Carry a camera!

 This piece of advice is less important nowadays when nearly everyone has a fairly high quality camera (or even a 4K) in their pocket as part of their phone.  But nine or ten years ago when I visited NYC my phone camera was poop.  I used an HD pocket camera and grabbed shots of buildings as we drove out of town to  head "home" to Florida.

Years later I would be playing around with a shot of my Pie Tin UFO on Blue Screen and need a background.  I chose one of those shots (I recently organized old stock footage into a folder on my computers) as the  background and foreground for my sequence.

So, even though you may always have a camera with you, remember to use it.  Don't just shoot videos you think will be good on TikTok or Instagram today, but remember to shoot some photos of video clips you MAY want to use later.  Especially in places you may not be able to get back to easily and especially in PUBLIC places where the footage will be free for you to use.  Hold that phone horizontally so the shots will drop nicely into your movie projects and archive them someplace besides your phone or a cloud  you may not subscribe to next year.

This lifetime collection of shots is a great way to remember your travels and where  you've been, but as a digital media artist, they are also a part of  your ever expanding toolbox.  Pieces you can back to that will save you time, money and travel in the future.  Inspiration for future compositions.  Even if you only use old footage as a placeholder, I find it helpful in laying out shots and figuring out what I need from a new shot to make the composition work better.

Anyway, here is the 12 second video which inspired today's blog.  Layout of the layers and such is in the video description.

Gory Eyeball from a Dollar store Ping Pong Ball Eye

 I saw a post from Dead Glow Makeup, LLC about an eye the artist had made.  It had veins out the back and was shiny and goopy looking and just looked great.  I remembered I had bought a pack of 6 eyeballs for a dollar around Halloween with the intent of using them on puppets and monster masks (You can see them on a pumpkin monster in Jack vs Lanterns ) and thought trying to gore it up like Dead Glow's eye would be a neat project.  It was fun, but the results were hardly the same.  I'd suggest if you need an on screen eye, a display eye or one for a great costume, you for over the $15 and buy one of theirs.  (Seriously, follow the link above to see the photos.)

But, if you've got more time than money, need some more "disposable" goopy eyes and like to craft stuff, maybe make a few of these as well.

Also came across someone else's project on a DIY light up creepy eyeball jar that uses the same eyes.
I think added our gore strips to her project would really dress it up a bit.

Flying paper spaceship!

 So, for no reason at all, I started gluing together space ships made from index cards I had laying around.  It seemed like a harmless enough, free way to pass the time, but then I needed paint, some new brushes and now I'm going to need more movies set in space in which to use my ships, which means more aliens, monsters, puppets, stop motion, miniature sets, etc, etc.

So much for free.

Anyway, I started trying some shots of the one ship suspended from fishing line.  It didn't have an anchor point built into the design, so it was front heavy.  Made for a kind of cool stance when flying at the camera, but, it also made it "spin" a bit or sway from side to side.  I decided to use some post animation and make use of those turns and the effect is a very 1960s, moved by string, look, which I love.

I know a lot of filmmakers shoot for ultra realism in their finished product, but unless I'm shooting dead serious drama, which I rarely am, I prefer the unworldly, dreamlike quality of old F/X.  I think part of creating a fantasy world is letting the audience in on the fact that it's all make believe with the subtle hints of "not quite right" F/X.  Total immersion when telling a serious story is great, but a touch of, "hey, we're playing heroes" when telling a fantasy adventure story is an invitation for the audience to relax and enjoy the fun.  

Anyway, here's how I did it.

Let me know in the comments if you'd like a video on how to make simple shape space ships like these.
Coming next, how to make a gory eyeball from a dollar store ping pong ball eye.

Also check out Indie Streams on Facebook for free footage you can use in your own space operas.

Quick look at cheap lights.

 Saw a light at Dollar Tree.  It's a little LED, but pretty bright and it reads as "white" on camera.  The demo shots of my face aren't the best because the exposure was set when I wasn't in the shot.  I could have opened it up a bit more, but you can see from six feet away that it does cast light and in a fairly small, controlled area.  I think as a practical light within a shot, it's a handy tool to have.

For someone like me who works with miniatures quite often, it's going to be even more useful.  I am probably picking up at least one more.  Small lights making lighting set ups for miniatures very intuitive as everything is "to scale".

Anyway, here is a video on it.  Check out the skeleton at the end.  You can see through his rib cage pretty cleanly on the blue screen matte and shot on a 15 year old Sanyo Xacti.

DIY "no digital" Flying Saucer

It's been awhile.  If you've been following me on Facebook, you know last year I wanted to shoot 20 shorts.  I think I got 4 done, plus six episodes of This is Space Force.  So, halfway there?  I actually wasn't going to count individual episodes, but that makes it really sad.

I also have one in editing.  We kicked off this year with "Legacy of an Invisible Man" and have three more shorts written, cast, costumed and with locations ready.  We shoot one this Saturday and the other two are waiting on schedules.  My newest actress, Felcia Mathis, has been a huge help in getting me back on track.  We've done 5 shorts together already since November of 2020.  That averages to about one a month.  What indie filmmaker could ask for more?

But, do the instructional you're here for! 

While doing F/X for a friend of mine I realized that my assumption that every piece of video editing software and app could do basic matting was wrong.  I sent him footage of a ship on black and he had no way to drop it into his prerecorded backgrounds.  This simple set up will show you how to do it with just a model, fishing line, some background footage and a TV.  Think of it as old school rear screen projection.  My buddy and I used this back on Super 8 and VHS back in the 80s and 90s to make models (and in one case, the drawing of a spaceship I Scotch taped to my parent's television, fly.

And below is the first movie I shot with Felcia Mathis and friends.

So, would you guys rather instructionals go here or diary updates?  Both as I have been doing?
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I only get on here every so often, as you can see, but I am working on that.

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