For my final project I wanted to do another stop motion. This time, though, I was determined to get the green screen to work. In addition to that I was to stray away from the idea of using a green screen and to create an actual set for the scene. I also wanted to play around with some other things that would be new to me.
As far as the green screen goes, I think I had a success. This time around I had a broader knowledge about lighting and I had more lights to work with. That, mixed with a new technique I came up with made the green screen work out. The technique was that I glued together two small cardboard boxes and also glued green paper to it. This acted as a stand for the spaceships in order to raise them from the ground. This meant there would be less shadows in the shot. All in all the green screen worked great. There were definitely times where some shadows appeared that I didn’t expect or even see until editing. The same goes for green reflections onto white figures.
The scene with five clone troopers is actually six different sources all composited together. The background was one source. One of the other ones was the green clone trooper. The four was just one action figure that I used over and over again to make it look like four different people. That whole technique was very fun to put together. Going into the project I had never thought that I would have done that.
For my actual set that I had I used VHS tapes as the walls on floor. I printed off a backdrop of the inside the ship they were on. I cut out the windows and glued green paper to the back. I ended up using some green screen here even though I intended to not do so. I just wanted it to feel more accurate, so I made the windows show outer space.
In this project I created all of my sound effects. I used a snowball mic. For the last project I used creative commons sound effects. This was the first time I created my own. That was interesting. For instance, the ship sounds is just my trucks engine running. The music I did use was from a creative commons source.
The last new thing I tried was having voice talents. In total there were four voice actors. I was one of them. This was my first time having to direct someone other than myself to get what I wanted. That was a really neat experience to see how they thought about things compared to how I did. There were definitely some minor last minutes script changes that were suggestions to me that overall made the video better.
By: Tevin Goddard
As many of you know, I have been digging deep into the world of freelance. Primarily this is due to where I am right now and the income/skill opportunities that have come up within the past few months. As students in the Media Arts program, you get your first taste (unless you have a past in business) in Business Practices. In the class, you cover different types of work, contracts, and important forms to have when meeting clients. These are great things to get you started. But that is just it, the class is a starter kit for much more. Hence, I am in that “much more” category.
Everyone dreams of going to Hollywood and making it big at one point in their lives. It’s hard not to; seeing stars on silver screens and directors accepting trophies at awards ceremonies, it all looks very lavish. But behind the glamour and opulence there is a level of hard work and determination that would deter any slacker. “My end goal is to be a showrunner of scripted television… I want to create the story, write the pilot script, sell the concept, and run the writer’s room and the entire show.” That’s Andrew Daily, a production manager down in Los Angeles. If you were to look at the film industry as a well oiled machine, a production manager would be the one that makes sure it stays well oiled. Daily is responsible for making sure things like the catering and hiring of production assistants all goes well. “So that’s very difficult to get into. There’s probably only less than three hundred of those jobs in the world.” That’s a pretty staggering number when you consider that, according to the Bureau of Labor, there are just under 400,000 people working in the film industry. That means that only around 0.08% of the people that work in the film industry work as showrunners. So how does one get such a job? “The typical route that people go through is through becoming a writer’s assistant and then a writer and then, you know, producing writer, and so on moving up to the writing side, but I’m actually going a different route…” He was. When Daily made the decision to move to LA, he didn’t know anyone there. He was diving in headfirst, and he wasn’t sure if he was headed for water or asphalt. Luckily, his old youth pastor had a connection in the industry, his sister was the VP of Sony Pictures, Leah Weil. The pastor set Daily up with a meeting in which Weil showed him the studio, walked on the set of the popular show, Ray Donovan, all the while they talked about his skills. By the end of the meeting, Weil had set Daily up with a job as an art production assistant, and since then he’s worked in almost every avenue of the film industry, from producer to floral arrangement. “From there, you know, I just impressed the right people, and it eventually led to work, but I only probably work fifty days out of my first year in LA.” That threw me off. Here was an experienced and well connected industry professional that only managed to find work fifty days out of the year. “I wasn’t interested in making friends and partying and messing around. I was interested in ‘Alright, let’s work, let’s grind, move up cause you’re too old to be a PA forever.’ You know?” Time was, of course, growing short and I decided it was time to bring the interview to a close, so I asked Andrew to provide some tips for students looking to get into the industry. “My number one tip is just save money in advance, because like I said I only worked fifty days out of the year. I was fortunate to have that connection, but you might be surprised by who you know, like a friend of a friend that might lead to a job, but when you start out you have to do a lot of free work and you have to be available, because you’re gonna get a call and they’ll be like ‘Hey we need you tomorrow to come in.’ and you have to be able to be able to say yes in order to meet the right people. I was fortunate enough where I flipped a house, and I had a bunch of money saved up to where I could commit a year to not having to work consistently, but you have to move to LA. You have to meet people, and you will, you know? There’s always someone in film or TV who can be an in for you, because when I’m hiring PA’s I ask my good PA’s ‘Hey, do you know any friends that want work?… You have to be in LA, talking to people communicating your interest, and something will come up.” Becoming a part of the industry is, by all means, equal part hard work and pure luck. Your entire career could ride on whether or not that friend of a friend thinks of you when they’re hiring for their project. So keep an eye out, and your ears to the ground, because that opportunity could be right around the corner, or right under your nose.
