliment my films. I go to royalty free music sites. Justin R. Durban has several free downloadable songs that are copyright free. Another place is freeplaymusic.com. This place has several categories and styles of music that are all free of copyright issues. Now even though they are copyright free you must still give credit to it in your film. So check those out and add some musical style to your films.

Anything is a Camera

Today cameras are all around. They are in everything it seems. A person can make a film by clicking record on a cell phone. So I suggest that you should film something with a phone, a camera, or a computer. Get an idea and film it. You never know how it will look in the end so try it. If you have a camera and you have used it quite a bit, I recommend that you try an alternative one day. Just to see how it looks. Maybe even use it in your film that you are doing on your actual camera. There are so many options to try.

Managing time

I have realized that my brain spits out movie ideas very frequently but I realize that I can't film them. Why? Because I have no time to do it. Being in college I can't focus on making films because of my studies. So if you are in college or in high school, I suggest before you get too busy try to make time to film one or several of your movie ideas. Hopefully when I graduate I will be able to work and film or at least have something to do with the filming process. Use your time wisely.

Scars

So for Halloween I dressed up as a Groom zombie. My fiance was the bride zombie and we looked awesome. Here's what I noticed. People don't look you in the eye or they stare at you wondering if the wounds are real. So what I used was wax. It is specifically for making scars and wounds on the body. I molded it into what I wanted it to look like and from far away and decently close, the bite mark and claw marks looked real. Once you have molded to what you want add some black and liquid blood. Let that dry and it looks awesome.