What was the first film you ever made?
- Thread starter Barry_S
- Start date
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
My dad had an 8mm Bell & Howell movie camera, and while fooling around with it I discovered it could shoot one frame at a time, or normal speed, so I did a stop-motion short with a grey battleship model I had made on our back porch, with the cement area as the 'ocean'. The battleship comes in, shells a cardborad port, using paper cutouts of shells, explosions, flames, and the like. This was when I was eight or ten, somewhere in there. I don't know what ever happened to that MOS footage.
The first actual story I ever did that was shown to an audience was with a guy who did most of the work, using a super-8 camera. We built a claymation set and did a combination Star Wars/Mr. Bill feature, that ran twenty minutes. We recorded a terrible quality sound track, then arranged to show it at our high school auditorium for two days at lunch period, charged 50 cents a ticket, and actually made about $30 over our costs. I had the reel for years, but my insane ***** ex-wife somehow got rid of it.
My dad had an 8mm Bell & Howell movie camera, and while fooling around with it I discovered it could shoot one frame at a time, or normal speed, so I did a stop-motion short with a grey battleship model I had made on our back porch, with the cement area as the 'ocean'. The battleship comes in, shells a cardborad port, using paper cutouts of shells, explosions, flames, and the like. This was when I was eight or ten, somewhere in there. I don't know what ever happened to that MOS footage.
The first actual story I ever did that was shown to an audience was with a guy who did most of the work, using a super-8 camera. We built a claymation set and did a combination Star Wars/Mr. Bill feature, that ran twenty minutes. We recorded a terrible quality sound track, then arranged to show it at our high school auditorium for two days at lunch period, charged 50 cents a ticket, and actually made about $30 over our costs. I had the reel for years, but my insane ***** ex-wife somehow got rid of it.
Scott_Spears
Well-known member
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
I started out playing around with a friend's Regular 8 mm camera doing cut out animations similar to those like Terry Gilliam did on Monty Python. We moved up to Super-8 and goofed around doing comedy things.
The first actual film, I think, was a parody of "Mission Impossible" (the TV show) in which Mr. Phelps decides to retire, but everywhere he goes he keeps getting mission assignments. From TV, a person selling movie tickets even in church.
From there we made horror films and comedy shorts.
In high school, I shot my first video on open reel 1/2 video with a Black & White Sony camera. My first video editing was done with a razor blade!!! Anytime a kid complains about how slow or clunky his computer NLE is, I want to knock them in the head.
I know this is showing my age, but you really can hide from your age.
Scott
I started out playing around with a friend's Regular 8 mm camera doing cut out animations similar to those like Terry Gilliam did on Monty Python. We moved up to Super-8 and goofed around doing comedy things.
The first actual film, I think, was a parody of "Mission Impossible" (the TV show) in which Mr. Phelps decides to retire, but everywhere he goes he keeps getting mission assignments. From TV, a person selling movie tickets even in church.
From there we made horror films and comedy shorts.
In high school, I shot my first video on open reel 1/2 video with a Black & White Sony camera. My first video editing was done with a razor blade!!! Anytime a kid complains about how slow or clunky his computer NLE is, I want to knock them in the head.
I know this is showing my age, but you really can hide from your age.
Scott
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
OMG! Barry, when I was reading your post I thought someone had somehow written mine!
My first movie(s) were also Star Wars related with Super-8, but these were in around 1981 or so, right after Empire. I was only 9 or so at the time, but I made sets of Hoth and even the cantina and did stop motion for all of it (well, except the ships flying which were filmed while being hung from fishing wire). I also had a Degaboh scence complete with an X-Wing sinking in a mud pile.
I still have the Super-8 films laying around, I recently looked at them for old times sake, some of it survived but a lot of the film is now a nice solid dark brown color (never store Super-8 in an attic BTW).
I had quite the collection of Star Wars figures and ships, and would probably be worth quite a fortune today if I hadn't in my later years blown them all up with firecrackers and shot them full of B-Bs.
OMG! Barry, when I was reading your post I thought someone had somehow written mine!
My first movie(s) were also Star Wars related with Super-8, but these were in around 1981 or so, right after Empire. I was only 9 or so at the time, but I made sets of Hoth and even the cantina and did stop motion for all of it (well, except the ships flying which were filmed while being hung from fishing wire). I also had a Degaboh scence complete with an X-Wing sinking in a mud pile.
I still have the Super-8 films laying around, I recently looked at them for old times sake, some of it survived but a lot of the film is now a nice solid dark brown color (never store Super-8 in an attic BTW).
I had quite the collection of Star Wars figures and ships, and would probably be worth quite a fortune today if I hadn't in my later years blown them all up with firecrackers and shot them full of B-Bs.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
We gotta have a vintage-star-wars-stop-motion film festival!
I didn't have fishing line for my ships, I got a big sheet of black fabric from the fabric store and stuck it to my wall with thumbtacks. Then I used a hole punch to make "stars" -- punched out little white circles and stuck them on the fabric. Then I strung black thread across my room and balanced the ships on it, then I had to move 'em, run back and click off a few frames, then run back and move 'em a bit more... a LOT of tedious work, for a pretty lame effect! ;D
My Alderaan was a L'eggs egg that I painted to look like a planet, and then for the explosion I hung a firecracker from a black thread and set it off, then cut the film so one frame was the planet, the next was the firecracker going off. Not all that impressive, I must admit!
These kids today, with their Lightwave and Maya and AlamDV... they don't know what it's like. Give me a hole punch and some black fabric any time...
We gotta have a vintage-star-wars-stop-motion film festival!
I didn't have fishing line for my ships, I got a big sheet of black fabric from the fabric store and stuck it to my wall with thumbtacks. Then I used a hole punch to make "stars" -- punched out little white circles and stuck them on the fabric. Then I strung black thread across my room and balanced the ships on it, then I had to move 'em, run back and click off a few frames, then run back and move 'em a bit more... a LOT of tedious work, for a pretty lame effect! ;D
My Alderaan was a L'eggs egg that I painted to look like a planet, and then for the explosion I hung a firecracker from a black thread and set it off, then cut the film so one frame was the planet, the next was the firecracker going off. Not all that impressive, I must admit!
These kids today, with their Lightwave and Maya and AlamDV... they don't know what it's like. Give me a hole punch and some black fabric any time...
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=Offtopic;num=1086971740;start=15#25 date=06/12/04 at 19:19:38]
These kids today, with their Lightwave and Maya and AlamDV... they don't know what it's like. Give me a hole punch and some black fabric any time...[/quote]
And their P2P file sharing to get it all for free . . .
[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=Offtopic;num=1086971740;start=15#25 date=06/12/04 at 19:19:38]
These kids today, with their Lightwave and Maya and AlamDV... they don't know what it's like. Give me a hole punch and some black fabric any time...
[/quote]And their P2P file sharing to get it all for free . . .
Taylor Moore
Veteran
Re: What was the first film you ever made?
My first film was a abstract little film shot and edited on Super 8. Learned a hell of alot when I was 12...
My first film was a abstract little film shot and edited on Super 8. Learned a hell of alot when I was 12...