The Movies
 

K Chock - It is shipping. I'll probably have it next week. Any pointers on making cool flicks out of these proggies? I got the following two packages inbound:

Premeir DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Movies-Pre...1527894&sr=8-3


Special Effects Add On:
http://www.amazon.com/Movies-Stunts-...1527894&sr=8-1

-S

The key to making cool movies is make a plot before you start. Mine just tended to falter off. And dont be tempted to use the Special Effects just to see them work. Make sure they compliment the movie perfectly :)

Plot? That's easy! THere are plenty to be found in this very forum with all the conspiracy theories floating around. Things like Bush Lied http://alfter.us/graphics/googleit.gif to where the US sunk the Kursk. There are many ideas just to be had right here!

-S

You don't need a plot just big SFX lots of guns and car chases and big explosions.

I actually made a Punisher film once, but there were a couple of plotholes

My thoughts exactly - I'll pull a thread out of subsim, and have the people here duke it out! :up:

-S

all you need are tits, uzi's and wocka wockas( helicopters )

I wouldn't concentrate on trying to make a masterpiece when getting the hang of it. Just figure out the kind of thing you'd like to make and have a crack at, say a cool chase, or a big fight or whatever. That's probably the best way to work out all the camera stuff and sound editing etc. It's worth watching the editing and framing on real life movies and TV programs very closely too, for things such as the rule of thirds, and not crossing the camera line etc. Paying attention to stuff like that makes things easier to edit.

When you've sussed that, it's up to you. Whenever I make anything with it, the only criteria is: 'What do I think would be cool and a challenge?', for example, that Nam movie I just posted had two goals...

First I wanted to edit aeroplanes, guns and explosions to fit the period's music as much as possible, whilst avoiding the cliche Doors and Jefferson Airplane tracks that are always in Nam movies, so, almost like a pop video. Which means you'll notice things like when the Beach Boys sing 'And we've never missed yet with the girls that we meet' in I Get Around, it's at that point that the US soldiers are aiming at some Viet Cong girls, and the explosion from the napalm with the slo-motion 'Sam Peckinpah-style' deaths is timed with the lyric 'When I die and they lay me to rest' from Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky, also look out for repeating motifs such as a body being hurled in the air to the 'spirit in the sky' lyric, which also refers to the petroleum spirit of the napalm explosion 'going up to the sky' etc, which also could refer to the aircraft too. There's a lot of references like that in it.

Second, because war is sort of visually cool, but in reality is in fact a nasty business, I wanted it to make a big mood shift from 'wow yeah guns and bombs are cool' to being 'slightly disturbing' in the fact that many people die in wars in a horrible way and in fact a few of them that are killed in that movie of mine are actually unarmed, including a woman, which hopefully jars quite a bit against the music and appears a bit shocking.

Whatever you end up making, I'm sure you'll have fun with it.

:D Chock

I took a film scripting class in college a few years back for fun and got an A out of it, so building a script is not new to me, but the animations may take some time getting used to. I have some ideas already. I may still have some professional scripting software around too - I'm not sure where I put it though. Maybe I'll see if I can put one of my old scripts into play.

This could be fun!

Have to do a Godzilla style movie!

-S

Thought I'd better mention this. For some of the shots in that Nam movie, I resaved the FRAPS files in another programme and redubbed the sound onto them so that I could adjust the framing. You can see a very obvious example of that kind of thing on the shot where the A1 Skyraider pulls up off the target having dropped napalm, the camera does not stay with the original FRAPS framing, but pans left and zooms in on the fireball.

To do that I used this, by simply importing the footage and tracking the framing in it, handy if you want more complicated cinematography:

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/ar...1/793?sbss=793

:D Chock

Thx - the more tools, the better! :D $70 though? Ouchie!

-S

Please put me in your film!

SM1, Don't forget the big ape and half naked women.

PS: And lots of guns, big guns.

Yes - guns are good. The bigger the better!

Dont forget to give the big bad guy a good kick under the ass:up: