A light saber fight film, amateur style

Cafe Society
#1

These are the granddaddy of the fan-produced lightsaber battles that can be found on YouTube now in profusion. The RvD movies are both technically impressive, and subsequent improvement in home video effects makes all sort of things possible in 2016 that were prohibitive in 2003.

I imagine.

Anyway, here’s the thing: Fourteen-year-old Bricker Jr is a huge Star Wars fan, theater geek, and nerd-off-the-old-block and would love to participate in such a film.

But I have no idea how to help this goal along. A zillion people are choreographing and filming their own fight scenes, adding rotoscoping, and posting to YouTube. What advice can anyone give me for an awesome birthday present/ project for my kid?

(I will resist the opportunity to cameo and announce that I am his father.)

#2

I have no sound advice but really desire to help you help your son’s goal. First do some research on the internet and see what you can find.

Perhaps ask those who uploaded their videos on YouTube on advice and what they used and so on. Also ask relatives, friends, your son’s friends etc.

I also hope by answering your question, it will put your thread on top of the list and give it a new lease on life, and more Dopers will give advice.

Good luck to you and and your son.

#3

I am. This thread is the first part of that step.

:smiley:

#4

One last bump…

#5

You need a camera, people, sound equipment, maybe a portable greenscreen, and then you need editing software, compositing software, and a collection of sound effects and royalty-free music.

Some of these you can borrow, some will need to be bought. Adobe software uses cheap month-to-month fees now, but the learning curve is steep. Well, on this kind of project everything is steep, it takes time and effort to get things looking decent. But it can be done, many young people figure things out quickly, especially if they have online guidance.

I can help with specifics if you’d like, but feel free to look around yourself first. The key search terms are “video editing” and “compositing”.

#6

Oh, “VFX Tutorials” is another good search term. You’ll find people like Video CoPilot, Film Riot, or HitFilm.