Question RE: Digital Matte Painting

C

cdc792000

Member
I'm trying to do a film short. Very simple. Shot outside. Four actors.Before I ask my question,allow me to set the scene.

The entire short takes place on a country road. Corn fields on both sides of the road and a few trees in the background. There is a flashback and what I would like to do is add in some detail. In present day I would like to somehow put an old run down house in the background with a tree stump in the front yard. In the flashback (which is about 40 years prior) the house is new and instead of a tree stump we have a beautiful big full tree. I hope to do this with a digital matte painting.

My question is, I don't have any experience. Anyone know where I can find a community of students or other filmmakers like me who want to network and try and find people who can help out? I was trying to think a local college in my area.( I live in Connecticut) I am also trying to set up a budget for this. Like I said,it is a film short (about 5 minutes long) and the matte painting I think would be the most challenging part for me.Any advice or suggestions would be helpful. Many thanks!
 
Well personally, I think going your route might not be a such a bad idea if you started a Kickstarter campaign for example and developed a budget so that there was at least some sort of compensation. The issue I find with that particular route is that it would be very time consuming and you would be obviously limited to just a small group. The truth is most people (even students) won't do anything for free in this industry unless your a big time director. That's just the harsh reality. What I would seriously suggest is gathering some sort of budget and posting jobs here on DVXuser. Why not take advantage of the 89,000 + on the forum. Of course not everyone will meet your standards or give you the results you want, however, it could be a good place to start.

It seems to me that your asking for someone who does a bit of compositing and CG and if that's the case, as I said, post a job in the job forum. It's worth trying at the very least. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the reply. VERY Helpful advice. Yes, I want to be clear. I do not expect anyone to do anything for free,no matter how small the job. I thought about Kickstarter (I don't know too much about it) but I thought I would have to have some sort of project already in the can before that. Would someone donate money to someone who had not done anything before? My thinking was, this short is very simple and I could pretty much pay for it out of my own pocket. Once I have completed this, then I could go to Kickstarter and post this video so they could see my work and decide if they think it is worth it. Then again, I could be wrong.

To be honest, I did not even think about posting for help here. Great idea. Trying to find someone local is becoming a challenge for me. Anyway, thanks again for the advice. Very helpful!
 
Regarding the matte painting - it really isn't too hard to do this sort of thing with photoshop, using bits of photos. There's lots of people very good with photoshop who could produce this, even produce overlaid art that could dissolve from new to old or vice versa. You can even layer shots like this in after effects, put green screened talent in front of it, and get very cool perspective effects. I did an entire music video this way - every shot was green screened and every set built in Photoshop. The biggest issues tend to be making everything look cohesive - your lighting of talent and the way your photoshop files are "lit" needs to work seamlessly together.
 
I agree and many thanks for the reply. I am going to try the jobs section here on the forum and may even look into some art forums and try and track down someone who knows photoshop. Thanks again for the helpful advice. I appreciate it.
 
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