Questions about practical SFX

[Monkeyland]

I have just started putting together plans and ideas for the production and filming of a screenplay I have written. My goal is to make a film that is atmospheric and low budget, but not to be hokey or silly in any way.

So my first question is, of all the filming formats available, which should I choose? WHat would be best for a low budget? I want to avoid the home video look altogether. A format that could be done with extreme lighting.

Also, where would I begin to learn the ins and outs of practical effects? I have many ideas that I think, with effort and tinkering, would look decent, but I have never tried my hand at effects before, and was wondering where I could learn some things. I want to be able to make uncommon shapes from paper mache or maybe other methods, Im not really sure where to start.

I am going to be doing an SFX test soon that I will be able to upload, but I'd like to know as much as I can before I get knee deep in this project.

Thanks alot!

[Monkeyland]

Right now Im concentrating on making halfway decent looking skin. Im trying to make creature effects that look odd and surreal and not necessarily realistic, but not rediculous and muppetlike.

My first expiriment is to get a bull or bison skull, and sculpt a fleshy face out of clay with other possible things throwin in (rocks or ballbearings for texture). I then want to stretch latex or another form fitting rubber over the clay covered skull and color treat it to be a sickly yellowish color or something similar. I also want a slick, wet look, which I could use KY Jelly with.

This is my first real ambitious project, so some of my ideas may be totally off base. That is why I want to hear input. What are some ways to make decent looking flesh?

Where would I get a latex or rubber or other product to make the fleshy look? Would it even look decent, or rubbery and lame? What can I do to improve this plan?

Thanks for the input.

[BigSugar]

A few suggestions. This free advice from another burgeoning filmmaker, so it's worth what it cost, buddy:

1. We're shooting a digital indie on a Canon XL-1 S. It gets great pictures and has plenty of bells and whistles that allow you to manipulate the picture in camera. You can't get the XL-1 anymore, but it was replaced by the even better XL-2. I highly recommend waiting until you can afford one of these cameras to shoot. You'll get top quality pro-sumer pictures and sound just from the camera. Any outside sound recording equipment you can get is a bonus. And since digital is so very cheap, you can shoot anything and everything you want and it only costs the tape. Film has ten minute reels for a couple of hundred bucks, digital tapes last an hour and cost five dollars, simple math.

2. Let as many poelpe as you can get together read the script. Listen to everything they have to say and make changes that improve the script. Throw oout the bad ideas (yours and theirs) and try to make the proect as good as possible on the page.

3. Work with the actors you get as much as you can before filming. This will help cut down on wasted time.

4. Learn how to light for digital filmmaking.

5. For make-up FX, start with Tom Savini's "Grande Illusion" book. Basics, are there, all else comes after.

6. Be absolutely certain you would sell your own grandmother to get this movie made. That way, if anyone ever questions you about your comitment, you can offer to sell your grandmother as proof.

Good luck, brother. You're gonna need it.

[AdNauseum]

Lights, lights, lights.
If you can't afford someone to do the lighting get hold of a decent light kit and practice.
With a prosumer camera like the XL2 (great low budget camera, but not HD which seems to turn off a lot of people now days) you're aiming for every shot to be free of visual grain/noise. The little frying specks you see in poorly lit video.
Lighting will make the film, even if the effects are made cheaply, as long it's lit well you add a whole new level of suspense and horror.

If you're spending this much time perfecting practical effects make sure you or another crew member is perfecting their lighting/shooting skills. There's no point at being good at one without the other.


Good luck